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.