Hey Google Why Was Day One Such a Challenge?

Placing the Google Home on the table reminded me of when a hush falls over the crowd during a championship sporting event. Eyes were wide, and there was a slight buzz in the air. Slowly I removed the box cover and shared the information booklets inside with students. I told them I know it would be hard not to plug it in and use it immediately, but we had to read the materials first.

The class and I went over the directions, aware that we had covered our bases. The Home App was downloaded, and we plugged in the Google Home. The colorful lights spun so everything was working, or so we thought. We figured out how to turn the mic on and off. We also discovered we need to unplug the Google Home after using it. What happened next was an unexpected lesson on how to deal with things with the technology does not work the way you expect when you plug it in.

I opened up the application on my phone to sync with the Google Home. I read every message that popped up to the class, though looking back on this I should have put my phone under the document camera for all students to see. We decided on privacy settings as a group, not opting to send data to Google. Then we had to come up with a physical location for the device.

The locations in the drop down menu did not fit where we were. Choices ranged from kitchen to bedroom to dining room. Students were questioning why classroom was not an option. I heard, “Hey Google, classroom is a location for a Google Home.” Trying to stifle my laugh I asked what a good choice would be since we could choose our own. Students settled on Secret Agent HQ.

I explained to students the Google Home and the iPhone had to be on the same wifi for the devices to talk to each other. This was done, and we waited for what felt like an eternity to them. Then the dreaded Uh-Oh something went wrong with connecting your devices message popped up. We decided to try again with the same result.

I could have gotten mad at the devices, but that would have not solved our problem. Students shared stories of themselves or adults who got angry at technology and recognized this does not offer a solution. I decided to model how I seek solutions when things do not work.

I use Google! I explained I was going to look up the error message to see what solutions were offered. If that did not work I would look into connectivity issues. While I was Googling students were tasked with writing two questions they could ask the Google Home.

After some time I was able to figure out a solution and got it working. It turns out the wifi being used was blocking devices from connecting to each other. We changed the settings and POOF! We had a Google Home that heard us! Testing it out, I asked why students do not always follow directions. They could not believe I would start with that and several assumed there would be no answer. However, the Google Home came back with a website and information about processing. The student who had asked earlier if it gives us the source now had her question answered.

Students gathered around the table and came up to each ask a question. I thought it was important for each child to have a chance to practice using Google Home during the initial trial. Students asked it to tell them a riddle or joke. Someone asked Google to make her a sandwich. That response got some laughs! One student inquired, “Why are butterflies symmetrical?” Another asked about the opening weekend revenue for a Spiderman movie and others asked sports related questions. Students did need a reminder to start with OK Google or Hey Google!

The first student to talk stumped the Google Home by asking for a yearly income price comparison of Disney and Universal. This led to a whole conversation about word choice. Should it have been Disney World? Universal Studios? Orlando? How specific do we need to be? Time will tell but it ties directly into teaching students about key words when searching on the World Wide Web.

Despite some of the road blocks that happened on day one, we are all curious to see where this journey takes us. This week we will start our Googler of the Day room job and collecting thoughts about if the Google Home should have classroom as an option on it location menu choices.