Google Apps for Education? Yes!

I’ve been touting the advantages of Google Docs* since I first used it in the spring of 2008. The main attraction back then was that I could easily collaborate with my graduate school classmates. We were sick of dealing with wikis where accidentally deleting someone else’s work or getting locked out of the page you needed to edit were common occurrences. Google Docs allowed us to all edit the same document at the same time. We could see what others were adding, pretty much as they added it. And, like a wiki, there was a history feature to keep track of who added what and when, and allow us to easily revert to an older version. We also liked the comments feature which allowed up to ask questions of each other or leave notes to ourselves. Perhaps best of all was that because of its web-based storage, we could get to the document from any computer (at home, school or library), no downloads required.

The features in 2008 were very limited and the only elements were  ‘documents’ and ‘spreadsheets’. I used Microsoft Office (or Apple iWork) when I needed sophisticated formatting, and I used other tools such as Voicethread for presentations.

The product has become much more robust and extensive over the 5+ years that I have been using it. Even features such as WordArt and slideshow animations that were sometimes handy NOT to have (if you work with kids you’ll understand why) are now included. As are lots of choices for templates, fonts, clipart etc.  I hardly ever find a reason to use Office or iWork.

The user community is HUGE (425 million in June 2012); bugs or glitches are reported quickly and generally resolved promptly. The product is still free, still runs in the browser without download, but now also works on phones, tablets and other mobile devices and (with free app) will store local copies of all your files so you can continue to edit without Internet access. (It will synch with the web-based version the next time you are connected).

I have gotten so acclimated to the Google Apps/Drive environment that Microsoft Office is starting to feel clunky. I forget to enable features such as ‘track history’ and ‘autosave’ because in Google Apps, they are always on.  I get frustrated that different versions of the Microsoft Office are not compatible with each other (even within my library) and that upgrades cost money (which we don’t have).  I hate that the students (and staff) have to re-initialize the software whenever they sit at a computer they haven’t used before and the process of saving to the active directory (which is only accessible within the school environment anyway) is not intuitive and mistakes are common (files end up on the local disk instead).

Google Apps handles collaboration MUCH better than our current setup with Microsoft Word. Not only does Google Apps allow multiple people to edit the same document at the same time, but it also has features such as chat and comments to help collaborators communicate with each other AND it always keeps track of who added what and when. This last feature is very important in middle school.  Last year (prior to Google apps implementation) I asked students to save their files into my “Collaborate” folder so that other students could view them. Unfortunately, this also meant that other students could edit them... and some did. Although this provided a good opportunity to discuss “Digital Citizenship”, the problem persisted because there was no way to see WHO added the comments. In a Google Apps environment, only users logged into our school’s custom domain will be able to edit shared files and all editors will be able to see who added what. (administrators will also be able to view the activity of individual students).

Google Apps includes products beyond what is in the Microsoft Office package. There are tools for creating blogs, websites, slideshows, videos, calendars, mail, etc. Google documents are also seamlessly integrated into the third party applications that we use, such as Noodle Tools.  

I often use Google “Sites” to organize information from many different aspects of my life and it has really changed the way I run my ‘classroom’. I have been describing it as an incredibly easy way to create websites, but the Google description: “Shared workspaces for classes, faculties and clubs” is perhaps even more apt. It is definitely worthy of its own blog post. (coming soon?)

So, YES!  I am happy that our school is jumping on the “Google Apps for Education” bandwagon this year... and it is not just because I (a librarian) like the company’s Vision:

“Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”

If you need more convincing, check out:  Benefits of Google Apps for Education

If you are a Technology Administrator, take a look at the new Change Management Guide

This Blog post is part of a summer class assignment in which we (the students) need to demonstrate at least some proficiency with certain aspects of Google Drive/Doc/Apps.

Here are my examples:

Document - Online newsletter article about the Massachusetts Children’s Book Award

Audience - primarily parents

Form - Google Expertise Survey (note: feel free to fill it out. This is not the actual copy I will use)

Audience - BMS staff and students

Presentation - Introduction to Google Apps

Audience - BMS staff and students

Collaborative Presentation - Flipped Classroom

Audience - teachers

Drawing 1 -  Blanchard Library Door Sign

Drawing 2 - Book Return Sign

Audience: students

*A note on names: Recently, “Google Docs” was rebranded as “Google Drive”. “Google Apps” is basically the same thing, but includes a whole bunch of other Google applications and (importantly for K-12 education) hands control of the environment to local administrators who can customize the product to suit their community’s needs.