Google Applied Digital Skills is a free video-based curriculum by Google, designed for in and out of school use by school students and adults, self-paced blended learning environment where anyone can practice life skills while building creative projects using Google’s Suite of apps.
The project-based units allow students to practice basic digital skills using Google’s G Suite for Education applications (Gmail, Docs, Sheets, etc.). Furthermore, let them learn by watching step-by-step video tutorials. From creating a budget worksheet to planning a trip, conducting research, and writing a report, there are many lesson activities. It also has some coding concepts embedded in the curriculum, like programming a script to look for over-used words. Units range from one hour to ten hours of content, with variable levels for Grade 7 adult learners. Google Applied Digital Skill also has a faculty dashboard that manages learners’ assignments and progress, and the curriculum is aligned with ISTE standards for students. To access them, students must have Google accounts (school or personal) and connect to a teacher’s classroom with a code. Although the curriculum runs at its own pace, the lessons encourage collaboration and peer mentorship; some activities require teamwork.
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What can students learn from Google Digital Applied Skills?
For this post, we have compiled a list of skills that learners can learn from Google.
Evaluate the Credibility of Online Sources
Students who conduct online research must know how to evaluate online sources and their credibility. Gone are the days when students had to evaluate websites based on top-level domain or site aesthetics. Today, learners need to have a process for analyzing what they are reading online. A process for evaluation is precisely what the Evaluate the Credibility of Online Sources Applied Digital Skills lesson teaches. Along the way, students also get to learn some helpful tips about creating and formatting Google Docs and Google Sheets.
Build Healthy Digital Habits
Using Google Applied Digital Skills’ Build Healthy Digital Habits lesson, students can become aware of their digital habits and build better ones. The lesson allows learners to use Google Slides to create a journal to log their digital and non-digital activities. Additionally, to log activities, students can write short thoughts about how these activities made them feel and how they could modify them in the near future to create a better balance between digital and non-digital activities.
Time Management
Most of us had been taught to be as punctual as possible to attain success in many areas of our lives beyond school. Furthermore, school is the place where we can develop that skill. However, the Applied Digital Skill lesson Create a Study Schedule with Google Sheets can help students develop better time management skills. Also, students will learn how to format spreadsheets, conduct sorting functions in spreadsheets, and track progress in spreadsheets through the lesson in real-time.
Group Project Management
Learning to work with a group of people to complete a project or task is a skill that can be useful to students throughout their lives. Group project management can be more accessible when planning, like personal time management. Google Sheets is an excellent tool to build a group plan and project management system. The Google Applied Digital Skills lesson organize a group project that teaches students how to format a worksheet, share and use it to track tasks with a group.
Story Planning
Understanding the know-how of story planning and creating a story is another essential skill that students must know. Google Applied Digital Skill’s lesson writing an If-Then Adventure Story allows students to collaborate with classmates and create a story that has multiple possible story paths. The basic idea for the lesson is to use hyperlinks within Google Slides to build multiple paths through their stories, and the reader can choose where the story goes. Through creating an If-Then Adventure Story, students learn story-planning skills to account for multiple possibilities throughout the story.
Game Design
Instead of playing a game built by someone, watching someone play the game built by you is more fun. So, if you want your students to develop a digital game and learn some spreadsheet skills simultaneously, then the Applied Digital Skills lesson titled Wage a Sea Battle with Google Sheets can be of great help.
Mind Mapping
Mind mapping helps store and structure vast amounts of information. They display hierarchy, show relationships between individual ideas and enable you to see the “big picture” at a glance. Creating mind maps is an excellent way for students to think about and demonstrate their connections between topics on a given subject. The lesson Create a Mind Map with Google Drawings by Google Digital Applied Skills can help your students create mind maps.
Conducting Job Searches and Identifying Career Paths
Students need not go somewhere else to find career paths. Using Google for Education’s Applied Digital Skills lesson library, students can learn how to find part-time jobs and explore career paths. In the lesson Search for a Part-time or Summer Job, students learn to identify their interests, create a list of their experiences and skills, and find part-time jobs that match their interests and experiences.
The other lesson, Research Career Pathways, brings students the past days of listening to guest speakers during a “career day” at school or reading about careers in a book. The lesson plan introduces students to Google Sheets to analyze career paths according to pay, training requirements, training costs and job prospects.
Understand Digital Footprints
Almost every day, there is a news story about a famous personality getting trolled or trapped in a controversy because of something they previously said or did online. Observing the same, it is necessary to educate our students to be aware of their behaviour on the online platform, i.e., keep a check on what they speak and do over the internet. Simultaneously, they should be educated that they leave fingerprints wherever they go. In the lesson Understand Your Digital Footprint, students use Google Sheets to visualize the digital footprints and understand how large their footprints can be.
Develop a Portfolio
Once the students learn about digital footprints and how to manage them, they must know how to build a digital portfolio and how it helps them get more job opportunities. Using Google Sites for that process can help by following the steps described in the lesson titled Build a Portfolio With Google Sites.
Why use Google Digital Applied Skill?
Easy to Use
Aligned with State Standards & Reviewed by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), more than 1,000,000 students are already in use. Applied Digital Skills is authentic student-centred learning with technology infused. Each lesson comprises activities, video tutorials, extension lessons, estimated completion time, digital tools, & skills. It also has lesson plans, rubrics, certificates, example projects, starter projects, & video downloads.
Teaches 21st-Century Skills
With 148+ lessons accessible anytime, anywhere helps prepare students for jobs not yet invented by infusing job-ready skills and technology in each lesson: productivity, collaboration, organization, etc. It also teaches the 4 C’s: communication, collaboration, creativity, and critical thinking.
Makes Life Easier
Using lessons like Instruction led video lessons, you can facilitate personalized viewing. Easily share lesson plans to Google Classroom. Aside from these, the platform lets you monitor students progress; provide instant and productive substitute plans.
Power Up Your Asynchronous Instruction
This platform allows educators to become the ‘guide on the side’ instead of the ‘sage on the stage.’ It also provides Asynchronous & Blended Lessons and Anchor Activities. Lessons like Applied Digital Skills Independent Extensions are great for younger students or anchor activities.
You Can Learn Too
You do not need to master a tool to assign your students as a teacher. You can explore the lesson collections to aid hybrid and remote instruction teaching. Also, use them to review Google Workspace and prepare for Google Certified Educator Exams.
