Educators, teachers, and administrators alike are discovering the power behind adopting easy-to-use, mobile-friendly edtech tools to inspire students and foster career readiness skills. But the benefits of using these tools don't just stop at boosting student engagement and improving academic performance. Teachers who use edtech tools can also help their students develop skills that will help them succeed in the workforce.
Chances are, over the last couple of years, you’ve likely used Google Workspace applications to streamline dynamic classroom instruction or to collaborate with your students in a technology-influenced learning environment.
Google Workspace includes popular programs like Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets, and more specifically, Google Workspace for Education, which is used by more than 170 million educators and students worldwide. As the use of these Edtech tools becomes more prominent in classroom instruction, students naturally develop digital fluency skills that will carry them forward in higher education institutions and beyond, building career readiness.
Whether you’re teaching English, or social studies, mathematics or music, you are likely already utilizing Google Workspace tools with your students. Take it a step further by offering students Google Workspace certifications to positively impact their education and future career path, making them attractive candidates to any higher education or career institution.
Let’s explore 10 ways Google Certifications can promote college and career readiness amongst primary and secondary classroom students.
How Google Certifications Promote Career Readiness in the Classroom
1. Improves Critical Thinking and Problem-Solving Skills
Google Workspace certifications help students learn to think critically as they work together to define problems of practice, articulate connections between ideas, and connect those ideas to their own learning. An example of this is a student’s ability to organize their thoughts within different sections of Google Docs or Google Slides. This type of critical thinking is beneficial for planning out projects, writing papers or reports, and brainstorming new ideas - skills vital to any workplace atmosphere across teams, departments, or even across the globe.
2. Compounds Crucial Communication and Collaboration Skills
Google Docs is a word-processing tool that helps students create online documents, which can later be transformed into presentations, spreadsheets, and other collaborative documents. Mastery of Google Docs via certifications ensures students understand how to work together on projects and communicate effectively on deadlines and decisions; all of these attributes help classmates (or teammates) involved achieve a shared goal. Specific examples of collaboration in Google Docs can include bullets and numbering, performing a search, and using spellcheck correctly and efficiently - tools utilized nearly every day in most job roles.
3. Strengthens Creativity and Innovation Skills
Google Certifications allows students to demonstrate creativity and express themselves in new ways. Students can use these edtech tools to create colorful presentations, showcase their thoughts, and share their data using colors, shapes, graphics, and diagrams. For many learners, it’s a great way to capture their thinking, notes, and questions in a graphic representation. Such job-ready skills will help students develop robust decks, flyers, posters, and other creative assets as they continue onto higher education institutions and the workforce.
4. Builds Digital Fluency
Digital fluency is the ability to discover, evaluate, and use information and technology effectively and ethically. An example of digital fluency is following instructions to set up a shared document online and use it for a clear purpose. Google has several applications that foster digital fluency, including Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Forms. Fluency in these applications allows students to not only understand what the technology is, but also how to use it across disciplines or organizations to facilitate collaboration and communication.
5. Enhances Leadership Skills
When students feel confident in their learning, they naturally become leaders amongst their peers. Google Certifications promote leadership skills in students by providing them with the opportunity to demonstrate their mastery of a particular tool, and teach their peers or classmates. Through a Google Sheets certification, for example, students can master the tool's basic formula functions, such as computing a sum, and more advanced functions, like number formatting, sorting, charts, and advanced filters. This allows students to show their proficiency, allowing them to prove their value as potential employees in figure career roles or internships focused on data analysis or computing.
6. Increases Student Agency
Google Workspace increases student agency through ownership of their own learning outcomes and skillsets. By earning Google Certifications, students can show higher ed institutions and employers that they have taken the time to learn new skills, expand their knowledge base, and increase their marketability. Students are able to demonstrate their ability to be self-directed learners by earning certifications. This allows them to pursue projects and topics that interest them, instead of always following a set curriculum.
7. Helps Create a Digital Work Ethic/Self-Motivation
Students who have earned Google Certifications are more likely to be motivated by the challenge of working in a fast-paced environment, which is something that is becoming increasingly important in the modern workplace. They demonstrate a commitment to continuous learning that shows future employers a student's commitment to learning new things, thereby motivating them to take on more challenging projects to support an institution. In fact, according to a study conducted by Udemy, 80% of current employees feel that learning new skills would make them more engaged and motivated at work.
8. Promotes Organization and Time Management
Completing and earning any Google Certification - Docs, Slides, or Forms - requires time management skills of their own, as students will learn how to effectively manage their time during certification exams that require the completion of 35 questions (including multiple choice, interactive, and live in-application questions) in a short period of time (one hour). This transferable skill will help students understand the value of accomplishing their tasks in a timely manner, helping assist them in preventing late or missed deadlines. This skill also helps them to perform better on all other exams that they may take throughout the course of their education.
9. Reassures Student Knowledge Application
In the ever-changing world of technology and innovation, it's important to ensure that the knowledge students have acquired is not only current but also integrated. Leading Google Certifications ensure a student’s knowledge has been tested by an esteemed third party and deemed relevant to their field of study or field of interest. As the use of Google tools in the classroom continues to evolve, a certification allows students to show their skills are relevant and up-to-date. In fact, current data suggests that more than five million businesses are leveraging Google tools to work faster, smarter, and more collaboratively every day, making mastery of any Google application a highly sought-after skill.
10. Fosters Professionalism, Values, and Ethics
Certification programs can help individuals identify with a community of like-minded learners who share similar values and ethics - in this case, other individuals who share mastery of Google Workspace tech tools. This can help students feel less isolated in their learning environments and encourage them to make connections with others who share similar values and ethics. The level of quality certifications bring helps put students a leg above others, as their mastery in Google Workspace tools allows them to offer better solutions to their classmates, teammates, and future employers.
Help your students set themselves apart from millions of other graduates.
It’s clear that while Google Workspace tools keep teachers inspired, inventive, and organized, they can also foster academic success and career readiness in students, aiding the development of lifelong skills to help them flourish in high school, trade school, college, the workforce, and beyond.
As Google Workspace becomes increasingly popular among K-12, higher education institutions, and corporate employers, basic proficiency in these platforms will soon become a required skill for all classroom students. Google Workspace Certifications in leading Edtech tools like Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets will help students set themselves apart from millions of other graduates by showing proof of proficiency in a key and fast-growing digital skill set, setting themselves up for college and career success down the road.
Learn how you can bring Google Workspace certifications to your school or district with Tosa.
