Implementation of Google Apps Educational Edition

This page gives information on the implementation of Google Apps Educational Edition

Introduction

The project started in January 2008 and continues to grow. This page is intended to give information on the implementation, the successes and the challenges.

According the leading experts in education the two defining trends in education for the next coming years in technology is cloud computing and portability Read 2009 Horizon Report. Google Apps allows educators to implement cloud computing.

Google Apps Edition Editon is free for non-profit educational institutions and has no ads. Google has explictly stated it will never charge for Google Apps. Millions of students and thousands of educational institutions have signed up including

It allows students and teachers to create documents(Word, Excel, PowerPoint), share calendars, email, chat, create web pages,video and more. It is secure as everything stays within the registered domain and cannot be accessed by people who do not have a school login. It is an excellent tool to provide elearning. It works on any computer including Macs. Many Personal Digital Devices - such as cell phones - can access many of the tools available.

Implementing the Project

The project took about 1 week to set up from the time the school was registered with Google as a non-profit public educational institution to having all students registered.

The project requires ownership web address where the administator changes can configure MX records to activate email. The MX records will edit by the administrator of adamscott.ca. The process was simple as Google emailed clear instuctions. See video tutorial on how to do this
click here.

Registing students on the adamscott.ca domain was quick. Google requires a text file containing students names, logins, and passwords. A text file was already been created for student logins on for the school server by the IT department. To create the exact four fields (first name,last name, login, password) for the text file, MS Excel was used. This file was then used to create all the users in a batch process. The whole procedure took less than 30 minutes for around 1000 students.

Two classes were selected to initially test Google Apps - both Grade 12 English University. These classes were selected because they were senior level students who would quickly learn the technology and the teacher was willing to try new technology. Students were required to have a permission form signed.

Each class was given about 20 minutes of instruction on using Google Apps. Students were also instructed NOT to use Google Apps for any personal email or chats. Most students were able to use Google Apps with little trouble. See video of students speaking.

Once the project showed success other classes started using google Apps in different subjects areas from grades 9 to 12. Math teachers really like Google Apps because it gives the students a spreadsheet at home. Most students did not have a spreadsheet at home until they signed up for Google Apps. See video of Math Teachers comments.

Students in a Grade 10 History Class are collaborating and creating a virtual museum on the same web page.

This video is from a Geography teacher on using Google Apps and this video is from a student using Google Apps.

How Google Apps Improves Learning

According to students the best things about Google Apps are:

• Easy to use
• Easy to work on documents both at home and school
• Same interface at home and school
• documents are never lost
• When collaborating on a document - Google Apps can record who did what.
• ability to collaborate (i.e. able to work on the same document at the same time from
  remote locations)
• Teacher calendar
• Chat
• Having both spreadsheet and PowerPoint software at home
• Large enough user space that large projects such as video and podcasts can be saved and
  easily moved from home to school
• Works on both Macs and PCs
  

According to teachers the best things about Google Apps are:

• ability to easily share electronic documents with all students in a class quickly and easily
• ability to up load Word and PowerPoint files
• Easy to use web page creator
• ability to search documents
• calender
• ability to make comments on students work as they are working on the document
• prevents plagiarism (can see every revision of a document)
• ability to post videos that are only viewable for people inside school domain
• ability to limit (i.e. only to students of a class) who see class marks generated by markbook when the marks are posted
• less photo-coping and printing

Presentation on Using Google Apps

Interesting Video

This video makes you think about how quickly things change...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xx2Slxp0TkM

Google Apps and Netbooks supported by major educational research project

The just released 2009 Horzon Report which is based on "ongoing primary research effort that draws on a comprehensive body of published resources, current research and practice" looks at future technological in education states the the two top trends are portability such as netbooks and cloud computing such as Google Apps. read report
Quotes from report
cloud computing ..."Inexpensive, simple solutions to offsite storage, multi-user application scaling,hosting, and multi-processor computing are opening the door to wholly different ways ofthinking about computers, software, and files."

"cloud computing transforms once-expensive resources like disk storage and processing cycles into a readily available, cheap commodity. Development platforms layered onto the cloud infrastructureenable thin-client, web-based applications for image editing, word processing, social networking, and mediacreation. Many of us use the cloud, or cloud-based applications, without even being aware of it. Advances incomputer science to ensure redundancy and protection from natural disasters have led to data being shared across many different hosting facilities. Improved infrastructure has made the cloud robust and reliable; asusage grows, the cloud is fundamentally changing our notions of computing and communication.""Already, cloud-based applications are being usedin the K-12 sector to provide virtual computers tostudents and staff without requiring each person toown the latest laptop or desktop machine..."

portability "making it an ever more versatile tool that can be easily adapted to ahost of tasks for learning, productivity, andsocial networking. For many users, broadbandmobile devices like the iPhone have alreadybegun to assume many tasks that were oncethe exclusive province of portable computers."

"The idea of a single portable device that can make phone calls, take pictures, record audio and video, store data, music, and movies, and interact with the Internet — all of it — has become so interwoven into our lifestyles that it is now surprising to learn that someone does not carry one..."

smart phones and other mobile devices improve learning

Below is an excellent article from eSchoolNews showing the value of using PDAs.

quote from article

"Using smart phones and other mobile devices for learning isn't just a trend, but rather a sustainable approach to educational technology that can adapt to future assessments and help raise student test scores significantly" read article

Cells phones as an educational tool

Interesting New York Times article about a study of the use of cell phones in the classroom. From article "The study found that students with the phones performed 25 percent better on the end-of-the-year algebra exam than did students without the devices in similar classes." read more

Mobile Technology in the Classroom

It is interesting in my school library, where we have wireless, to watch students use their mobile devices from netbooks and PSPs to cell phones use the Internet to work on their assignments. This also takes the pressure on the demand for computers (I often do not have enough computers for the demand).

The article below, from Education Week, discusses the shift towards mobile technology such as cell phones in the classroom. The article is supported by a report released by a research center based at the Sesame Workshop.

"Children’s lives have been caught up in a tide of mobile digital technologies—games, cellphones, and smartphones—that if carefully managed could significantly boost their learning"

read more

Paradigm Shift - Web 2.0 into the classroom

This article discusses the how to connect young people with the technology they use in their personal lives  into the education setting to improve learning.  The article also shows how this is supported by  International Society for Technology in Education, or ISTE.

This article entitled "Tech Literacy Confusion" is from the educational journal Education Week and is written by the technology editor Andrew Trotter.

Quote for article:

"Teaching literacy—reading and writing—is a core mission for schools, but today's young people increasingly "read" 3-D computer simulations and "write" via social networks such as Facebook. A growing chorus of experts say schools should add these forms of communication to their literacy mission as "technology literacy."

read more