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Posts Tagged ‘googleapps’

Google apps in Elementary

September 14th, 2008

As our school rolls out gmail accounts for all students, I am impressed daily with what can be done with google apps. Everytime I head to my account I am trying some of the products on offer. Let’s start with the products that will help staff…. The calendar goes without saying, but as students start using the applications and if we can get all staff using it….wow! At the moment I rally can’t live without the calendar. Not only does it provide for me at school, running our self contained accommodation back in Australia and being able to communicate with our manager Moira and the cleaner by all of us viewing each others entries is powerful. To have grade levels synced this way is top of my priority list.

Next Picassa3, and the ease at which you can manage your photo albums then send to the web….THEN….create slideshows for your blog, and have parents download what they want???!!!! Wow. So often amazing photos are taken only to be treated the same way I treat my freezer…..throw food in there and never get it out. This way staff upload photos and parents have a home to go to…somewhere to visit regularly to find that perfect snap of their child. Flicker was good but as a tool in the classroom Picassa wins hands down….not to mention geotagging and sending your images to google Earth. staff such as Todd Denton, Kimbra Power, Sarah Toa, and our principal….with a little help….Mr Dennis Bissmeyer are all using Picasa.

Google docs and the collaborative nature of this application will no doubt become a staple in middle and high school, especially with the teacher having the ability to set groups, track changes and contributions made, then add comments on the document for all members of the group to see!!! I love it.

I see knols, perhaps being used in Elementary especially for science and social classes.

I am trying to love Google reader but it just doesn’t do it for me…Tim Munnerlyn swears by it, but I am a netvibes person through and through…I am trying though!

With wikis and chat search engines for every topic you can think of it really is your one stop shop…..I can hear the grumblings of…not another sign up form…..but that won’t last long as we roll out Picasa then google docs……So sign up for an account if you don’t have one………and then as google says….Try something new. As a man I used to know would say……I’m excited!

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