Education implications: Google updates

Google has yet again updated the Google Apps platform to give administrators more control. That's great news for schools using Google Apps for Education.

You can now grant access to student contact information to school nurses, secretaries or anyone else who may need to see or edit contact information but don't need access to calendars, docs or anything else. These staff members will need to have a Google Apps email account under your School's domain name before they can see those contacts.

Contact information related to non-students can be excluded from this list in order to protect privacy. The admin simply reassigns non-students to a folder other than "My Contacts". These names can be put into a category like "Teachers" or something similar.

Once the Google Apps administrator sets up Contacts delegation, an email is sent to the other person with the following instructions:

1. Go to Google Contacts.
2. In the left navigation, click the Delegated Contacts group.
3. Under Delegated Contacts, view the names of users who have delegated their contacts to you.
4. Click on the user’s name to enter their My Contacts group with full edit access.

The information I am displaying below is a modified version of the original message emailed by Google.

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New feature: Contacts delegation Posted: 26 Apr 2012 11:44 AM PDT Contacts delegation allows a Google apps administrator to delegate full access to the contacts in their “My Contacts” group without granting access to email or anything else. Contacts delegation can only be granted to users within your Google Apps domain.  You may delegate your contacts to no more than 25 other users at the same time.  Delegation allows the sharing of the entire “My Contacts” list only. You cannot delegate a subset of your “My Contacts” or delegate contacts not in your “My Contacts.”  How to access what's new: - Navigate to www.google.com/contacts - The "More" menu now has a "Manage delegation settings" option For more information: http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&topic=20016&answer=2590392 whatsnew.googleapps.com Get these product update alerts by email

Google calendars

Google calendars is a great way to manage events. It makes sharing and editing as easy as making a few clicks. In some instances, you may need to actually transfer calendar information from one account to another. For instance, I may be closing an old account, but still want to save the event information stored there. This guide describes how to do such a transfer.

 

Content knowledge and digital literacy

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While at supper with friends, someone asked me to look over some medical claims they found online. A quick glance at the material revealed it to be a fraud. The article mentioned softening the patient's cell walls. Humans don't have cell walls, just membranes. Had my friend known this basic biological fact, she could have rejected the information out of hand.  She’s not alone, though. People tend to trust the first few Google hits rather than reading what is there and judging accordingly.

The fact that we can learn anything, anywhere and at any time we please has convinced quite a few people that content knowledge is a silly goal to pursue. The idea is that since mobile devices and the internet gives us unfettered access to information, there should be no reason to "waste" time teaching students any basic content knowledge.  Such opinions are dangerously mistaken. After all, electronics run out of power, loose connection and (gasp) get lost. More importantly, students will be exposed to large amounts of questionable material online. Without the internal resources to double check validity, anyone can be led to believe scams which could be costly indeed.

The trick is to use triangulation. This is a process of using three sources to figure out the accuracy of information. When researching online, the three sources are as follows:

1. You- Consider how comfortable you feel about the article or claim. Does it feel right? If there are warning bells going off in your head, pay attention.
2. The Internet
3. A trusted expert- This could be a teacher, doctor or encyclopedia. It could also be your background education. The important thing is to look to an outside authority. Which agrees more with the authority... you or the internet?

Teachers of course have limited time. We struggle to strike a balance between teaching content knowledge and thinking skills. The triangulation method is a great way to find some of that balance. Not only will students have a great critical thinking tool, but they’ll also have additional motivation to learn content. When students ask “Why do we have to know this?” you can always tell them that it will help them avoid being ripped off by liars and idiots.

Twitter, teaching and what is learned

Twitter is a funny animal. Many school districts block its use due to the serious risks that it poses. However, if your district is willing to give it a try, Twitter is really worth using. There are important skills students can learn from using Twitter in the classroom. I got most of these ideas from Matt Levinson's excellent post on ways in which parents can teach kids about the internet.   

1. Digital media is social. Students really need to understand that they are interacting with others every time they get online. It’s also vital for them to deeply believe the phrase “If you don’t want it on the internet, don’t put it on the internet”. That is, everything that goes online, even for an hour or two, will likely stay online for years to come.
2. Appropriate language and sharing apply to the online world. Most students know when and how to speak in public. They don’t reveal personal information and they try not to look foolish by using incorrect english.  The same must apply online.
3. The internet is a PUBLIC space. When you are using Twitter with your students, there are no private notes. The whole world can see what they write including principals, other teachers and yes, perfect strangers. But this is true of the internet as a whole. The sooner students internalize this fact the better.
4. Mistakes are great learning opportunities. Everyone will see when a student makes a mistake. They’ll also see when YOU make a mistake. This is a great opportunity to explain how mistakes lead to better learning.  

Some teachers won’t want to use class time to teach digital citizenship and that’s fine. Even if you really just want the students to learn the course content, there are good reasons to start using Twitter. For one, you’ll increase engagement. Twitter is easy to use and students get almost instant recognition for what they have to say. You’ll also have a chance to use social learning in the classroom. For a great list of ideas on how to use Twitter to teach a variety of topics check out this post.

Once you’ve decided that this platform works well for you and your class, you can start getting a bit more sophisticated with the technology. First, you could add a custom background to your page, personalizing it for your class. You can regularly update it based on the unit you’re studying. If you’d like you can even add unit goals and objectives which often look great to administrators. Don’t forget about your profile, either. With 160 characters, you can provide a solid course description or list some simple classroom rules. Finally, try to get parents involved. Let them know what students are saying (or failing to say) online. Remember that this is a public space and you’re letting students use their public voice. The more you can involve parents in this process, the more your students will get out of it.

Now, those of you out there already using Twitter on a regular basis may want to correct me on some of my claims or ideas. Some of you still think that Twitter (and other social media) is so inherently dangerous that it should be kept out of students hands all together. Please leave a comment.

Language Arts and the Internet

There are specific differences between traditional language arts and the reading/ writing that is done for the internet. Since the amount and variety of online materials is exploding, it's important to understand some of those differences.

1) Hyperlinks

This is perhaps the most significant difference between online and offline writing. In simplest terms, a hyperlink is something you can click on in order to bring you somewhere else. It could be a word, a paragraph, a picture or even just an area on a web page. It can bring you to a different part of the page or another website. A hyperlink can also tell your computer to start downloading a file or program. (Be careful with this!)

For students to use hyperlinked writing, they have to understand the broader idea of interconnection. Writing inherently contains words and phrases that refer to other ideas and other writing. Hyperlinks are a way to make those connections explicit. It is similar to the process of citation, but is more interactive and doesn’t interfere with the flow of reading.

2) Copy, Paste ( C,  V on Mac or Control-C, Control-V on PC)

Copying is as old as writing itself. However, until the advent of the copy/paste function in word processors, it has never been so effortless. Students don’t have to read everything they copy anymore. The intellectual theft doesn’t even result in the student looking at the material and (hopefully) absorbing some of it on accident. Worse yet, it confounds plagiarism issues. I’ve heard many students honestly state they believe they can just change a few words in a copied sentence and not worry about citations. These are dangers that need to be discussed carefully with students. Simply saying “don’t copy” is about as effective as saying “don’t cheat”.

Please don’t misunderstand me. Copy/paste is an important part of the editing process. Students just need guidance in using this important tool.

3) Embedding

Illustrations are common in writing. A simple, thoughtful sketch can help to illustrate a subtle idea. Online, these illustrations can be still pictures, videos or audio segments. This can be a complex process since it involves copyright, design principles and technical skills to pull off. The skills are valuable, though and worth teaching.

4) Social

While privacy and reputation issues are vitally important, I want to focus on how social networks affect the writing process. In most cases, these sites involve writing small, sensible and frequent notes. These mediums can help students understand the concept and importance of summary. Since there isn’t much room, students have write what is most important and leave the rest behind. This can serve as a good tie-in to quality note taking.

5) Mobile

Smartphones and tablets are changing the way a lot of the world works. That includes the way we write. Please don’t dismiss them as portable personal entertainment. These are powerful business tools and will become increasingly important to your students. (Check out the new app Snapguide.) One important issue is the small size of the screen. While text can be resized pretty easily, be careful with the pictures and diagrams.

Smartphones are not only used to consume content but to create it. Are your students able to put together a meaningful, coherent and professional message on a smartphone? Good writing is hard to produce using just your thumb especially for students who are used to using cryptic text shorthand. Professionals text important information to one another. Students need to learn how text well.

While this is certainly not a comprehensive list, I trust that it has provided you with a starting point. I would love to hear of other ways that writing online differs from its offline corollary.

Navel gazing. Compliments of Google

Gulliver's Travels was one of the finest pieces of literary work. Not only was it  fantastically creative, it told us profound things about the world. Many parts of that book still apply to situations we have today, although perhaps in surprising ways. Take the Laputians for example. These were brilliant people that were so wrapped up in their own thoughts that they required servants to remind them to speak or to listen.  I find this fascinating since this means that the servant now decides what his master will be exposed to. The servant choses when something is "interesting" or "worth while".

Our online lives resemble those of the Laputians. We too have servants who decide when information is important or relavent to us. They come in the vise of personal ads and personalized search. Don't get me wrong- personalization can be great. After all, if you type in "china" wouldn't it be great if the search engine knew whether you were talking about dishes or a country? Consider the all the advertisement we see as well. I'd rather see ads for stuff I like rather than junk I really don't care about. The problem comes when we are filtered from seeing discenting ideas. Our minds become small and we learn less.

The internet is a sea of information. Much of it agrees with our preconceived notions but just as much is challenging and therefor illuminating. Confirmation bias (our knack for cherry picking facts to fit our beliefs) is hard enough to deal with as it is. If these digital servants are filtering out uncomfortable bits of information, my bias grows worse.

To get around the filters and broaden your search results, you may want to try one or more of the following suggestions.

1) Delete your account.

You could go ahead and start a fresh digital life. Get rid of Facebook, Google and Pinterest. Start brand new accounts or go without those services all together. Extreme, but it’ll work. Mostly. Google still may be filtering based on the machine you use.

2) Use the library.

a) Get onto the public machines. Like I said, Google may filter results based on the particular computer you use. Since so many more people use these machines, chances are higher your results will be far more “natural”.

b) Don’t sign in to Google. They know it’s you and what you look at. They even read your emails. Well... not exactly. The algorithm looks for common phrases and keywords. Still, Google will use what it knows about you to serve up "relevant" content.

3) Toss your cookies.

Make sure you regularly go in and delete cookies. Keep in mind that you’ll have to sign back in to your websites if the cookies are gone. So be careful.

4) Use a different browser

Most computers have at least two browsers on them. Find the one you normally don’t use and wipe it clean. Delete the history and the cookies, clear the cache, remove all the Autofill information, and remove all the website data. Go whole hog. Then use that browser to do your searching.

5) Go incognito

Most browsers allow you to open an “incognito window”. This means that the browser won’t remember anything about the website you just visited. No history is stored, no cookies remain. The websites may remember you, but as far as your computer is concerned, it never happened.  Google also (supposedly) ignores these windows.

6) Set your location to “United States”

Unfortunately, Google is always going to give you local results. To get around this (kind of), you can set your location to a country. I use “United States” to get the broadest results possible.

So, remember the Laputians? They were all caught up in their own thoughts; seeing and hearing the pieces of the world their servants found relevant. Jonathan Swift makes them out to be fools in the end. Lets do what we can to make sure that Google doesn’t make fools of us.

Space for learning

One of the great things about word processors is the ability to manipulate documents in any way you see fit. Whichever program you use, you should be aware of the importance of blank space. Emptiness is not the same thing as "nothing". If you're purposeful about the way you use emptiness, it will work to promote learning in your students. Here are several ways blank space can help your students in the learning process.

1) Chunking information-

Emptiness takes up real estate which means less information can fit on a single page. You’ll be forced to put only the most important items there.  A handout ought to contain all the relevant material for a lesson and leave out all the fluff. This way, students can focus more easily on what matters.

2) Focus-

Blank space will guide students’ eyes to the right spot. Too many items on a sheet of paper confuses the reader. Grouping pictures and text boxes to one side not only makes your handout visually appealing, but also provides space for students to write in.

3) Note space-

As I just mentioned, kids need a place to write down important information. As you know, actively engaging with a handout is going to lead to greater understanding and retention than passively reading it. Emptiness also provides the space to jot down clarifications and questions they may have.

4) Interest-

Beauty isn’t your first aim. However, if something is more appealing, it becomes more interesting which in turn makes material more memorable. That in turn improves learning. Consider using white space to add asymmetry, depth and perspective to your materials.

The old adage that “less is more” still holds true. Try to include a bit more white space in your handouts and see what the results are. Please let me know if you see any improvements!

Take note...

Tablets are taking the academic world by storm. They're light, compact and extremely multifunctional. They also do things differently than a laptop. One of the really interesting areas tablets are being used is as a notebook.

There are dozens of note-taking apps out there, each with it's particular pluses and minuses. I'm just going to touch on a few that I find particularly interesting.

1) PDF editors- iAnnotate PDF, PDF Notes, PDFpen, PDF Expert

These are apps which allow you to take notes on what you read. My professors would always tell me that in order to learn from a textbook, you really have to interact with it by underlining and writing in the margins. That's exactly what these apps allow you to do. By providing digital highlighters, pens and sticky notes, textbooks can be marked up in endless ways. Latter, the annotations can just as easily be erased.

2) Typing, sharing notes- Google docs, Microsoft Office Live, Evernote, Notability

These are all great options for typing and saving notes in class. The first three are actually just designed to save and share text. Notability really stands out though. At ten bucks, it gives you a lot more functionality like syncing your notes to audio recordings. This can be a lifesaver if you’re are in a fast-paced lecture. It also lets you draw in your notes- another great feature.

3) Document scanners- Camscanner, Photo to PDF, DocScanner

Having the ability to turn a picture into a PDF can come in quite handy. On the fly, you can turn any document into a PDF which you can then mark up or email to someone. Keep in mind that these would be best used in a pinch. Scanners and copy machines like Riso do a much better job of scanning your important papers.  

Like so much of what we've seen so far, tablets are providing students with options they've never had before. These are just a few of the ways tablets can (but just as often do not) outshine laptops. Please let me know if I've missed something important here. I'd love to get your feedback.

Digital disease

People get sick by doing one of the following things:
1) A lot of interaction with the public.
2) Poor hygiene.
3) Taking in (eating or drinking) something that's infected.
4) Doing things they frankly shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Computers get viruses, worms and trojans for the same reasons.  
1) A lot of interaction with the public.

Social networking is great. And a lot of people friend, follow or add people to their circles that they don’t know in real life. That can be just fine. You should be aware of the risks, though. The more strangers you network with, the more likely it is (intentional or not) that they could send something harmful your way.

2) Poor hygiene.

No need to wash your laptop. Instead, clean it out with a good piece of antivirus software. Norton is popular but there are many others including Sophos and Vipre. If you don’t have these installed and running, you’re just asking for trouble.

3) Taking in something that's infected.

Computers take in programs when you click on something. Whether you’re installing a program that you’ve purchased yourself or you’ve opened an infected email, clicking is the way to get things into your computer. Here’s the thing.; if something looks “wrong” don’t click it. Here are a few examples of things that look “wrong”:

1) Personal emails from strangers.

2) Emails from people you know, but who never send you those kinds of things.

3) Hyperlinks with misspelled werds.

4) Emails from your bank that don’t contain your name.

4) Doing things they frankly shouldn't be doing in the first place.

Elicit or adult websites are poplar. Some accounts say that 25% of all traffic online is for inappropriate material. There are a lot of things wrong with these sites, but one that may surprise people is the amount of malware that comes with the package. Nothing is for free. Either you’ll be exposed to ads or the site will charge you money. In the case of improper webpages, the cost is often an infection by a worm or virus.

So stay safe out there. Keep yourselves and your computers healthy!

Teachers, stay safe.

There has been an awful lot posted online about how to keep students safe on the Internet. However, I haven't run into very much focusing on teacher safety. Perhaps we tend to think that, as adults we're savvy enough to avoid online blunders. I thought that about myself until I started doing some research. The following list is by no means comprehensive, but it's a pretty good starting point. Please keep these tips in mind whenever getting on the Internet.

1) People lie.

Ya, I know this one is pretty obvious. Be honest, though. Have you ever forgotten a key piece of information for your class and needed to look it up really quickly? The shape of a molecule? An important date? The difference between affect and effect? Be especially careful when you’re in a rush!

2) Plagiarism sets a bad example.*

Forget about the legal ramifications of plagiarism. OK … just for a second forget about it. Have you ever gone online looking for a picture to use for your PowerPoint? Ever cite your sources? Have you ever copy and pasted quiz questions you’ve found online without telling your students where you got them? Your students will find out. (Mine did.)

3) If you don’t want it on the Internet, don’t put it on the Internet.

I have no idea who first said this, but it’s brilliant. Here’s the big point: Everything you put online for someone else to see can stay there forever. In spite of “privacy settings” there are hundreds of ways to transfer what you have online to some other computer. Even if you delete it, there’s no way of getting rid of it. Think twice before mentioning your school or colleagues.

4) Set your filter to “safe”.

Its true that you’ll be missing out on some good things if you do this. However, you’ll be saving yourself from all of the problems that surround pulling up an inappropriate website. If a student is exposed to a single inappropriate image, you are setting yourself up for uncomfortable discussions.

5) Students don’t have privacy on school computers.

This is a bit of a strange issue. Many students get offended by a teacher looking over their shoulder to see what they’re up to. Many educators seem to buy into this attitude thinking that students should allowed to work largely unsupervised. When students know they’ll be monitored, they tend to stay on task.

So what do you think? Did I miss anything? Do you disagree with anything I’ve written here?

*Thanks to Deb Ng inspiring much of this blog post.