How to Get Google to Drive Your Lessons: Go Interactive in English Language Arts

There is something very exciting about seeing a teacher come into the classroom with a cart loaded with Chrome books
One by one students come up and take a Chrome book, they go back to their seats and within three to four minutes of class, everyone is logged on and ready to go. Students are looking up at the Smart Board and looking at their own screens. "Mrs. Knight did you share something with us?" Lately, my answer is always “Yes.” All at once with deep concentration, tilted screens, and light taps on the keyboards have taken over the room. The first step in the Google classroom file sharing is on the teacher's side. There must be something to share.

Using the Go Interactive RACE flip book 


Students work directly in the file right in the Google Slide. All changes are saved automatically.

How does a teacher do this? Easy. The teacher selects the file, names it, and shares it with the students in the class. For this to happen, all the students must have an email address that is signed up for Google. Don't forget, it is free! 

Go Interactive Notebook using the Google Slides App on an iPad

Once the students open the shared file, they must make a copy. This ensures the original file is intact, so you need to send out the copy of the file. I always like to rename the file. For example, grade 9 or grade 11 with the name of the topic in the title. Then I send this out to my students and because we are still in the early stages of using the Google Drive in the classroom, I'll bring it up on the smart on the Smart Board and together as a class we open the file. Once they open the Google Drive, I can see who has it open and who is working in my copy. Most the time they do it on their own, we are at the point where there are still a few that seem to be a little behind on this. I don't start the lesson until they're all out of my drive copy, this includes them taking the file from me, renaming it and making a copy of the file in their own drives. 

Novel Studies are so engaging using web shareable docs. Your students can access information using the web for vocabulary, pre-reading web quests, author background, project based learning and more!
share a journal prompt with your students as a daily or weekly assignment.

Writing and vocabulary materials on the Google Drive

While I am waiting for them to make a copy, I open up their daily Do Now on their Google Drive. Today we completed the “ABC Brainstorm,” as a thematic essay warm-up for the short story “The Necklace.” We had a really fun time with it. I turned it into a contest.

Go Interactive Reading and Writing Strategies Interactive Notebook
I'm really excited for a new product line I called Go Interactive, it is a series of original educational materials for teachers and students to use during English Language Arts class. The goal is to be entirely paperless. There's no print/copy room, ink shortage, cutting, or gluing! I am returning sixty composition books to Staples that were intended to be interactive notebooks for all of my classes.






Since July, 2015 I would sit and try to picture my students opening an interactive notebook on the google drive. Something digital. But still something tailored toward the literature, writing lessons, and skills. I tried to come up with an idea on how to make the interactive notebook paperless, but to still have a look similar to the traditional interactive notebooks (which I love!). Go Interactive products can be engaging using a laptop, desktop, any iOS device (ipads, iphones), and tablets. You really only need internet service.
60 compositions packed up in my classroom ready to be returned to Staples. 

Google App is free
Downloading the Google App is effortless and easy. You and your students can open and edit files using the app. All changes are made automatically.

Makin' copies! Not so much anymore!
Needless to say, I still consider myself as being paperless because I'm barely making copies. With Go Interactive, I have eliminated the possibility of a teacher using the materials and editing the background file. This benefits everyone because it maintains the beauty of the page, the fonts and clip art are intact, the intellectual property and copyright is protected, and it's colorful and engaging.

I am having fun exploring the possibilities and adding to the product line.  More to come really soon!

Go Interactive is trademarked and owned by Danielle Knight

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