The Calendar

I love the concept of a single source to manage multiple calendars which Google Apps does. I have experienced some frustration in that the transition from one month to the next is abrupt, I can only see the days of the next month which share a week with the current month. The calendar offers different views like day, week, month, next 7 days, and agenda. One would guess the agenda would allow you to span months but it does not, it only shows the current month. Perhaps in future versions.

Formative Evaluation

Google Docs continues to be a focus of development. Today I tried a real-time collaborative research project with twelve students editing the same document at the same time. The end product was achieved but the means was not what I expected. The students, all editing the same spreadsheet at the same time, recognized very quickly that if they did not edit a particular cell first, their work was replaced with what ever was saved first. The students then began to save early and often. This worked for a short time but I saw several students simply allow others to do the work. In a future exercise, I would create a template and then have the students modify their own section of the template to produce the end results.

HTML on Google Docs pages

I was creating a list of students when I said to myself, "I know there is a way to create tables in HTML and I see this tab on the Doc page that indicates I can edit this page in HTML." It took just a minute to find a reference to the table tags and shortly I had a table with the student names spread out horizontally across the page rather than a list straight down. I see some real potential with Google Docs by implementing the features of HTML.

Chat with the Students

As the students were diligently working on their assigned presentations, the room was filled with the sound of keyboards clacking away. All students were intent on their own screens. Suddenly I get a popup on my screen, "Mason says: Mr Booth, this link is not responding." I reply, "Close all windows and restart your browser." Soon, I notice Mason is back at work.

The other night I was working on some home work when I get this popup, "Nick says: Mr Booth, is that you?" I reply, "Yes, it's me." "Nick says: I may be late to class tomorrow, I have a dentist appointment." I say, "That's fine, you will need to make up the chapter final."

In reality, Nick could have taken the chapter final anywhere on the internet. I prefer to proctor chapter finals but I have allowed students to take them from home. What a day we're livin' in.

New Tools at Google Docs

I am so excited about the latest tools at Google Docs...Google Presentations! I have used student presentations as part of my pedagogy for years. Of course, MS PowerPoint was the application of choice. Now, with Google Presentations, the students have sufficient tools to create presentations which they can save on the web and edit from home. Another positive feature, it does not have all the bells and whistles, which were often a distraction for students. This simplicity encourages more focus on content than on showy fluff.

The initial introduction was received very positively. Before I had an opportunity to get into any specifics of the application, students had already created two or three slides and were on their way to becoming proficient with Google Presentations. The hardest part was dividing up the learning objectives and that was done with Google Spreadsheet.

An Aside from Design Journal

I volunteered to serve as an adviser to a student council. The first item of business at our first meeting was to determine who had a gMail account and who did not. I have realized that Google docs is such an ideal tool for group collaboration, that I insisted that all council members create an account if they did not have one. I showed the council how they work and they all responded favorably.

Design Journal Entry

I believe the type of instructional design I am currently using is called "Rapid Prototyping." I design as I implement. I am confident the end product will be excellent but the process of getting to that point is a little ragged

Design Journal Entry

Since the latest post, I have implemented a shared document called "Announcements" with the news of the day and any assignments expected that day. Response has been favorable. Just 3 out of 23 students over looked the new shared document.

I also implemented Google Talk in one of two classes. The students thought it was a lot of fun. They quickly caught on and were creating groups and chatting with one another. The next morning, one student commented that so-and-so was on-line last night and Mr Booth was too.

Conceivably I could provide real time assistance with students working on their homework if they needed it.

Design Journal

September 6, 2007

I should have been doing this all along, silly me.

To review the design process to this point:

• Performance analysis - new students struggle to master copious requirements at the start of the school year.
• Problem could be solved with instruction, an instructional tool that compiles all resources and requirements in a central location, in this cases an electronic repository.
• Needs assessment - a check list has been used in the past that formed the basis of the needs assessment. As we worked through the check list this year, I monitored the process for weak and missing needs. I determined that additional incentive may produce more favorable results. 1000 points were offered upon completion of all the items on the check list. Results to this point have been good. The deadline is Fri. 9/7. At that time I will analyze percentages completed. This will provide a basis for comparison in the future.
• Goal 1 - students will locate the central repository (CR)
  
• Goal 2 - students will work though self paced tutorials explaining features of the CR
• Goal 3 - students will complete the check list called "First Week Homework"

I researched the delivery system options including: Moodle, Wikispaces. com, an HTML web server, GMail, iGoogle, and Google Apps. All of these are free or very inexpensive in the campus where I currently teach.

Moodle - I have had some exposure to Moodle in the past and our center has two moodle servers available currently. I chose not to use Moodle because of the time required to set up and maintain the system, classes, courses. It is quite feature rich on one hand but the learning curve is pretty steep on the other.

Wikispaces - I have used Wikispaces in the past and find it the best of several I have tried. It offers free wikis to K12 and the interface is very easy. For what it does, it is a robust wiki solution. I may still use it in the course but is not capable of serving as the CR.

HTML web server - I use a web server to deliver most of the curriculum which comes pre-built from Cisco System and Hewlett Packard. The performance is marginal and it is my intention to upgrade the hardware and to switch to Linux in an effort to increase performance. This server will be a big part of the course but will not act as the CR.

GMail - At the summer workshop, we explored GMail and Google Docs and Google Talk. I thought this could be the foundation of the CR. I started to explore in detail how the product would fit into the classroom solution as the CR. It can do so.

iGoogle - I then stumbled across iGoogle which offers a calendar along with other Google stuff on a convenient Start Page. I was feeling pretty excited that I had arrived at a viable solution. I shared this with a colleague who suggested I look into Google Apps.

Google Apps - Google Apps is a solution offered by Google that supports a private domain. For instance, the domain pcnet.jatc-sandy.org. Google Apps is iGoogle in a managed domain. It offers all the features of iGoogle in a more controlled environment. I allows email accounts using the domain name, ie; user.name@pcnet.jatc-sandy.org. It allows a shared Google Calendar, Google Documents, Google Talk, GMail. This looks like the solution.

Implementation and Setup of Google Apps

To fully take advantage of Google Apps, it required an application to Google and the we the participants must have a working domain. In our case it was: jatc-sandy.org. There was some DNS administration tasks that had to occur which were managed by an associate.

I knew just enough jargon to ask the right questions and he agreed to help. He was, by-the-way, the colleague who recommended that I look into Google Apps.

The application was approved, the administration task accomplished and I was set up as the domain administrator. I added the users first thing and then set up the Start Page that everyone sees when they login. I created a calendar and shared that with all domain members.

I have created a couple of shared documents to this point, the class roster in a spreadsheet and a list of important web links in a text document.

After the "back-end" configuration happened, the