Google Apps

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Permalink Reply by Michael Misovec on July 14, 2007 at 6:03pm

We use JSPWiki. IBM and other "fortune 500" companies are using the same type of wiki. Teachers may use the public services education communities secure wiki or migrate and download the Wiki and contents to their own school server for wide spread collaboration organized by geographic areas. There are also tools and resources that may be simply copied and pasted into your own pages. Members may customize dynamic left menus for any of their pages.
A drawing whiteboard with linking is also available and Google App plugins are also being used within teacher wiki pages. There are over 12000 education and wiki page resources.

What is a Wiki?

http://helpingstudents.org/JSPWiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Wikis

Instructional Stratagies and Design Wiki Project example:

http://helpingstudents.org/JSPWiki/Wiki.jsp?page=BradleyUniversityE...

Demonstrates version control system for all page changes


http://helpingstudents.org/JSPWiki/PageInfo.jsp?page=BradleyUnivers...
http://helpingstudents.org/JSPWiki/Wiki.jsp?page=RecentChanges

Wiki Whiteboard

http://helpingstudents.org/JSPWiki/

Parent Information Resources

http://helpingstudents.org/JSPWiki/Wiki.jsp?page=Parents

A-Z College Links and resources Wikis

http://helpingstudents.org/JSPWiki/Wiki.jsp?page=CollegeWikis

Our process requires teachers and teacher's members only and we verify member backgrounds.

Teachers welcome,
Michael Misovec
President and Program Administrator
HelpingStudents.org

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Permalink Reply by Sylvia Martinez on July 14, 2007 at 6:58pm

Hi all,
Part of what's interesting is realizing that Google apps are a moving target. Google just released a new interface for Google apps that uses a folder metaphor, which solves some of the organization problems seen before. I just posted about that in my blog.

Google is slowly incorporating interesting features that make it worth keeping an eye on, at the very least. The real time "LOOKUP" function in their spreadsheet looks to me like the first step in completely revolutionizing data representations. There is a link in this same post to a "sandbox" I created if anyone wants to see it in action.

PS Have you heard that documents created in the new Vista version of Word can't be opened with older versions of Word? Makes Google apps look pretty good, eh?

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Permalink Reply by indigo196 on December 19, 2007 at 10:54am

Sylvia:

Documents created in Office 2007 can be opened in older versions of Office. You can either save the document out to the older format or download and install an add-on to the older version of office that enabled opening the newer documents.

Compatibility Pack

In my case I was able to incorporate the compatibility pack in our WSUS server so it was automatically pushed out to all of our district Windows based computers.

I think I still prefer OpenOffice to Google Apps, but it is mostly because I would prefer to have ownership of the documents.

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Permalink Reply by Mitch Fowler on July 15, 2007 at 11:08am

Hey Shawn,
Last March I attended a session with Google guru Patrick Crispin and was amazed at the amount of stuff that Google allows you to do. As far as Google Apps is concerned, my district technology committee used Google docs to collaborate on a new district AUP. Our technology coordinator e-mailed the members the document and all were allowed access to edit and contribute. I was amazed at the ease of editing as well as the log of changes. As for a classroom use, I haven't come up with too much yet as I teach 5th grade. However, I have and will be recommending the apps feature to my students' parents due to the fact that some don't have all of the Word features.

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Permalink Reply by Sharon Betts on July 15, 2007 at 6:31pm

I am just debating on moving our district website to Drupal. I believe an api was just released that would make google apps and drupal single login. Now, this has potential.

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Permalink Reply by kernkelley on July 15, 2007 at 8:40pm

We've used Google Apps in our district to conduct online courses. The docs, spreadsheets, blogs, forums, webpages, etc, with great success. Don't forget too the chat feature. I've found that many students are more comfortable in the medium of chat than in the classroom speaking in front of the class. To the point where we've asked the students to paste all pertinent chats into their blogs to share with the remaining class.

Another aspect of the Google Apps when doing Pro Dev I can get teachers one login that will give them access to make, a blog, wiki, webpage, forum, homepage, calendar, etc, etc. There are probably better examples of each individual service out there (Like Wordpress instead of Blogger) but for staff who really don't want 10 more logins and passwords, this is a great start.

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Permalink Reply by SusanTsairi on July 15, 2007 at 9:23pm

have google finally made the jotspot wiki live?

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Permalink Reply by Alice Mercer on July 16, 2007 at 8:21pm

Okay, I've started a new discussion. I'd like to start a "sandbox" network to try out and crash test setting one of these up for students. Here is my post on the subject: http://classroom20.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=649749%3ATopic%3A33910

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Permalink Reply by indigo196 on December 19, 2007 at 10:56am

I worry about bandwidth if my district moved to Google Apps, but need to research that concern. If Google would allow districts to host their own Google Apps servers that issue would be mitigated. Also I am curious as to the 'legal' ownership of the files produced and the ability of the administration to 'review' files if there is a suspicion of illegal activities.

When I do a little research on the subject:

Education Edition

* Same as Premier Edition except for:
* Free for "accredited not-for-profit K-12 schools, colleges, and universities"
* No uptime guarantee
* No integrated Postini services
* Google may serve ads to accounts not associated with enrolled students, non-profit staff or volunteers [3]
* Same storage space as regular gmail.com accounts (5.5GB as of December 19, 2007)

I worry about the fact that google may serve ads -- it looks like to faculty and administrators. Add to that the fact that Google does not offer an uptime guarantee and schools using these tools will need to have a backup plan should the apps be down.

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