10 Google Tools To Help Kids Learn
Over the years, search engine giant Google has expanded to include an array of different online tools ranging from Gmail to Google Maps. Most of these tools are free to use and easy for anyone to access.
Some of these Google tools are focused towards kids and learning and can be useful for students, teachers and parents to know about. Below are 10 examples of such tools.
Google for Education
Many of the Google tools aimed at teachers can be found within an online tool bundle called Google for Education. This toolkit includes the likes of Google Classroom, Google Docs and Google Forms (which are detailed below). You’ll also find a number of training resources for teachers within Google for Education including lesson plans, online courses and webinars. Google For Education is free to use for all licensed educators. You can find out more about creating an account here.
Google Classroom
Google Classroom is a tool aimed primarily at helping teachers and students communicate. It’s essentially a dashboard that operates as a virtual classroom. Teachers can use it to create lesson plans and can distribute assignments to students through it. Work can also be submitted through this dashboard and feedback can be provided digitally. It is a tool that was used by many teachers during the pandemic, and it continues to be used by many teachers for assigning homework.
Google Scholar
A useful research tool for older students and teachers is Google Scholar. This works like Google Search, but it focuses solely on helping searchers find academic resources like studies and essays. It’s a valuable tool for finding reliable scientific results and expert quotes to help back up your claims and reports.
Google Books
Google Books provides access to a huge library of books and magazines that you can view online. This can be another useful tool for finding quotes, as well as allowing you to access various textbooks and guides without having to buy them physically. You can download many of these books. It’s also possible to check out reviews from other online readers and find related books that could be useful to your studies.
Google Earth
Want to teach kids about geography – including where different countries and cities are in the world? Google Earth can be a fun interactive tool for this purpose. Using Google Earth, it’s possible to search for locations around the world and visualise them using satellite imagery. It can be useful for understanding everything from topography to distances between places, providing more precise detail than any globe or atlas.
Google Forms
Google Forms is a fantastic online tool that teachers can use to build quizzes and surveys. These can be completed by students online using a variety of different question types including basic text answers, multiple choice answers, drop-down menu answers and check box answers. There are also many resources made by other people that you can access through this platform such as this lab safety quiz Google Forms.
Google Slides
This is pretty much Google’s own version of Microsoft Powerpoint. Unlike Powerpoint, Google Slides is free to use and is accessed via the cloud, allowing multiple people to collaborate at the same time. It automatically saves your work, while also allowing you to revert to previous versions. Users can explore a wide range of themes and templates to build presentations out of. This makes it a useful tool for teachers and students alike.
Google Docs
Google Docs also has many uses for both teachers and students. It is a free online alternative to Microsoft Word with many of the same features. Many schools have started using Google Docs as a medium for students to submit essays through. Teachers are then able to access these essays online and provide annotations in the form of ‘suggestions’.
Google Kids’ Space
When it comes to allowing young kids to use Google safely, Google Kids’ Space is the tool to use. This is pretty much a child-friendly version of Google with a fun UI and filtered-out adult results. It comes with parental controls and is ideal for installing on kids’ devices as an alternative to regular Google Chrome.
YouTube Kids
There are many educational resources for kids on YouTube. However, many parents are hesitant about letting their kids watch YouTube, because it contains a lot of adult-oriented content. YouTube Kids filters out all of this age-inappropriate content so that kids can browse safely. This guide explains how to get started with YouTube Kids.
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