Google Apps Email

This week, the Technology Department began migrating faculty and staff email accounts over to our new email system, Google Apps Email- a part of Google Apps for Education.  For those of you who use Microsoft Outlook and Entourage, you’ll see very few changes to your email experience.  Those of you who access email over the web, however, are going to notice some drastic, and wonderful, changes.

Here’s a brief list of some of the major differences you can expect:

1. No more cleaning out your inbox! Whereas under our old email system, each user was only granted 100MB of space (which was easily overloaded by attachments like pictures, PowerPoint presentations, and PDFs), each user will have a whopping 7GB of space under Google Apps Email (that 70x more space!).  This will virtually eliminate the need for you to periodically delete email from your inbox, sent mail, and trash folders.  This also means no more need to archive!
2. Search for messages! With the Exchange web interface, there was no way to search your email for messages by keyword, sender, or addressees.  Google, being a search engine above anything else, has a fantastic search feature built into their email interface.  This makes it very easy to search for hard-to-find messages.
3. Conversations.  Instead of just providing you with a chronological list of each single email message, Google Apps Email groups your messages into “conversations”.  By replying to a message, you initiate a “conversation”, which then becomes a group of all the subsequent replies to that original message.  This way, it’s much easier to follow the progression of a “conversation” in your email, with all of the replied messages located in one place.

Many of the new features will be very beneficial, but just like everything else, it will take a little getting used to.  Overall, we think this will be a smooth process, as Google Apps Email functions on a much friendlier, more intuitive level than our old Exchange system.  In the meantime, take a look at our guide to Getting Started with Google Apps Email.  The Technology Department will be contacting you and your department to schedule an appointment to migrate your accounts.

As always, feel free to call Nick at x254 if you have any questions, or would like to sit down for a one-on-one consultation.

An Example of Google Apps Integration (Part 2)

In the last post, I described how the Information Processing courses I was covering this fall used Google Sites to create ePortfolios.  At the end of the project, the students had each created an ePortfolio based on some specific technical requirements, and some loosely defined general ones (you can view the entire assignment here).  A large part of technical literacy comes from learning to become facile with technology – knowing which buttons to click to achieve some desired effect, for instance – so providing the students with a few basic instructions and technical requirements was a necessary part of the overall lesson.  But my pedagogical sensibilities are that learning technologies need to be flexible – they should give the learner autonomy to create artifacts that endow a sense of identity and ownership, and have a low-threshold for attaining a basic skill level.  They should also be robust enough for learners to explore and create in a number of different ways.  I really wanted the students to gain an understanding for basic website development, but also to become confident enough with the technology (Google Sites) to explore some of its extra features.  Computers can be very insular, and being an individualized assignment, I thought a good way for students to access some of these goals would be to have them do a peer review each others’ websites, so I randomly assigned each student five or six ePortfolios to review, using a rubric I modified as a guide.

Now, at roughly 18 students per class, each student submitting five reviews, that meant I could expect… 4 x 18 x 5 = 360 submissions for one assignment!  Then, if I gave each review a modest 5 minutes of my own viewing and feedback, to make sure that the students’ comments were fair, in line with the rubric, and appropriate to forward to the class, I could expect to spend… 360 x 5 = 1800 minutes checking, grading, and commenting.  That’s 30 hours!  Goodbye weekend, right?

I had been working with Diane Carey on a project using Google Forms to aggregate student survey data.  Google Forms allows you to create a number of different style survey questions (paragraph, scale, multiple choice, etc.).  It then collects the responses and organizes the data neatly by username and date/time.  Google Forms can also be embedded into a website (such as a Google Site), which allowed us to post the form in a public location, where the data was inaccessible to the students.  I took this idea and created a new Google Form (you can view it here) based on the rubric I gave the students for their peer reviews.  I embedded the form into a new Google Site, and gave the students the URL for the site.  The process worked like this: students would go to one of the ePortfolios they were assigned to review, open up the rubric in a new browser window, and follow the review criteria lined out in the rubric.  At the bottom of the form, I left room for students to provide feedback and comments, and suggest an overall grade for the ePortfolio.  I gave the students one and a half classroom sessions to complete their assigned reviews.  In the meantime, I could watch the review results rolling into my Google Form.  I could sort the data by the names of the reviewer and reviewee, by the rubric criteria, by overall grade, etc.  At the end, I had 360 rows of data all collected into one location.  I could see how many reviews each student completed, and view their comments and feedback simultaneously.  What a boon!  The students not only got the chance to view each others’ sites and consider the different elements of the rubric, but because I had all of their data in one location, I was able to give them formative feedback in a much more timely manner.  All in all, a 30-hour workload was reduced to roughly five hours!  I was shocked (and very very pleased).  Saving so much time meant that I could take more time to carefully plan the next week’s lessons, and think of other ways to have the students re-visit the main ideas of the ePortfolio project.

An Example of Google Apps Integration (Part 1)

Recently, I’ve used Google Apps as a means for a number of instructional ends.  After I begin covering several classes about a month ago, I was quickly reminded of how rapidly grading work can build up, and I found myself wishing there was a more efficient way of accessing students’ assignments, adding my comments/corrections to their work, and finally, recording grades in an organized format.  I’ve always felt overwhelmed (and a little guilty) by all of the paper that gets used when 70+ students turn in their multi-page assignments, so I knew I wanted to keep things as electronic as possible, while still being able to give the students the formative feedback they would need to be able to keep abreast of the concepts in class.  Enter Google Docs.

I’ve mentioned before how Google Docs can be used for written assignments in class, and while I find it far easier to have students share their work with me online, I get just about as overwhelmed with all the email notifications Google Docs sends out when a student invites me to view a document.  Mind you, this wouldn’t be such an issue with a smaller class, but when my email inbox gets flooded on a daily basis, I tend to run away screaming.

Thankfully, there is a setting in Google Docs to share a document “without sending an invitation”, but then there’s still the issue of organizing one’s Google Docs dashboard, which quickly begins to look like a flooded email inbox once students begin submitting multiple assignments.  I took a tip from Mark McManmon, and began organizing all of my students’ assignments into folders (labeled by Block and assignment title), then “hiding” the documents from my Google Docs items list.  Much nicer, but still, there had to be a way to make this whole process less cumbersome.

I had been discussing with Maryann Muhilly about using Google Sites to create ePortfolios, and decided to do a little experiment for the next assignment – I would have my students create their own “drop boxes” using Google Sites.  This would not only give the students a place where they could showcase and keep an archive of their own coursework, it would put the responsibility on the students to post their assignments, and keep their work organized.  It would also mean less clutter in my inbox, and no longer having to guess which assignment belonged to whom!

If you haven’t used Google Sites, you may be surprised at how easy it is to set up a site, upload files to it, and share your site with friends/colleagues.  I had my students create their own Information Processing pages using the File Cabinet template, and upload two types of work to their pages – Excel spreadsheets and Google spreadsheets.

The main difference between the two formats is that while more versatile, in order to access an Excel spreadsheet, it needs to be downloaded.  With Google Docs, students can simply “link” to their Google spreadsheets.  This means less clicking, less waiting, and less mess on my desktop.  The experiment worked great.  In the next post, I’ll describe another experiment using Google forms to aggregate survey data and organize my grades…

Getting Started with Google Presentations

Google Presentations are sort of a “quick and dirty” alternative to using more sophisticated presentation software programs like PowerPoint and Keynote.  Still, this slimmed-down approach serves to benefit anyone who wants to focus on content, not on clip art, animations, or slide transitions.  Just like any Google Doc, Google Presentations are accessible, can be shared easily, and edited by groups of people simultaneously.

One very nice feature of Google Presentations, is that you can upload previously-created presentations from PowerPoint (.ppt and .pps formats) and edit them in Google Presentations.

For more information on using Google Presentations, take a look at our handout Getting Started with Google Presentations.

Podcasting & Education

So What Does Podcasting Have to Do with Education?

Besides being a means for delivering content to your students, podcasts are a great way of getting your students to create content.  Equipped with a microphone and a computer, your students can create audio presentations, record essays, create personal narratives, recite poetry, respond to ethics debates, report on current events or editorialize on topical discussions – and that’s just with audio!  Over the past few years, instructors in both higher ed and at the high school level have begun adopting podcasting to expand their repertoires of assessment.  Teachers incorporate writing into the process by having students write and revise scripts of material before its recorded and edited – a process that has become especially popular for instructors of foreign languages.  Instructors of art and social science have students respond to historic artifacts through podcasting – a process by which students learn to create their own historical artifacts.  In the natural sciences, students conduct reports on scientific phenomena and discuss the ethics behind the research.  The commonality amongst all of these is simple: it’s all student created.  And because the final product is a digital file, it can be posted online to the portal or EdLine, or shared on a Google Site.  Students can download and listen to each others’ work, critique what they hear, and discuss their thoughts in class.

What Do I Need to Do It?

Podcasting is relatively simple.  All it requires is a recording device and a computer.  Editing is optional (depending on the quality of the take), and the best part is, it can be done for free on any computer, Windows or Mac.  Every computer lab on campus is equipped with audio recording software, and several of the rooms have USB headphones, which can be used for recording.  Windows users can download Audacity, a free audio recording and editing program with great versitility.  Mac users can use GarageBand, which has a cool graphical interface and makes recording and editing a snap.  Both programs can export audio in mp3 format.

If you’d like to learn more about podcasting, let us know!  Nick Wilson, the school’s Technology Integration Specialist, will be glad to sit down with you at your convenience to discuss the details, show you how to create your own podcast, and even come into your class to help your students create their own podcasts.

Image credit: Colleen AF Venable’s Flickr Photostream, used under a Creative Commons license

Google Docs for Assignments

Several instructors have approached me about using Google Docs for assignments this year. The process is very easy, and it greatly reduces paper and waste costs. Using Google Docs, you can comment, annotate, and contribute to students’ documents, and best yet, your feedback is instantaneous. I’ve uploaded a brief tutorial handout on how to use Google Docs for written assignments, which you can access on the St. John’s Prep Google Docs page (http://gae.stjohnsprep.org).

How to Fix that Annoying PDF Error

Many Windows users (and a few of you Mac users out there) have mentioned not being able to open PDFs either through email or from web pages, citing an error message from Adobe (I’m sure many of you know what I’m talking about).  This issue seems to arise when people are using Internet Explorer or when logged into their SJP email accounts via the Outlook Web Access (OWA) web site.  Rest assured; there is a simple fix, folks. Here’s what to do:

1. Open Adobe Acrobat Professional
2. In the Edit menu, select Preferences…
3. Under Categories: select Internet
4. Uncheck Display PDF in browser
5. Click OK
6. Quit Adobe Acrobat Professional
   

If you have Adobe Reader installed on your computer, you will have to go through the same process with that program (the steps are exactly the same).

Embed Video on Your Portal

Since the beginning of the school year, I’ve had several conversations with instructors regarding how to share video through EdLine and the Portal. As an instructor with administrator access to your own course site, it’s rather simple to embed video right on your own page. I edited a snipped out of the Mass of the Holy Spirit from Sept. 16, showing the overwhelming ovation the school gave Jared Coppola via our web stream, posted the snippet to Vimeo (on a private, password-protected page), and grabbed the embed code right from the Vimeo video viewer. I then created a new Bulletin post, and used the Portal’s HTML tool to paste in the Vimeo code.

Putting video like this in a bulletin or discussion post is a great way to share quick-reference items with your students. If you want students to be able to access your videos easily throughout the semester, however, I would suggest posting them to the Resources section of your course site.

Your students can also set up their own Vimeo accounts and share videos with you and your class securely. Videos can be set to “Private” and protected with a password, disabling the public from accessing any material. Students can then choose to share their videos with other Vimeo users, or enter in the email address of anyone they would like to grant access to view a particular video.