I am having my students create an Erosion presentation this week in my classroom. The students are allowed to use laptop computers provided by the school in my classroom. However, I am not allowing my students to move around the classroom into their groups. I am making my students use the chat function in Google to communicate to each other as they complete their presentation. I am very interested to see how well it works!

This is a great resource. One of the things that I have noticed with my students is that they struggle with spelling. Since Google has an excellent spell checker, I have noticed very few mistakes on documents that my students create on Google.  

Another lifesaver in the classroom. How many times do students create projects on a computer and then go to the teacher and say "my project never saved"? With auto-saving, there are no worries that a project won't save and students can't use the excuse anymore that their project did not save either! 

Yes, but are we causing more harm to our students by NOT teaching them how to use this social media? Granted, using social media can be dangerous, but I still think we need to teach our students how to use the media. However, in teaching them how to use the media, we MUST teach them how to be safe.  We need to teach our kids what they should and should not be posting on social media. I say teach them the media, but teach them how to use it safely. 

If all teachers could realize this, the classroom would be a much different place. It still amazes me how some teachers view social media as a distraction in the classroom. If the media is used correctly, it is not a distraction in the classroom.