Getting Started Using Google Apps in Education Pt. One

Getting Started Using Google Apps in Education (Pt. One)


Part One: Gmail and Google Sites Creation/Editing

Google Apps is available with any Gmail account or through a partnership (School or Business) with Google.

In either case an almost limitless amount of educational potential can be found in the small toolbar that graces the upper left corner of every Gmail screen.

GMail

First things first...

 Get a Gmail account

1. go to Google's account creation page and fill out the form for an account.

2. After account creation, you may get offers to check out new Google Apps (We will look at Google Buzz in future blog posts).Let's skip this for now.

3. Your Gmail "inbox" screen looks much like other email interfaces, but there is a higher degree of functionality here than in any other provider I have found.


Some features you may can access from this screen (color coded with arrow on picture):

1. Video, Voice, and Text Chat (on left side of screen). The small green camera denotes a webcam is plugged into my machine.
2. Email "Labels" (there are eight already created for you). By clicking on the "6 more" link, you can find the option to create more labels. Mine include "2 be graded" and "Licensure"
3. Contacts (people you have emailed in the past)
4. The option to invite up to 50 friends to gmail.

Google Sites


One Google App that is a union point for the others is Google Sites. Let's take a look at this app first.


Creating Google Sites


Links to your Google Apps can found in the upper left corner of your Gmail account.

1. Click on "More" and choose "Sites" (you may be asked to log in again)

2. Choose "Create Site"







3. You will be given the option to choose from many templetes. For the sake of this blog, we will be using a "blank template". Using the other templates effectively may require skills in the other Google Apps (check this blog for more information on each of the Google Apps).

• Be sure to note your websites address (URL) for future reference. You may want to shorten this URL using a shortening service.

. Your website will be made up of a homepage (this is the screen that appears after you choose "create site" and is the first page visitors will see when they enter your URL in their browser) and other web pages.  Let's look at editing your homepage.









Editing Google Sites

Each time you log in to your Gmail account you will find "Sites" in the upper left of your inbox screen. Ypu can also go directly to your web page URL and choose the small "sign in" hyperlink in the bottom left of your page. Either log in method works from any internet-enabled computer anywhere in the world. How cool is that?


1. Choose "Edit Page"

2. Begin making changes to your sites title text ("Home") and body text.

• By using the "insert" feature, you can include a vast array of features, documents, and gadgets in your web pages. Many of these features utilize other google apps.
  

3. Be sure to click the "Save" button when changes are complete.

To create a new page for your site choose "Create Page"


1. Choose from the templates here depending on the function of your new page.

2. If you want your page to appear on the navigation bar on the homepage, choose "Put page at the top level"

3. Edit your new page as you want.

Be sure to click "Save" when you are done editing.




Notes:

• When inserting Google Documents and Gadgets, they will appear as a gray box until you save your edits.
• Contact your technology facilitator or the author for help with any step in this process.

Check back for...
Part Two: Creating and Inserting Google Forms (for student information collection and assessment).

Google Scholar (N) for Writing to Learn

Google Scholar (N) for Writing to Learn

"Stand on the Shoulders of Giants"... this is the slogan on http://scholar.google.com and it holds true.

Google Scholar allows information seekers to limit their queries to scholarly texts including "articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions" (from their "about" page) while eliminating commercial sites and user-generated wikis/online encyclopedias. In short Google Scholar allows for serious, meaningful research.

The search interface is the same as the mainstream www.google.com engine, but the results are vastly different.

For example a search for Learning Styles at www.google.com yields a mixed bag of academic sites, wikis, and advertisements.

A search for "Learning Styles" on Google Scholar yields only valid research sources.

There are a few drawbacks to using Scholar:

• You may download the basic citation information from any of the listings (whether we have a subscription or not) but will not get abstracts, subject headings, etc.
• When you search Google Scholar, you may find thousands of apparent citations, but GS will actually only let you view about the first 1000 of them.
• Many of the records are just links to citations not to the actual article; you will not be able to download these citations

(from: http://nmsu.libguides.com/content.php?pid=17613&sid=199269)

In addition some results will not be accessible unless you access them using credentials from a subscribing library.


Perhaps the best way to start is for students to understand that Google Scholar delivers citations (resources Google couldn't find online), patent materials, book excerpts, legal opinions, and abstracts for subscription-based journals. This wide variety of sources is much too big for effective research and must be winnowed down using critical thinking and the methods below.

Our students' searches may be more fruitful if they are sure to:
1. Turn off the "patents" search on the main page.
2. Ignore results with "abstract, book, or citation" in the results blurbs.
3. Focus on the results with "pdf" and "doc" to the right of their blurb. These will almost always give the full article and can be saved in a research folder (on desktop?) for future use.

Also knowing how to use the advanced options is a plus. These can be accessed just to the right of the "search" button on the Google Scholar main page. These let students...

• choose specific terms.
• choose the location of the terms (body or title)
• choose date ranges of publication
• choose subject area
• eliminate patent-related returns
• and more.

Finally, there are some ways to limit searches without going to the advanced page (these also work on the regular www.google.com page)

• the "+" operator makes sure your results include common words, letters or numbers that Google's search technology generally ignores, as in [+de knuth];
• the "-" operator excludes all results that include this search term, as in [flowers -author:flowers];
• phrase search only returns results that include this exact phrase, as in ["as you like it"];
• the "OR" operator returns results that include either of your search terms, as in [stock call OR put];
• the "intitle:" operator as in [intitle:mars] only returns results that include your search term in the document's title.

(from: http://scholar.google.com/intl/en/scholar/refinesearch.html)




For more information on using Google Scholar's advanced features, check out this short online tutorial from the University of Alabama at Birmingham.


For help implementing this valuable resource in your practice, contact your technology facilitator or the author.

Comic Strip Creators (N) for Writing ...

Comic Strip Creators (N) for Writing to Learn (Low Stakes)


http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/


Create comic strips in a variety of languages for free!


According to www.leadandlearn.com, implementing the writing to learn instructional strategy has three major objectives:

1. higher engagement
2. increased critical thinking
3. demonstration of deep subject-area understanding

Using an online comic strip creator can enhance the process in meeting the first two objectives.


In my experience with middle and high school students, choosing and customizing images is an inherently engaging process. In recent Windows Movie Maker projects, the bulk of student on-task time was used in selecting and modifying images for the movies. When I started teaching 12 years ago, selecting and clipping images for poster board-based projects also took the majority of time (if allowed) on a project. Students love to customize and they love choice. Creating online comic strips allow for both.

The decisions that go along with expressing ideas in a limited amount of space requires a great deal of critical thinking. In a comic strip students must distill their ideas to demonstrate understanding of content knowledge. They must also choose relevant images (and symbols) to demonstrate their ideas. The process of making decisions about content, analyzing information to "make it fit", and creating symbols to represent content are all part of higher level thinking whether you subscribe to Bloom or Costa.




Getting Started

1. You may want to visit Adrian Bruce's Blog where he discusses introducing this strategy to his students by exploring the puns in "lame" jokes. Bruce also provides a link to his favorite online, comic strip creators in this post.

2. Then go to  http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ and click "Enter Here". Be sure you have enough time; the easy to use interface and the many options will engage you immediately.

A tutorial for using the interface is available.





Note: You will want to make sure your school/district's content filter's do not restrict the resources prior to use. My LEA's restrict some due to "Humor/Jokes".





Contact your tec fac or the author for support on any step in implementing this resource.

Skype (N) for Scaffolding and Classroom Talk

Skype (N) for Scaffolding and Classroom Talk

According to the "From Now On Technology Journal" One of the major components of Scaffolding is that it "points students to worthy sources". (http://fno.org/dec99/scaffold.html)

What better way to enhance student research and discussions than to bring in an expert on the topic at hand. A live discussion with a book's author or an expert on gene therapy can enhance a lesson exponentially.


Experts need not be only ivory tower residents but can be feet-on-the-ground peers of our students. For example students studying Alaska, or literature set in Alaska, can gain much understanding from communicating in real-time with peers who live there (see user mikefrancis' post here: http://skypeinschools.pbworks.com/Experiences).

Skype is merely the free tool (from their site: "Skype-to-Skype video and voice calls are always free. As are group IMs and conference calls on Skype") that allows these communications. It utilizes  an internet connection and a webcam (optional).


There are only four steps to using integrating Skype in your class:

download the software and create a Skype account!	Skype with people all over the WORLD computer to computer for FREE!
find other educators using Skype;	learn to use Skype with other applications for truly interactive learning...

from: http://technologypd.pbworks.com/Skype-in-Education



Links to in-depth video tutorials and links for taking this integration further can be found at:

http://edtechteacher.org/skypetutorial.html

For a real-life tutorial contact your Technology Facilitator or the author.

Blogs (N) for Collaborative Group Work, Literacy Groups, Writing

Collaborative Group Work, Literacy Groups, Writing to Learn, Questioning, and Classroom Talk (N): Blogs

Want students to have an vehicle to discuss ideas outside of face-to-face classroom conversations?

Blogging may be the answer for you.

There are a variety of free blog service providers online.

If you'd like to ensure the privacy of you/your students' blog posts, please consider activating the blog feature in a ning (www.ning.com or www.edgecome.ning.com for EECHS staff/students).

You may find a greater degree of functionality with Google's blogger service.


Blogger allows you to publish Google Docs (Part of the Apps suite) to your blog with one click. In addition, Google's blogger can be linked to facebook and twitter to get your message out to as many people as you would like. 

Blogger also has Access Controls to restrict unwanted visitors to a blog.


An introduction tutorial can be found here:


http://www.blogger.com/tour_start.g

Blogs are reccomended by the NC New Schools Project as a way to integrate technology on a novice level to add meaning to Collaborative Group Work, Literacy Groups, Writing to Learn, Questioning, and Classroom Talk.

Need help integrating this technology? Feel free to contact your technology facilitator and/or the author.

The Blog is Back!

Hello EECHS,

Each of the resources I have sent regarding tech integration this Spring have been collected here:

http://tecfacnoob.blogspot.com.

I posted the Google docs directly to my blog with one click. Want to know how? Just contact me.


Brent