How Suite It Is

Educators know that technology is one of the most expensive parts of the school's budget. History teachers need new books and art teachers need art supplies; but using technology requires computers, servers, broadband connections, and software to list just some of the expensive components. Although the cost of the equipment has gone down per computer over the years, the overall costs can go up as schools adopt more sophisticated installations.

However, this post is not about saving money, although it will save you money. It's about using some of the best software out there which just happens to be free. I'm referring to the suite of software that Google offers. One could argue that there are better programs than each one of these, but there is no collection that is so well integrated. These programs are great for students for a variety of reasons I'll discuss below, and they have enough horsepower for the experienced user as well.

First, get a Google account. There's no charge. Now you've got access to Google's suite of programs. Although I haven't used them all with my students, I've found many of them to be quite useful. Here's a rundown on my favorites:

1. Blogger. I've already written about blogging in the classroom here. Blogger is one of the easiest-to-learn blogging systems out there. It's powerful but not cluttered with unnecessary features. It has been rated as one of the three or four best programs for blogging.
2. Gmail. If you want to use a web-based email program, Gmail is tops. You get nearly three gigabytes of storage, the ability to use POP access, forwarding, an industrial-strength spam filter, and Google's search engine to find anything in your account. The Gmail philosophy is the same as my sister's: "Don't throw anything away because you'll never know when you might need it." With this much storage, you don't need to. Gmail is still in beta, so you need to be "invited" to get an account. Once you've got one, you can invite fifty friends. I've set up each of my students with a Gmail account. Then I created a group for each class. I exported the group and imported it to each student's account. Now we have each other's IDs and can use Gmail even more easily.
   
3. Google Talk. This program is tucked neatly into Gmail. Click on a contact and invite him to join. You can text or voice chat. My students contact me via Google Chat to ask about assignments and what we've done in class.
   
4. Picasa. If you're a professional photo editor, you probably use Adobe Photoshop. If you're a serious amateur, then maybe it's Photoshop Elements. But if you just want to download, organize, edit, and print; try Picasa. My guess is that Picasa does 90% of what any of us, including the pros, would need to do. Unfortunately, there's no Mac OS version, but that's the only disadvantage. The interface is so intuitive that I had my grade 7 students using it within about ten minutes.
5. Picasa Web Albums. Flickr and a number of other services allow you to store photos just as easily as Web Albums. What I like about this service is how nicely it integrates with Picasa and Blogger. My students create an album of their own photos, scans, and graphics that they've taken from the web. Then, when they need them for a project, they can edit them in Picasa, put them in their blogs, or download them for some other use. Students save the URLs of the photos as captions so that they're available for citations.
   
6. Docs and Spreadsheets. These two web-based applications are the equivalent of Microsoft Word and Excel albeit with fewer options. As with Picasa, 90% of what most of us use is there plus some features that don't exist in Word and Excel. Each program can save files in the Microsoft counterparts for easy exchanging with the rest of the world. Both programs work great in the classroom because students don't get over-involved with all of the options and features that they don't need. The feature that particularly lends itself to the classroom is the ability that Docs and Spreadsheets have for collaboration. You can create a word processing document, for example, and then allow others to see it online and even edit it at the same time. Each person sees the changes that the other makes in near-real time. It's great for collaborative projects. You can also review all of the modifications that were made to a document.
7. Page Creator. This is web development made simple. The web-based Page Creator is not quite a responsive as computer-based applications like Contribute or Dreamweaver, but most students don't work that quickly, and they don't need all of the features present in Dreamweaver anyway and Contribute is not available for free. This is another application that is perfect for the classroom. Students get a collection of templates that allows them to create a website that suits their tastes and needs. They can be up and running in no time.
   
8. Google Earth. I'm afraid to admit how much time I've spent cruising the Grand Canyon and checking out the Pyramids. Not to mention my hometown. Google Earth is a computer-based application, but it connects to the Internet to get updates. There are entire websites devoted to some great and some wacky application. One example of the latter: You can zoom in on any of the hundreds of airplanes that happened to be caught when the Google Earth camera zipped by. Google Earth offers great possibilities in the classroom for geography and history.
9. Google SketchUp. I haven't actually used this computer-based one myself, but I know from talking with a fellow teacher that he finds it a great application to use in his classes.
   

There are several other applications in the suite, but you get the idea. The common thread through all of these programs is that they are powerful, easy-to-use, and free. Each application is free of advertisements with the exception of Gmail which does have unobtrusive text ads running down the right side of some screens. Also, the programs have tutorials and/or useful help screens. When you read it, you're not overwhelmed with tons of options and superfluous choices.

The help even has an occasional sense of humor and personality. Here's an example from the Page Creator help. "If any aspect of using Google Page Creator isn't completely obvious, that's our fault, and we'd love to hear about it. Your comments will help us make these features clearer to all future users." When was the last time you read anything like that in a product that you just paid $100+ for? Bill Gates take note.

Aside from my teaching, I've found these applications to be robust enough for much of what I do outside of the classroom. As a teacher, I find them essential in my classes. Most purchased computer applications have an "everything but the kitchen sink" design built into them. More (features) becomes less (functionality). In contrast, the Google suite is built around the philosophy I learned at Boy Scout camp: Pack everything you need and nothing that you don't need.

Next: Using Your iPod Backwards

To Blog, or Not to Blog

The statistics on blogs are impressive. Technorati, the blog-tracking website, reports that they track more than 66 million blogs. There are 175,000 new blogs created every day, and 1.6 million posts are added to blogs daily. These numbers indicate that there is something to blogging that appeals to many people in a way that other forms of written communication do not. Here's what I think it is: Blogging lets you publish your ideas to the world (at least the world with Internet access) quickly, easily, and for free. One needs very little technical training to use blogging software. And once you have a computer and Internet connection, there's no additional cost. You can get on with the business of writing and let the technology take care of itself.

As educators, we can learn a lesson in technology from this. In K-12 technology education the emphasis shouldn't be about learning to use software and hardware (what used to be called computer literacy), it should be about learning how to use the software and hardware get something done. Technology as a tool, not as an end in itself.

The real essence of good education is not in the details of the individual courses and subjects that students take. For example, most of us (myself included) have little need for trigonometry in our daily lives, but I believe it is an important subject for students to study nonetheless. Why? Because by learning trigonometry, the history of World War II, physics, and all of the other subjects that a school offers, our students learn the "meta-skills" that are the core of a good education. Among these I'd include understanding the relationship of man to his environment, how the physical world works, how to organize and analyze information, and how to express oneself in writing.

This is where blogs come in. Any teacher who has student writing as part of the curriculum should consider blogging as an essential activity in the course. Of course there are other ways that students can write. Word processing is one example, but there are several drawbacks to word-processing that blogging overcomes.

First, most blogging software has a limited but powerful set of tools for formatting text. The key word here is "limited." Too often, students get bollixed up in all of the features of today's word-processing programs. (Consider the myriad options in MS Word in the Format/Paragraph menu as one example.) This makes it too easy for students to practice "work avoidance." They don't get on with the actual writing (the content of the assignment) because they are deciding on fonts, point sizes, and text colors. Fewer options mean that students can actually focus on their writing with fewer technological distractions.

A second advantage is that the act of publishing the blog post--making it available to other readers--raises the stakes. Students have a greater incentive to produce good work with proper spelling, punctuation, and all of the other characteristics of good writing because they know that someone else besides the teacher can and will read it.

Third, a word processing document is large, empty page--an invitation to writer's block. In comparison, a blog entry screen, like the one I'm using to write this blog, is a much smaller window. It holds about thirteen lines of text. Much less intimidating. A student can more easily write a paragraph, preview it, publish it, revise it. Other readers; e.g., students or the teacher, can read it immediately. They can post comments to which the original writer can then respond.

Blogging helps in other ways as well. It eliminates the problem of students' forgetting what the homework assignment is and not turning in work because it was lost or left at home. In my classes, I post the day's class notes to my blog including what the homework assignment or project specifications are. (You can see examples the blog for my grade 10 technology class here.)

Students can read the assignment during the class, after school, and at home from my blog. For most writing assignment I have my students post their writing to their blogs. I can read them, comment on them, and offer suggestions anywhere I have Internet access. (I don't put grades on the posts for obvious reasons, however.) In the event that the assignment requires a paper document, students can copy from the blog and paste to MS Word.

There are many blogging systems. You can read details on the web or from a number of excellent books such as dispatches from blogistan by Suzanne Stefanac. In the meantime, I'd recommend Google's Blogger. It's free, easy to use, has no advertisements, and has many advanced features that even powerusers will appreciate.

There is much more that I could say both in terms of specifics and general philosophy about blogging, but it won't make sense to you unless you've done some blogging with your students. So, get a free Blogger account (five minutes). Set up each student with a blog (15-20 minutes in class including time to make a trial post). And give blogging a try. I think you'll be surprised and impressed with how quickly you and your students take to blogging.

Next: How Suite It Is