Go Google Part Two

After having looked at Google accounts in Go Google Part One, which individuals set up to use a wide variety of collaborative and research tools, here is an introduction to Google Apps for Education and what you can do with them.

Both allow you access to much the same Google products (GoogleDocs, Maps, etc). The main difference lays in the fact that when you sign in your Google Account to access these products, they are administered by Google whereas Google Apps for Education provides access to these products but they are administered by your school.

►Differences between Google account and Google Apps for Education 
► Pros and Cons (Thank you Colette Cassinelli)

You may be at a school which already uses Google Apps for Education and you have become familiar with the sharing of documents with colleagues, the creation of templates and forms and how they can ease the administration of many aspects of school life.
You may also be a Google Account user with some experience of Google products (maybe with Gmail, Docs, Reader…) investigating how you could use these products within your school with both colleagues and students. You may also be taking part in a school conversation considering the implementation of Google Apps for Education or possibly could initiate this conversation.

The intention of this post is to sieve throughout the wealth of information available on the topic by providing some up to date (Nov.2010) pointers on:

1- how Google Apps for Education can work for you and your students in a school environment
2- how some teachers use these apps
3- how GoogleSites could provide a solution as a digital portfolio.

1- Google Apps for Education offers a set of customizable tools and extensive administration controls. Teachers and students have an email address built on the same syntax, with a username easily found on the domain (indispensable for sharing when working on documents or sites).
Teachers and students can collaborate online at anytime from any location.

Brief and "slightly techie" points:
- Google provides precise information on how to install the Apps for Education in a school system as well as step by step deployment procedure to users. So information is available and tried and tested by many.
Integration to Training Programme
- The administrator controls the settings and published documents can be prevented from being shared outside the domain if deemed useful.
- Apps access can be limited (controlling access to YouTube, which is tied in a Google account is often a point of discussion)
- Innovation comes directly to the user, no need to update system hardware/software
Some of you may take an interest in it and by exploring the apps available and the functionalities, you may find something that will be really useful for you and your students, and that could be added to the suite of apps.

2- Google has got a training course for teachers and students at this link  and that may be a great starting point.

googledocs demo without signing up (Thank you FreeTech4Teachers)

You may not see straight away how all this may fit in, complement and add to your Programme of Work, but if you and students can have regular access it will soon become evident.

Tools presented and explained

The following New Zealand Google experts make things easy!
- Suzie Vesper's  Everything Google  (Click on the image for each tool to go to a full page guide for the Google tool including examples of use, features and how to use the tool.)

- Claire Amos's one page Handy Handouts Intro to Google Docs and Intro to Google Forms

- Dorothy Burt's  Google Fest introduces many of the apps and features the Teacher Dashboard

Google features for Language teaching and learning

- One click translation Why not have your students use this feature to suggest better translations still?
- Teaching Collaborative revision with Google docs
- Aviary is an app which could be of great use for Teachers of French.  Use the Aviary Audio Editor to record audio and remix music tracks and audio clips. Apply sound effects and record your own voice and instruments.

► Read more Google tricks for teachers  (Thank you Teach Hub by A. Johnson)

One recurring tip gleaned over my reading: Google Apps seem to work better if using Chrome or Firefox as webbrowsers.

3- GoogleSites as e-portfolio tools has been the object of investigation by Dr. Helen Barrett, Electronic Portfolios and Digital Storytelling for lifelong and life wide learning.  Helen Barrett has shared extensively her work on reflections for learning and on portfolio authoring as well as  investigated and explained a range of tools for that purpose.

► Basic Getting Started with GoogleSites
► Helen Barrett's How to portfolio using GoogleSites

It is suggested that artefacts for eportfolio can be created using a range of Google products, but it is not compulsory.

Some features which I think are of interest for Languages Teachers considering GoogleSites for e-portfolio purposes:

- principles of creation and edition are similar to GoogleDocs
- it is quite easy to create (there is plenty of video tutorials if you need them) and edit the pages: it's worth looking at already made templates to give you an overview of what your site/portfolio can look like. You do need a good internet connection though and to think your overall site architecture through before you launch into it. (that could be the subject of a Department discussion for instance)
- you can toy by creating a site and publish it as a template that your students could reuse to get started (and collaborate with colleagues using the share facilities)
- you can create a template page that all your students can re-use within their sites/eportfolio, for assessment purposes for instance
- you can decide who can access your site: it can be public or limited to selected viewers/editors (again this is a consideration if the student eportfolio contains work for assessment/moderation purposes)

I am currently (Nov 2010) creating a GoogleSite "My French Portfolio" destined to be used as a starting point with Senior Secondary students of Languages.  I am hoping to make it public for everyone interested to comment on by the end of the month. Please leave a comment or give me an email if you too would like to investigate feasibility using Google products.