Tag: google

More On Google Sites

My introduction to Google Sites confused me for a bit. I received an email from Google providing a link. The content of the email indicated I had inquired about JotSpot some time ago and that I may now be interested in what JotSpot had become. I tried to sign in with my Gmail name and password (a common way to gain access to Google apps) without reading the instructions and I was asked to enter my university or business email address. This did not make a lot of sense at first because my inquiry about JotSpot had nothing to do with my university affiliation.

I did enter the address as requested and then was asked whether I was the administrator (domain owner) or a member of the domain. If I would have been a little more adventuresome, I should have claimed to be the University of North Dakota domain administrator just to see what would happen. I did call to chat with the CIO just to find out if they were aware of the new Google Site and she had the university security person investigate. Evidently, several students were already enrolled. I never did find out who was the administrator. I called my wife and had her inform her boss (the tech administrator for Grand Forks Schools) so that someone from their tech group would claim the administrator role.

Google Sites intends to be web service for educational institutions and businesses. Evidently, there must be student web pages associated with the University of North Dakota. University departments will not be using Google Site here. The university has a “branding” thing going and wants official pages to have the same look and feel. I know because I operated the pages for the psychology department for many years and I had to redo all of our content to use the template required by the university. Actually, I am not a fan of the UND look and feel – it is pretty garish by my taste. I prefer simple and tasteful.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see how the university reacts to personal pages that will now be affiliated with the university domain name. For example, what will be the reaction to content migrated from MySpace or Facebook?  What expectations will be applied to faculty members? Before, you could obtain an account for acceptable purposes, but you requested the account from the university. I was able to secure my account from Google.

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Google Apps – Google Sites

The big participatory web news of the day (or perhaps year) is Google’s announcement of Google apps for organizations (translate as schools for this audience). The education edition is free. A summary of the concept and products is available for viewing (check out the 12 minute version). Google calendar, docs, gmail, page creator – the collaborative tools – make up the collection. It looks like Google is going to serve as an ISP hosting a branded site for a school (business or individual).

One interesting opportunity within this collection is Google Sites (based on the old JotSpot if I am interpreting the announcement appropriately). Google site offers template-based web development and collaborative. See this linked summary differentiating the Standard, Premier and Education editions.

This looks very impressive. More when I have had time to experiment.

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Google – Forms For Spreadsheet

Integrating input from many individuals is a common online task. Think questionnaire. Input from an online form is sent to a server allowing the input to be stored in a format appropriate to a database or a spreadsheet.Writing the code to do form processing is a basic task those who work with PHP and MYSQL (or other server scripting languages) cut their teeth on, but what seem like such simple tasks still requires a good deal of work.

Google Documents now offers a convenient way to collect and store data from participants. Any spreadsheet can be updated using the new “form” option. After creating the structure of a spreadsheet (creating column headings), all you have to do is click the “Share” tab. You can then invite people (specify email addresses) to fill out a form. Those invited have access to a simple web page with textboxes corresponding to the cells in the spreadsheet. Fill in the blanks and submit. A new row of data is added to the spreadsheet.

This process if very easy to implement and there must be many educational applications. I like to create simple demonstrations when I encounter a new tool and the idea that first came to mind was to create a list of book recommendations. What follows is a link to the output from the demonstration I created.

View my example.

I could share the address for the input, but I decided that might not be a good idea. No telling what contributions anonymous spammers might offer. An open contribution process is not what Google has in mind. This is the reason for the email invitation to participants. There is an URL address for the form and this address can be passed around however you might feel to be productive and safe.

BTW – if you would like to contribute your own recommendations to my list of education/technology books just send me an email and I would be happy to send you the form URL. I do insist you provide enough information I would feel comfortable with you adding to this list.markgrabe at gmail

Google Forms

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Web Based Apps

If you have experimented with or are seriously using web apps (e.g., Google docs and spreadsheets), you may find a post on the ReadWrite blog to be of interest. This post briefly contrasts advantages and disadvantages of browser and Internet based apps vs. offline browser apps (perhaps not a distinction you might recognize – not the same as an offline app such as MS Word). I guess offline browser apps have existed for some time (e.g., Composer), but thinking of the browser as a way to meet general productivity needs is a little different.

I think the educational benefits of online browser apps are obvious – low or no cost and access from multiple locations (if schools allow). What about offline browser apps? I guess that might depend on cost issues.

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Google Docs and Spreadsheets

Google has integrated the browser and Internet writing (Writely) and spreadsheet program as Docs and Spreadsheets. The only advantage I can think of at present is that this change makes these services more obvious to those who have a Google account.

Writely and the Google spreadsheet app were described in previous posts. I have found these tools useful when I know that I am going to work on something for brief periods of time from various locations. Others will likely find opportunities in the collaborative capabilities these apps offer.

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Google For Education

Google appears to bundling several of their apps (gmail, calendar, chat) and promoting them to educational institutions. If I understand the promotion, it appears that institutions are allowed to create an interface that would feature the school logo, etc. as a way to “brand” the site for the school. The sites will feature the familiar google ad words.

This promotion will put Google in competition with companies or initiatives of many institutions to create a portal through which alumni, students, future students, etc. will experience an institution online. Perhaps the approach will appeal to some smaller schools. However, I must admit I wish my institution would offer me the same email capacity, secure browser-based email, and spam control quality as Gmail.

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Google Spreadsheet

I encountered an announcement for the beta Google Spreadsheet program and signed up. I received an invitation to try out the service and so far I have been impressed.

I did try to load a large dataset (64000 or rows of data) without luck. I did not read the instructions and this may exceed the limit allowed. I was able to upload and add to a 200 row dataset. Free and shareable – pretty cool.

Google Spreadsheet

NY Time article on this topic (free with registration)

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