GoogleApps

Tom Barrett talked to us about Google Apps. Tom's blog is at http://tbarrett.edublogs.org/

Here once again are the rough notes.

Google Docs part of suite of Google Apps.

Steve Collis showed this: http://www.nbcsgreenfingers.com/ created in Google Pages

Tom issued warning about iGoogle because Google Gadgets can be inapropriate

Other examples: Simon: Google Calendar http://vementoring.wikispaces.com/Events Joyce: Moodle Pre-Flight Checklist http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=d9ffsvk_0g98zfszz Tom: http://www.google.com/educators/p_apps.html http://tbarrett.edublogs.org/2008/06/02/creating-an-emotion-graph-using-google-forms/ http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dhn2vcv5_106c9fm8j Jane: http://mrslowesclass.googlepages.com/ Heleno: http://www.google.com/educators/posters.html

Took a look at chat in Google Presentation.Note that this is Flash and so text cannot be copied or saved. This is a form of backchannel. More info on backchannel here: http://tinyurl.com/4cjuhq

Google Forms - is tool in data handling toolkit. Associated with Google Spreadsheet

Tom talked about his India project: Students working together on India project with students from other school. Synchronous work on Presenation and Docs. Presentation perhaps not as good in sync. Tom and Joyce both emphasized the synchronicity of Docs. Different from wiki where only one user can edit at any one time. Basically user checks page out and back in. Not necessary in Google Docs.

There was some discussion about laptop trolleys which turned out to be bolted to the ground. And some people had laptops but no wireless. ASUS EEEs considered good but small screens limit what students can do.

Buck the system. Tom has organised purchases for his class and says you can learn a lot by brokering the deals - you have to really know what you're buying.