Google Apps for Education

Nota bene: this document is still under construction as of 12-12-2007. If you have specific questions, I encourage you to email me directly at sknox@boisestate.edu

We will be using a new suite of programs in this course, known collectively as Google Apps for Education. It is very important that you understand that by signing up to this course you are agreeing to use these applications.

They aren't very difficult, I promise, but nevertheless they are as much a requirement for this course as the textbooks or the online readings or the discussion board, so you should know what you're getting into. If you have qualms about this, you should probably drop the course. On the other hand, if you like the idea of being a pioneer, by all means stick around. It'll be fun!

What Is It?

Still with me? Good.

Google Apps for Education (GAEE) consists of the following:

gmail
calendar
chat
online word processing
online spreadsheets
web page creator

We will also be making use of Google Earth.

In addition, we will be using WebBoard for our asynchronous class discussions, but that's outside the scope of this page, which is specifically about GAEE.

How Does This Work

We are trying to make it as easy as possible. You will use your current Broncoweb login and password. Your email address will not change. It's just that for you, yourname@mail.boisestate.edu will become Gmail rather than what you know as Broncomail (which is actually Groupwise).

You don't need to do anything. Your Broncomail will simply turn into Gmail.

If you already have a Google account, this will be different from that one. Even though the account is "at" Google, the address will be mail.boisestate.edu for you; it's just that the address instead of going through our campus mail system will in fact be going through Google.

There's no charge for any of this, and you'll be able to keep this account even after the class has ended.

Why?

Because we want to! <grin>

Seriously, the university is adopting GAEE, but we needed some places this spring where we could test everything and identify bumps in the road. I volunteered, which means I also volunteered you!

Since I'm not only a history professor but am also the University Web Administrator, you have a teacher uniquely positioned to help and guide you through the process. Our campus Help Desk is available as well.

What, Exactly, Will We Be Doing?

Glad you asked.

Gmail will be for direct communications between you and me, and between each other.

Calendar will hold all class events and deadlines. I have a web page listing these, but I'll be making a special class calendar, which you can integrate into your own calendar quite easily. You will also be able to use it (your choice) to make your own entries, like for group projects.

Docs is a major one. You will do your section essays here, or at least you will post them here. You can compose them online or you can write them in your word processor and then paste the text into Google Docs. By sharing the document with me, I'll be able to write comments directly into essay. This is the main pedagogical experiment, at least for me.

Talk is Google's chat service. I will have real-time online office hours two hours a week. Check the calendar for specifics. Here again, you could also use it to talk to one another, if that turns out to be useful. We can also potentially use talk to go over your essay, since it allows us both to be online and chat at the same time.

Other: we won't be using the other stuff (spreadsheets or page creator), although you're more than welcome to use them for your own purposes. I encourage you to do so, since this is what you'll be using for the rest of your time at Boise State.

Not so bad

So, that's not too bad, right? You'll use your gmail account for talking to the prof. You'll use Docs for your essays. You'll use the calendar to remind yourself when assignments are due. That's about it!

Because this is a pilot project, I really want to hear about every bump in the road, every idea you had, every detail large or small relating to the GAEE aspect of the course. You should know that we're not looking to replace Blackboard with GAEE, but I've never used Blackboard anyway, so that's really a side issue.

This pilot project is really about technical matters. Does the system work? How does it work in your environment? Because I'm both a tech and a prof, I'm a natural for doing a pilot.