Google Hangouts - What We Learned (To Do and Not To Do)

Yesterday my social studies methods students participated in a Google Hangout (GH) with other students from Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Sweden---well, we TRIED to participate. If you are cloudy about what Google Hangouts are, here’s an explanation.  Basically, it’s Skype on steroids.  However, sometimes technology struggles can derail the best intentions.  But wait…..I’m getting ahead of myself.  Let me back up and tell you the story. I was so excited when I joined this Google+ community and found out about #eduhangout, which is a sort of hub where teachers can connect with each other to participate in Hangouts together.  In the first day, I was invited to participate in a Hangout with students  about what it means to be a learner in today’s society, how technology impacts their learning, and what it means to be a digital citizen.  I rearranged my planned activities for my social studies methods course, sent out emails to alert students, had my students answer some questions in their blog posts to prepare them for the Hangout, tested out the equipment in the classroom with our IT superhero Neal Cross, and then patiently waited for an invitation. The invitation did not come until 12:35pm, and the Hangout was scheduled to start at 12:40pm.  That was a little unnerving for me.  I did not realize that this was the first time our moderator had hosted a Hangout.  But I loved her enthusiasm, perseverance, and risk-taking!  Below you will see the insightful wisdom that was revealed in the discussion with my pre-service teachers that followed the Hangout.  My students did a wonderful job of evaluating the experience and critically thinking about the value of these types of activities in the classroom. Here are some of the struggles and what we learned:

• Google Hangout vs. Hangouts on Air (HOA)- A regular Hangout is not recorded, but the Hangouts on Air are.  We started out in Hangout, but the moderator wanted it to be recorded so she had to send different invitations after we had already signed in to GH.
• Lesson: Know which one you want to do and plan accordingly.
• Audio components - With so many people participating in the HOA, the audio was a challenge. People were talking all at the same time.  The echo in the background of a person’s voice being heard over several different systems was very distracting.
• Lesson: People who are not speaking need to mute their audio.  This would alleviate the echo problem, but it does cause another issue---who talks when? (See below)
• Discussion expectations - Managing the discussion was difficult when expectations were not established beforehand (although the essential questions were distributed, which helped my students prepare).  After the initial audio issues were somewhat resolved, students were asked questions, and a student took over the moderation of the conversation.  The students spent a lot of time trying to figure out who was going to talk.
• Lesson:  Established discussion expectations beforehand.  Develop a procedure for “calling on” students to talk, especially if everyone except the speaker has their audio muted.  For example, my students said that the moderator could have had everyone bring a certain colored index card and hold it up when they wanted to contribute.  Then the moderator could acknowledge that student to let him/her speak.
• Chat function - Since HOA has a chat function, I used it throughout the session to ask questions or give feedback for some of the issues we were experiencing, but not everyone in the HOA enabled the chat feature.
• Lesson:  Instruct all participants to sign in to the chat feature, so they can either give feedback about problems or ask questions while another student is talking.  It can be used as a backchannel conversation similar to Today's Meet.

Even though participating in this Google Hangout on Air was somewhat frustrating, my students learned a lot about integrating this tool into their own classrooms.  They critically evaluated the usefulness and realized the preparation that needs to go into utilizing technology tools for learning.  They also saw that taking a risk and persevering are important characteristics for a teacher who wants to give his/her students the best education possible utilizing technology tools that are available. 

For me, being up in front of the class as we were struggling with the procedure parts of the whole activity, I am proud to say that I did not get flustered.  I trouble-shooted (not sure if that’s really a word), gave suggestions, listened to my students’ suggestions, and stayed calm.  This was definitely a learning experience that my students will not soon forget.  I was very worried that seeing the difficulties involved in participating would deter my own students from using these in their future classrooms.  But one of my teachers-to-be alleviated all my fears when she said as we were leaving, “Mrs. Fox, when WE host a Google Hangout, I think we should………”  That’s music to a technology-pushing, critical-thinking focused, student-centered teacher’s ears!

How could YOU use Google Hangouts in YOUR instruction?

Join the conversation in my new Google+ community called Teacher Education and Technology Integration!
Happy Tech-ing!
Jennifer