Google Glass

by Edgar Corral

My name is Edgar Corral and I am a student intern teacher at Fort Walton Beach High School. I am also a senior at the Florida State University. In my spare time I partake in active activities as well as creative writing.

Google Glass was something that first caught my attention at my previous job. I worked in the College of Education at Florida State University (FSU). My job was located in the new Tech Sandbox, which was a room designed for future educators and mentors to participate in using new upcoming technology. I was initially asked to enter in the drawing to receive a “ticket” to purchase Google Glass but ultimately lost. However, due to a donation from Dr. Shelbie Witte (Assistant Professor, English Education at FSU) and the Technology Fees Fund, we were able to allocate the item.

My initial response with the resource was that it wouldn’t be much use in the classroom. However, as I kept thinking and researching I finally came to terms that this item was something revolutionary within education. I am primarily coming from an English Education background, but the use of the glasses doesn’t stop there.

In the English discipline I can see students using this tool to establish a new means of point of view. In the literal sense you can now take a video of the world around you in first person and then apply a verbal narrative. This changes the ideas of simple narrative essays to something more lively and engaging towards students. While on the topic of essays, students will now have the opportunity to take pictures and produce photo essays. If you’re not familiar with photo essay you should check out “TIME” magazines archive of photo essays (http://content.time.com/time/photoessays).

With the growing involvement of a Flipped Classroom, Google Glass provides a whole new resource. Science teachers could produce experiments and record them to upload later on the class site. This will provide a new means of instruction that could be more effective than the typical recording camera or webcam on the laptop.

With a teacher being in front of the classroom they could use the classes to record a whole lesson for students who are sick or need a refresher at home. For personal teacher use, they can later review the classes and do an informal assessment of the classes. This will provide them with feedback on student understanding of terminology as well as behaviors they might have missed. It allows the teacher to experience what they are doing effectively or determine the areas where their instruction is weak. Using Google Class in this manner could help all interns who are still balancing out their classroom instruction and behavior management.