Google+ Hangouts in the Classroom (Thing 11)

I'm not entirely sure that Google Hangouts or Hangouts on Air have a big place in my classroom (at least, not in the way that I've set it up or visualize it now). I can't think of a way to use the live chat feature within the class that makes sense, but I do see how the recorded Hangout on Air could help me "flip" certain aspects of my classroom. Right now, I have just started to record videos on grammar concepts to post to my Schoology class page; I know the science department has flipped a lot of their lessons and it seems to work, and I like the idea of having the students exposed to a concept before we talk about it in the classroom. That tends to cut down on the time I spend lecturing and gives us more time to practice the concept together. I only tried it once last year (as a result of a session with Emily, Jesse, and John from the Washburne science department at an institute day) and then I kind of let it fall by the wayside. I'm thinking that if I get most of the videos ready over the summer, I'll have a much better chance of actually using them for instruction.

I COULD use the live Hangout on Air to make myself available for questions from the kids during non-school hours - kind of like a virtual office hours thing. (I read this article that sums up the difference between Google Hangouts and Hangouts on Air to make sure I was using the terms properly!) It turns out that you can only have 10 people in a Hangout, so if I were going to implement this idea of virtual office hours, I would want to be able to help as many kids as needed it and even perhaps facilitate some group work. I'm dreaming pretty big here, though - I'm not sure if many (or any) kids would take advantage of something that required them to be at their computers or other devices at a certain time outside of school to talk to a teacher. Emily had a great idea about using it to bring in people who are professionals in the science field, which sounds like how we sometimes use Skype to have online author visits - that would be nice!

The Hangout on Air that I hosted (tried to host?) this afternoon wasn't really a success. I was teaching about Socrative, which is one of my favorite instant-response systems for classroom use, but I couldn't see or hear Emily, who was kind enough to try several times with me! She could see and hear me, and my screen-sharing worked (that's a nice feature), but we couldn't talk the way we were supposed to in a Hangout on Air; we had to post comments in the event itself or use Gchat. I'm not sure what went wrong, so I probably need to try again when I'm in the same room as the person, which defeats the purpose, but could help me learn! Here's a screenshot so I can prove that I tried, at least.  :) (You can see it's titled "Socrative Take 3" because that's how many tries it took me to to even get it to semi-work...Google+ is really giving me a run for my money.)

Mystery Hangouts is pretty cool, though, and I can definitely see a use for it in the classroom. Once I get back into my classes next year, I'll see if any of the kids are interested in participating, and if they are, I'll volunteer to host one for sure. I like the idea of students learning about each other and guessing their different locations through clues with no other strings attached. Pen pals, both physical and electronic, certainly have their place, but sometimes I think they serve more to reinforce stereotypes or existing ideas about places that are "other" from our students than anything else. Not being pressured to come up with interesting anecdotes about their lives or learn anything specific about anyone else is what makes this opportunity unique, and I look forward to trying it.