All Things Google

 for Education

I have a confession. I LOVE all things Google!

When my district decided to pilot the Google Apps for Education (GAFE) platform, I told my administrator that we HAD to be part of it. He agreed. Before school started that September, we were only one of four schools that had signed up. By November, we were up close to 100 schools. By the March, the district made the decision that GAFE would be mandatory in ALL district schools.

          

Now, I have another confession. I've been using all things Google for longer then GAFE existed. Back then, you only had 5 gb storage, Docs, Sheets and Slides did not have the Drive management system, and there was an age limit to register. Personal Google accounts have upgraded since then. We now get 15 gb and if you are not using Drive for your cloud storage, you are missing out. Now that I have a GAFE account, I am simply amazed at functionality.

First, with a GAFE account, you have unlimited storage. Who doesn't want to save EVERY document they have ever made and EVERY photo they want! Drive let's you easily upload and organize all your files. Drive even lets you create new files (Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Drawings) and share them with anyone. When you share, you can set permissions to Edit, Comment, or View. This makes collaboration seamless. Students or colleagues can work in the same document at the same time. They see revisions and additions in real time. It even tracks who made what revision and when it was made. None of this is GAFE specific, but having a GAFE district domain makes integration and collaboration simple.

Second, Google Classroom. Post announcements and assignments and grade assignments. Now you can share your classroom with other teachers and it will integrate with your districts Application Program Interface (API). That means it will load grades into your  schools gradebook system and communicate with your Student Information System (SIS) and Information Management System (IMS) and your Learning Management System (LMS). I will post more on this in the future.

GAFE makes management of student accounts easy. In the past, I, as tech coordinator for my school, had to import student information into the server for students to have their own accounts. Even then, those accounts were only accessible while students were in school. With GAFE students have access to their accounts wherever they have an internet connection. Now, student accounts are created at the district level. All I do is run the districts contact script to upload accounts to my contact list. That allows me to import contacts into Classroom and pull up in the Share feature in any other Google application. Student accounts can even be set so that they can only receive and send email from within the district domain. This ensures that students are not making inappropriate connections with predators or others that may get them in trouble.

These are just some of the reasons I am a GAFE advocate. In the future, I will post on individual features and capabilities, as well as breaking news as I see it. If you are not a GAFE school/district, talk to your administrators, IT department, and anyone else who will listen to you plead your case. It is well worth the investment.