Enhanced English Teacher

Google Apps Email with Students:  This year my school district is using Google Apps for student email.  Google Apps ties all of the student email accounts together so that students can easily find one another.  It is like a big address book accessible by all students in the same Apps domain.  Why is this important?  For teachers who assign collaborative projects, it is extremely helpful when students can communicate with one another.  Using school email also teaches students that there is a difference between personal email and professional email, and the content of their school email should reflect a different tone and subject matter.  Being able to email is a skill that every student should acquire before they leave high school.  It always floors me when I ask a student to email me an attachment, and the student does not know how to do it.  At home, many students communicate with other teenagers through Facebook, not email, so they fail to learn how to use email, which places those students at a disadvantage in the “real world.”  I also like that our student email is accessible at home through a link on our school webpage.

Drawbacks to email:  In our district, only the students are tied together in Google apps.  Teachers have a separate email system.  I asked for and received a student email account, so my students email me through my student email address, but when students tell me they can’t find other teachers through their student email, I have to look up the teacher’s email for them.  It would be much easier if we were all tied together.

iGoogle Page in Google Apps:  In addition to email, Google Apps provides students with a scaled down iGoogle page.  Not all of the features on a traditional iGoogle page are available, which is a little frustrating, but students do have access to Google Docs, Google Calendar, and email all in one place.  You can see the image of our district Google Apps iGoogle page below:

Drawbacks to iGoogle: Google Bookmarks do not work on a Google Apps iGoogle page.  If you add the bookmark widget to the iGoogle page, it says “loading,” but it never actually loads.  I would like for my students to use Google Bookmarks in Google Apps so that everything is in one place.  Google Reader also does not work on the iGoogle page.  This could just be in our district because blogger is blocked, but I like for students to subscribe to blogs and understand RSS feed.  To get around this, my students actually have two iGoogle pages.  One that we use outside of Google Apps for bookmarks and reader, and the iGoogle page inside of Google Apps that we use for email and documents.  It would be nice to have it all in one place instead of two places.

Google Docs in Google Apps: My students use Google Docs inside of their Google Apps account.  Students are able to collaborate with anyone in our Google Apps domain.   In one class I teach, Read the Net, students collaborated and wrote a paper with students from a different block.  I paired two 2nd block students up with two 3rd block students.  In most cases, the students did not know each other.  The 2nd block pair started the Google Doc and then shared it through the Google Apps domain contacts with me and the 3rd block pair of students.  Students then worked together to arrange all of their thoughts and ideas into one paper to present.  It was not an easy task.  Students became frustrated with students in other blocks because of differences in opinions in what to include or because a group member was not doing his or her fair share.  I let the students work out their differences through email and revisions in the document.  The assignment provided students with a “real world” experience in which they realized the value and frustrations of working in a collaborative group using web 2.0 tools to create one product.  Google docs has a feature that allows collaborators to view revisions; therefore, teachers can look back and follow a group’s revision process and see what each group member contributes to a document.  Although this same assignment could be completed using Google docs outside of Google Apps, the teacher would have to collect each individual student’s email, which means more work for the teacher.  Google apps provides convenience and easy collaboration for projects and documents.

Drawbacks of using Google Docs within Google Apps: When students publish documents as webpages, only the  people in the Google App domain can view those documents.  It maintains privacy, but if your class is trying to share with the world, they can’t.  I am still working on trying to figure this out, and it maybe something that I am doing wrong with my class, so if you know a way around this, please let me know.

Google Calendar: I currently do not use the calendar feature because I write out all assignments on a wiki page, but Google Apps also provides a calendar that teachers can share with students.

Setting up Google Apps: If you are interested in setting up the educational version of Google Apps, a good place to start would be to read Google’s Top Ten Reasons for using Google Apps, or read the help section for Google Apps Education Edition.