The importance of teachers and stories in the life of a reader

Posted by LeVar Burton

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editors note: Through his work with Reading Rainbow, LeVar Burton continues to inspire generations of students to love reading. Getting an early start on celebrating Teacher Appreciation Week, we asked LeVar about educators that inspired him. He shares some stories from his childhood in today’s guest post, and he’ll share more during his keynote, “The power of storytelling to inspire students,” during our Education on Air conference. Register today and tune in for LeVar’s talk on May 8th at 11:15am ET.

Teachers seem to run in my family. My elder sister, my son and two nieces are all educators, and my mother, Erma Gene Christian, was a high school English teacher before becoming my first teacher. I know firsthand how hard these unsung heroes work, and especially how important a teacher can be in a child’s life.

One of the most indelible memories from my childhood happened one day when I was learning to read. My favorite aunt Hope, my mother’s youngest sister, was visiting from Kansas City. We were sitting together in a chair in the living room and I was reading aloud while my mother listened from the kitchen where she was preparing a family meal. Things were going fine until I got stuck on a word. I stopped cold in the middle of a sentence. The word was one I thought I knew, but I didn’t yet have the inner confidence to know that I could read it. I will never forget the infinite patience that Aunt Hope displayed and the gentle nudges of support she gave me. “Go on,” she’d whisper, “You know this word. I know you can sound it out.”

I still remember the word —it was “pretty” — and when my aunt finally said the word to me it was a revelation. She gave me the confidence I needed to trust myself; to trust that I did know these words. I was a reader. This is what teachers do for their students every day.

It’s from my mother, Erma Gene, that I learned the allure of storytelling. Throughout my childhood, mom always had several books going simultaneously, switching from one to the other seamlessly, deriving pleasure from each turn of the page, no matter what the genre. I learned from my mom—and eventually from my own experiences reading, and from exposing children to the joy of books through Reading Rainbow—that storytelling is an elemental part of the human experience, regardless of whether the medium is a print book or a digital book. We know that kids are reading more than 200,000 books a week on the Reading Rainbow App. They are using their devices not just for games or movies, but to read.

Heres me with the first educator who inspired me, my mother.

Children are drawn to stories, and with good storytelling we can teach kids anything. I have seen the light go on in a child’s eyes when he or she falls in love with a story. I’ve seen that light get brighter when they realize that they can read the stories for themselves. This light is the beginning of a lifelong love of reading, and from there a lifelong love of learning. For me, literacy means freedom, and literacy begins with storytelling. You get a child’s attention when you give them a good story. If we fail to take advantage of this, we are letting the opportunity of a lifetime—of our lifetime and theirs—pass us by.

Hear more about the power of storytelling from LeVar Burton during his Education on Air keynote on May 8 at 11:15am ET or check out his Reading Rainbow website.

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A new kind of Classroom for 10 million students and teachers

Posted by Cinthya Mohr, User Experience Lead, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

In a junior high class in Queens, New York, Ross Berman is teaching fractions. He wants to know whether his students are getting the key concept, so he posts a question in Google Classroom and instantly reviews their answers. It’s his favorite way to check for understanding before anyone has the chance to fall behind.

Across the country, in Bakersfield, California, Terri Parker Rodman is waiting at the dentist’s office. She wonders how her class is doing with their sub. With a few swipes on her phone, she finds out which students have finished their in-class assignment and sends a gentle reminder to those who haven’t.

Google Classroom launched last August, and now more than 10 million educators and students across the globe actively use it to teach and learn together, save time, and stay organized. We worked with teachers and students to create Classroom because they told us they needed a mission control – a central place for creating and tracking assignments, sharing ideas and resources, turning in completed work and exchanging feedback. Classroom is part of Google’s lineup of tools for education, which also includes the Google Apps for Education suite – now used by more than 50 million students, teachers and administrators around the world – and Chromebooks, the best-selling device in U.S. K-12 schools.

Here are a few of the stories we’ve heard from teachers and students who are using Classroom.

Learning better together 

We built Classroom to help educators spend less time on paperwork and administrative tasks. But it’s also proven to be highly effective at bringing students and teachers closer together. In London, fifth grader Kamal Nsudoh-Parish stays connected with his Spanish teacher while he does his homework. “If I don’t understand something, I can ask him and he’d be able to answer rather than having to wait until my next Spanish lesson,” Kamal says.

Terri, who teaches sixth grade at Old River Elementary School, also observes that Classroom can strengthen ties and improve communication. “When a student doesnt turn something in, I can see how close they are,” she says. “In the past, I couldnt tell why they didnt finish their work. I was grading them on bringing back a piece of paper instead of what their ability was.”

Resource room teacher Diane Basanese of Black River Middle School in Chester, New Jersey, says that Classroom lets her see her students’ minds at work. “I’m in the moment with them,” she explains. “We have dialogue, like, ‘Oh, are you saying I should use a transition?’ We’re talking to each other. It’s a better way.”

Removing the mundane 

By helping them cut down on busywork, Classroom empowers teachers to do even more with every school day. “I no longer waste time figuring out paper jams at the school photocopier,” says Tom Mullaney, who teaches in Efland, North Carolina. “Absent students no longer email or ask, ‘What did we do yesterday?’ These time savers may not sound like much, but they free me to spend time on things that I consider transcendent in my teaching practice.”

In Mexico City, teachers at Tec de Monterrey high school and university switched to Classroom from an online learning management system that often added complexity to their workflow instead of simplifying it. Professor Vicente Cubells says he’s found the new question feature in Classroom particularly useful for short quizzes, because he can quickly assess learning and have an automatic record of their responses and grades. “The Classroom mobile apps have also become essential for our faculty and students, we use them to stay connected even when we’re not in front of a laptop,” Cubells said.

Giving teachers superpowers 

Teachers are some of the most innovative thinkers in the world, so it’s no surprise that they’ve used Classroom in ways we never even imagined.

Elementary school teacher Christopher Conant of Boise, Idaho, says his students are usually eager to leave school behind during summer break. But after using Classroom last year, they wanted to keep their class open as a way to stay in touch. “Classroom is a tool that keeps kids connected and learning as a community, well beyond the school day, school year and school walls,” said Christopher, who continued to post videos and questions for his students all summer long.

These endless possibilities are the reason why Diane Basanese, a 30-year teaching veteran, says that Classroom is the tool she’s been looking for throughout her career. “It has made me hungrier,” she explains. “I look at how I can make every lesson a hit-it-out-of-the-ballpark lesson.”

Growing our Classroom 

Ever since we began working with teachers and students, its been rewarding and encouraging to hear their stories, collaborate to find answers to their problems, and watch those solutions come to life at schools and universities around the world. Lucky for us, we’re just getting started.

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California schools inspire students and teachers to keep their “heads in the cloud”

Posted by Alexandrea Alphonso, Eileen Huang, Angela Larkin and Mark Renne, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editors note: California schools are seeing great success with Google for Education. We talked to educators and administrators to reflect on how technology has changed what it means to teach and learn in California. From encouraging strategic thinking to improving writing skills, technology has enhanced the learning experience for students across the state.


For California students, backpacks are getting lighter as schools turn to Chromebooks, Google Apps for Education and cloud-based education apps in place of textbooks, pencils and paper. This new approach to learning is helping students improve their writing and critical thinking skills, while helping teachers and staff increase productivity. Inspired by how schools are innovating with cloud technology across the region, we’re highlighting a few of the successes in California schools:

1. Using the cloud to improve writing quality and creativity 

While writing is predominantly a solitary activity, timely feedback is crucial for helping students to improve their skills. Between 2010 and 2014, the administration at Del Mar Union School District in San Diego introduced Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education to all third through sixth grade classes at all eight schools throughout the district. With these new tools, Del Mar’s staff has seen students’ writing quality dramatically improve. With access to the cloud, students can easily share their assignments with other students and teachers to receive feedback immediately. By storing documents in Google Drive, students can also rest assured that their most recent work is saved and secure.

This new model of classroom collaboration inspires students to experiment and take more risks, knowing that they’ll receive feedback from teachers before getting a final grade.

“Students’ vocabulary has increased. Now they’re using ‘million dollar words’ instead of ‘five dollar words’,” says fourth-grade teacher Stephanie Sullins. “They’re not afraid of making a mistake.”

Chromebooks and Google Apps have also been vital in meeting rigorous Common Core State Standards for writing. “The number of students reaching the top score on the state writing tests dramatically increased after the introduction of Chromebooks,” Sullins says.

2. Using the cloud to create an interactive educational environment

Los Angeles’ KIPP Academy of Opportunity and KIPP LA Prep discovered that the ability to work together, aided by cloud-based tools, pushes students to think more critically. As part of Google’s pilot program that began in spring 2011, the school district introduced 400 Chromebooks — a number that has now grown to 5,000 Chromebooks with hundreds more added each year. KIPP LA decreased their costs by deploying Chromebooks because they no longer needed to purchase expensive software licenses, servers, security solutions, and maintenance plans for each device.

The educational impact for students has been notable. There has been a big shift from direct instruction and memorization of notes to an interactive classroom. Now, students work with one another on projects and share information through Google Hangouts and Google Drive.

“Students create and collaborate, rather than memorize and regurgitate,” said James Sanders, a former social science teacher at KIPP LA Schools. “It’s a better, more authentic model for learning.” As one of Sander’s students explains: “We walk into a social studies class, grab a computer, and check out Mr. Sanders’s blog, then we follow the tasks he sets.”

3. Using the cloud to inspire teachers and students to think outside the box 

The Dublin Unified School District’s teachers and staff needed a better solution for communication and for helping students stay organized. They piloted Google Apps for Education and Google Classroom, and received rave reviews from parents, teachers and students. Now, teachers, students and staff enjoy having one unified platform for email, calendar and document sharing — accessible anytime, from any device.

Technology has become deeply entrenched in Dublin schools. Dublin High School includes among its student body, Hania Guiagoussou, the youngest recipient to-date of Oracle’s Duke’s Choice Award for java programming. At Dublin High School, Guiagoussou was one of the many students who participated in the school’s computer programming class. Now, her first project, WaterSaver, is an award-winning, Java-based system that intelligently controls water sources. Guiagoussou’s story is one of many where technology has inspired a student to reach farther than she ever expected.

Collaboration and sharing in the cloud has made it infinitely easier for schools to exchange information. Using Google Classroom, a student can share writing assignments with a teacher and receive instant feedback. With a few taps, a teacher can share lesson plans or curriculum ideas with her colleague using the Drive mobile app. Administrators know who’s attending the next staff meeting by glancing at a Calendar invite. California schools are doing incredible things by taking a leap toward the cloud.

Check out more inspirational stories from schools.

We’ve heard great stories from many of you about how you’re using technology to do amazing things in your schools, so were going across the U.S. to see for ourselves! Check out the map below to see where we’ve been. We’d love to hear what’s happening in your state, so please share your story on Twitter or Google+ and tag us (@GoogleForEdu) or include the #GoogleEdu hashtag.

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