ICT in my Classroom

It has been a quieter few weeks in terms of our use of Google Docs, by our standards anyway - so I have combined some of my reflections over the last fortnight. Although less prominent in the daily work of our literacy unit the use of Google Docs has continued and has become more and more intrinsic to the thoughts of the year group.

Modelling examples of collaboration with Google docs.

Last time round I spoke of identifying the fact that the children were not very productive when taking their first steps into the collaborative use of docs. Rick and I spent some time this week modelling some of the behaviours we want the children to be aware of when working in a team. With all of the children in my room I worked on the computer connected to the SMARTBoard and Rick on one of our laptops. We had created a document that mirrored the children’s project, shared between us we gave a running commentary of our thoughts and what we were doing in terms of teamwork.

Initially we spent some minutes just talking to each other about what had been completed so far and what we were both planning to do. Key teaching point: begin the collaborative session with a mini-meet that provides a plan for what is to follow. As we began working I ensured the children were aware that I told Rick, and he did likewise, where I was working in the document. Key teaching point: to have document awareness, a sense of where your peers are working. During the modelled session I was constantly talking through my decision processes for the research side of things and also being explicit about my communication with Rick. Prior to adding an image or some text I would mention to him what was going to happen. Key teaching point: communicate what changes you are making so that your team are aware of what is occurring, no surprises.

I would recommend this modelling phase to anyone using Google Docs in a collaborative sense with younger children, to help illustrate what is expected.

Development of this skill within the children’s groups.

The teamwork side of things is our biggest challenge and we talk about it everytime we continue our project work. It feels a little new and messy at the moment, but I have confidence that these sorts of skills can and should be refined. I know that they will work better together in future projects and that they are much more aware of the issues.

Over the course of the project and in subsequent sessions (to our modelling lesson) they have shown they can apply the examples we set. A group in my class today began by logging into documents and then they tilted their laptop lids down and talked about what was to follow.

Children turning independently to GDocs

Their has been strong evidence this week of a shift in the children’s thinking in terms of GDocs as tool. During a Design and Technology session about musical instruments one of the children independently used Google Docs to make some notes about the research that they were doing. Totally unprovoked. A small example that shows that we have positioned the application as a personal tool for them and they are beginning to use it as one of their own personal tech choices.

Sharing beyond the domain

With tighter security comes less opportunity to share beyond the domain. In the administrator settings I have the option to NOT allow the sharing of documents beyond the domain. It is important to consider that this tighter grip does not allow collaboration of documents, synchronous or otherwise, with children from other schools, towns, cities, countries.

I am currently collaborating on some weather data for June with the British School in Muscat, Oman. However this has to be done through my own personal Google account. It is key to be able to balance security with collaboration beyond the walls of the classroom. It will be interesting to see what happens when we have an international opportunity to do something like this perhaps in the future.

Spell checking in Firefox 3

Just a little aside really about the use of Firefox version 3 which checks my spelling as I am writing in a form. It also seems to, although somewhat erratically, check my work as I am typing in Google Docs. There is a spell check function that works reasonably well, but I like the idea that using FF3 it will underline incorrect words in red as you type (you currently have to switch the spell check on in GDocs) It could be a useful feature.

Providing a choice - 56 out of 60 children

Back in December I surveyed the children in Year 5 and 6 who had been using the laptop resource in their classrooms for approximately 3 months. One of the questions asked for their preference in writing, either with pen or pencil on paper, or with a laptop. About 90% said they would prefer to write using a laptop. On reflection I think those figures illustrate the continued positive attitude towards the resource in the classroom. Perhaps inflated by a general good feeling about the technology.

For a literacy task this week I told the year 5 children that they complete the independent writing task either in their literacy books or by using Google Docs. 56 out of 60 children chose to write using Google Docs. I questioned about their choices in the last part of the lesson and they ranged from: “I can work quicker”, to, “I don’t have to worry about my presentation” and “I will be able to continue the work at home.” The percentage is high again but this time around I know that they are making a much more informed choice due to the amount of time we have spent using the tool.

This idea was one that popped into my head at about 3am. After George, my 2 year old son, woke us and I had settled him again, I began thinking about Google forms (as you do at 3am - what better time to be thinking about that subject!!) and the current work we are doing on film narrative and The Piano by Aidan Gibbons. Take a look at the film for yourselves.

An emotion graph is a simple line graph comparing a range of happiness to sadness against different points (time) in a story or film. This technique of graphing the emotional ups and down within a story really helps children to visualise the whole story in a different way. Once the graphs are complete they can be discussed in reference to the different peaks and troughs of emotion. “Why is the main protagonist so upset at this point on the graph, what has happened?”, “In which part of the story is he the happiest?”

The graph can reflect the events in any type of linear narrative, whether that be a book or film - it could even reflect the varying emotions within an event such as a football match. As you can see the whole plot in one graph it is useful to engage the children in conversations about the structure of the plot and the way that the emotions are tied into generic story elements such as problems, conflicts and resolutions.

The children in my class really enjoyed watching The Piano today as we began our film narrative unit. One of the children said that the main character was playing his emotions on the piano, they were the notes of his life. Such a lovely turn of phrase. The Piano is an excellent text to explore in terms of an emotional graph as each of his memories linger, bringing joy and sadness into his life again.

Once you have opened up your Google form (and I have explained in more detail how to do this on this post) I have simply added a new question for each of the different events that I would like the children to gauge the emotions for. Because the film is only two and half minutes long I have chosen about ten or eleven events. I have then chosen “Choose from a list” question type and added the numbers 0 - 10. For each question I added a reminder about the emotional scale from sad (0) to joyous (10) as some additional text. I found it really easy to generate one question and then just duplicate it using the link, and just edit what the event is.

Your form is complete and now you just need to add the line graph itself to the linked spreadsheet. You will see in your spreadsheet that the header (top) row is filled in with the different events from left to right. Under each column heading add the average =AVERAGE(Range) formula for the cells below, say down to 100 cells below. This will average out the different responses from your form and return a single figure. Don’t worry the survey results should always be added below your average row. I like to add the “Rounded” formatting to these cells as well. Select these average figures and click the “Chart” tool and create a line graph from this data. (These average cells could also be hidden, select the row from the left and click hide row) Find some more detailed steps to making a chart here.

Place the chart to the right of your data or embed within a blog post somewhere, and enlarge it so that it is clearly visible. I will be emailing the emotion graphing form to all of our Year 5s and getting them to complete the form (from within the email) alongside watching the film again. We will then be reviewing, as I have mentioned above, the responses and how the emotions vary throughtout the text. I will be encouraging them to justify their responses and decisions with supporting evidence from the film.

Now it is your turn to complete the emotion graphing survey that I have referred to - watch the film again, if you haven’t already, and answer the survey that I have embedded below. The code for embedding a form is available when you click “Edit/Resend Form” and then it is under the “Preview and Send” link.You will also see that I have published the graph which can be done from within the graph drop down menu.

Let me know what you make of this idea and whether it was worth a sleepless early morning!

• How can you use this idea in your own narrative or literacy unit?
• Have you used emotion graphs? (I know there is an option with Turning Point voting systems to do something similar which I have used in the past)
• How have you used them?
• How else have you used Google forms in the classroom?

I cannot believe that we have already had three weeks of work with Google Apps in our year group. This week has been extremely eventful, and I have loved and hated technology in equal measure (well there is always a bit more love) - with major network issues it has brought into focus issues of reliability that every school and teacher need to engage with when investing their time and effort in Google Apps.

Monday - 12/5/08

• Took some time with the children to explore the various different views and issues surrounding finding and managing Docs home page.
• I emphasised the importance of the search function at the top of the page and how Google have been known to be quite good at searching
• I demonstrated a few different searches and how quickly you could find content - as you type in the search field it immediately gives feedback on that term, even looking in the people who you have shared the docs with. You can then click the results that popup to go straight to that doc. Very powerful and much quicker than navigating through folders or views.
• As a class we worked together to edit the 1st draft verse we wrote last week. I used the strikethrough tool and colour formatting as we worked on ADDING words OMITTING words and CHANGING words in the poem.
• The alterations the children suggested were excellent and as we finished up I thought that we could use the REVISIONS tool to compare our new version with the original. When two versions are selected and compared changes and deletions are clearly highlighted. If different users were to make the changes than these users are colour coded too with their edits.
• In a less sophisticated way than Track Changes this could be used on a longer piece of work when reviewing 1st and 2nd drafts.
• The children had time together to complete their 1st drafts of the poem and organise their poetry journals (Google Presentations).
• There were a few pairs that had work missing, their poetry journal presentations were missing slides. I pointed them towards the revisions tool and told them to find a version that was complete and to REVERT TO THIS VERSION.
• Although a minor incident this is an example of one of the huge benefits of Google Docs. It auto saves so many times (I keep seeing the “Saving…” message popup at the top on this doc) that unless you were to delete the actual file, a child could retrace every step in the life of the piece of writing, even over a number of days or weeks - not possible in more traditional office applications.

Tuesday and Wednesday - 13/5/08 and 14/5/08

• Oh dear.
• Powercut killed the school server during the night and the APS or alternative power supply did not seem to do its job.
• As a result of this the DHCP database has been corrupted and so the server could not administer new IP addresses to laptops and even the access points. Bad news all round.
• Keith our technician rebuilt the database today (Wed) and tells me it is working again.
• With no wireless network we were unable to access our online docs and so were in a fix - seeing the main concern I have with this approach materialising.
• We were able to continue with our poetry work with some nostalgic pencil and paper writing for a few days! It has brought into sharp focus the main drawback of this method and so I have looked further into the new Google Docs development of using Offline syncing.
• If you download Google Gears, a browser extension, you can sync your online docs with your desktop.
• It seems that this service will be made available to Google Apps Education Edition too, which is good news. But there remains many questions: will children need to work on the same laptop to see their desktop synced work? Could the whole domain be synced to a network? How will this individual use be translated into domain use?
• I hope that when teachers say to me, “But what happens to your access to the children’s docs when the internet connection is down?” I will be able to answer that we will just work on our desktop synced versions which will sync up when we are back online again.
• I would hope that there are no further restrictions to doc access because of the offline nature - for example having to work on a specific machine because docs are only synced there.
• I am hopeful for this situation but expect there may be some compromises - it will be interesting to see how docs could be used offline for a domain.
• On reflection I still have complete faith and trust the infrastructure in place. This event is the first of its kind at school, but we did not lose the internet connection (which, for what it is worth, has been amazingly reliable over the last 5 years or so) it was the wireless network that suffered. If we were to be working on a Local Authority learning platform or other such product we would not have been able to access it either. I will be chalking it down to an unlucky event - and still have full faith in my network structure and reliability.
• Do I have all of my eggs in one basket when using Google Docs? Not really - the writing and poetry language was the focus and that was still focused upon in the days we had no connection. Should you have a backup plan in the back of your mind? Perhaps, there is no harm in it - I usually have something up my sleeve for most things even if it is normal class work and not technology related. Using Google Docs to support your work is no different in my mind.

Thursday - 15/5/08

• Wahey the wireless network is back on its feet - looks like it was a corrupt DHCP database which issues and controls IP addresses. So the old IPs were not being refreshed and nothing new was being issued. Suffice to say it took a 3 hour database rebuild from Keith our technician who drafted in some extra help too.
• Anyway the whole problem has highlighted the need for some sort of backup in the event that it occurs again and, as I mention above, I hope that the Offline - Google Gears development allows us constant access and a possible solution.
• The children were straight back into their writing and we had another great session today with children completing their first verses and editing what they have written.
• Their senses poetry has a simple and effective structure and they have been using Docs tools to help support their work - it seems to have been a successful unit of work. One of the highlights is the poetry journals that the children have created we hope to continue to add to these as we continue our poetry work.
• Google Docs does seem a little glitchy - over the course of the last few weeks I have noticed things that serve to remind me that it is still in BETA. Here are a few:
• The thumbnail view in Presentations is a little odd, more often than not the text appears over sized in the thumbnail.
• Presentations seem to take a long time to load.
• Sometime text behaves strangely in Docs - rigidly holding onto formatting even if you change it, can be frustrating.
• Objects and texts do go missing there has been perhaps a dozen occasions, not just today, when we have had to retrieve an older revision because of missing text.
• As a result of this missing text phenomena I showed the children how to use the Revision aspect of Docs again, reminding them that they can revert to any version right back to the beginning of the Doc.
• As an extension I stopped the children with 20 mins to go and showed them how easy it is to add images to a Doc.
• We used the FlickrCC search tool http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net and I modelled how to drag an image from one window to another and drop it into Docs. We then looked at how to alter the image and move it about.
• We talked briefly about the Creative Commons license and what it meant (need to do more on this)
• Discussed the importance of dealing with inappropriate content (images) and what we should do - I think it is important to keep this sort of learning high on the agenda, so the children understand what is expected of them and how to deal with issues if they arise. It seems to me that this message of appropriate and sensible action should be reinforced throughout the year, not just in a bundle of e-safety lessons.
• For some reason IE shut down or crashed on a child and they were a little perplexed as to what had happened. (Note to self - must install FF so kids have a choice) A huge benefit of Google Docs is that it auto saves so regularly, as explained above. As a result the child was able to log straight back in again and pick up without any data loss. Working on a desktop WP like MS Word (auto saves could be configured - true) there is a higher chance of data loss due to unexplained crashes or application misbehaviour. You can encourage a healthy “save regularly ” culture in the use of desktop apps but nothing comes close to Google Docs saving your work every 70-80 seconds for you. It won’t forget.

Friday - 16/5/08

• During today’s literacy session we worked for approximately 20 more minutes, just fine tuning our poetry journal presentations.
• Children were still finding missing text and a few things different but were independently accessing their doc revisions and switching back to older versions that were complete. Good to see this going on as it is an important feature when editing and writing.
• Yesterday children had dragged images into Google Docs and today they wanted the same images in their presentations. This is where we faced problems but the kids worked brilliantly to work around the issue and solve it.
• Initially I had told them to copy and paste the images across from docs, but this did not work - it allowed you to paste but no image.
• Secondly I suggested finding the image again in the Flickr CC search and dragging it into Google Presentations. Even though they suggest this works, it doesn’t. Or it at least hasn’t for us. The presentation would say it is working - the message at the top of the page would be saying importing image or something similar, but nothing would appear.
• Children suggested we save the image and insert it. So they saved the image to their network folder and inserted and browsed for that saved picture. Not as simple as dragging and dropping but same result and kids happy. Children coped really well with switching from one method to another. Good to see.
• Seems to me that Google Presentations is much more glitchy than others. Behaved quite slowly today and image issue is a little frustrating.
• The choosing of images to illustrate their verses was a good extension activity. The quality of their choices were well justified and added another element to their writing.
• I was delighted to see children who had successfully inserted images splitting off and supporting their peers who had not. That sense that we are learning and exploring together was strong today.
• I demonstrated how to preview the presentation and we talked about the IM feature/backchannel that appears to the right. We talked about ways we could collate feedback about what we can see in this space.
• I began a presentation of our class poetry journal and told the children to go to their GMail and open up their inbox. With the presentation in full screen and the IM window open I copied the URL to share the presentation and pasted it into an email. I asked the children who were signed in (remember the children are working in pairs on docs that are shared between them) to raise their hands and I added their addresses into the email. This was as easy as typing the first letter of their name and finding them in the list. I fired off the email and the children opened it and the enclosed link.
• Note to Google - it would be useful to have an email link next to the presentation URL that auto generates an email to send to contacts.
• I could see from the IM window who had opened it up and joined the presentation - ripples of excitement from the kids to see their names and those of others in the window, they love IM. I took control of the presentation and showed them how I could move the slides on and it will change automatically on their screens.
• Upon moving the presentation on a slide I looked up and saw that all of the 16 wireless machines were responding in almost real time. Very impressive.
• I said a few “hellos” the usual IM stuff and let the kids throw a few messages around. I then drew the discussion back to how we could use the IM chat. The only problem that is apparent is that the resulting chat cannot be archived, saved or copied from the window. It is a flash IM and so you cannot copy text out. Although this IM within the presentation window is really neat, if the chat cannot be saved it is less useful. The alternative would be to create a group chat in Google Talk - I would have preferred to share the URL for the presentation in IM form but we have not installed the GTalk clients yet on each machine and the children have not all started up the GTalk IM in GMail.
• Ideally we could (1) All be part of a Google Talk group chat using Talk client from desktop (2) I would open the presentation (3) Copy and share the URL in the chat (4) Children open to follow, but close the IM frame (5) Feedback and answers to questions I pose could be added to GTalk chat (6) Chat is saved and archived, access it from GMail “Chats” link.
• Note to Google - let us copy or save the chat from Presentations - or merge GTalk into presentations.
• After our, on the fly experimentation with presentations and IM we listened to pairs and individuals present and read their poetry from their journals.
• I found it useful in order to jump straight to the presentation to access the shared Docs from my account and right click the Presentation name- then choose “View Presentation” from the bottom of the list. This bypassed the edit screens.

Overall reflections on Week 3

The biggest consideration for me this week is what do you do if the kids cannot access the internet. Of course we/I/you have been successful working without Google Docs - so we continued on with our poetry in more traditional ways. I am pleased to have thought a little more about the development of Google Gears and Offline Docs for Ed Apps, that could be a very important change in the reliability of this tool. If there are days when the web is flaky - it happens - then children could continue unhindered by this. Is the “All my eggs in one Google basket” an issue that you consider to be an important one to resolve with teachers adopting these tools?

On Friday we explored the IM feature of presentations and I am keen to explore how we could harness the children’s natural understanding of this communication tool in future learning activities. Could GTalk be used to get the children responding to questions at the same time, like we did with the spreadsheets example a while ago? They were so excited by that one activity - if we can just pivot that enthusiasm in the direction of learning. It is a shame the IM in presentations isn’t linked with Google Talk in some way, so that what is added there can be saved and returned to later. I will need to download the GTalk client to the laptops and continue to explore ways that IM can be used. Although I am reflecting on the use of IM within Google Apps, with the GTalk client the IM could stand alone from G Apps and so be embedded within any learning activities taking place on the laptop.

Google Presentations seems to be behaving as the one application that is most in BETA - lots of glitches and missing work issues to try and resolve this week. It can’t even handle images as it should. It feels sluggish when working with it - I hope it improves.

Today it was clear that we are all learning together and I was so pleased to see the children being creative and trying to solve problems with real initiative. They worked well on their own or in pairs and helped each other out, sharing what they have learned or a method just discovered to reach an outcome we are all aiming for. We are learning and exploring together. It has been very apparent that there are maybe 3 or 4 children who are extremely adept at using Google Docs, they offer help to others very willingly. But all the children have progressed so far since not seeing Docs 3 weeks ago - long may our learning continue.

This week has been a real learning experience for all as we engage with Google Docs within a literacy unit. It feels like our pedagogues, so often taken for granted, have been truly challenged by new processes, ideas and methods of work. I am pleased to welcome Rick, my teaching colleague, who has kindly contributed his thoughts in his own words (see Wednesday) he puts up with my hair brained schemes and it is great to have his perspective on it all.

Monday - Bank Holiday - 5/5/08

• Work this week will be primarily supporting the literacy unit Sensational from the Primary Framework, as I want to take advantage of embedding Google Docs within something very structured and curriculum driven as soon as possible.
• Thinking about ways to give each child a document so that they can work on it individually. I initially thought about emailing it as an attachment from the Sharing options. Instead of this the document could be shared as usual with the whole class, the child then opens the doc and chooses File>Save as new copy. They will then be asked is they would like to copy the collaborators too, click cancel and they have their own copy to work on. No collaborators and with Copy prefix on doc title.
• It will be important to establish some folder structures at this early stage - we will have a Literacy folder as well as a Poetry one within it.
• I will explain how to move docs between folders and talk them through folder creation although it is pretty easy.
• We will also take advantage of the colour coding to keep track of subject docs. I will keep the colours the same as their literacy books in the classroom, blue. Yellow for numeracy.
• Just edited Session 1 of Sensational unit in light of the use of Google Docs to support activities.

Tuesday - 6/5/08

• 2 docs needed to be shared so I used the Share button from the Docs home page. Added all year group (60 odd contacts) from group made in contacts. Clicked send and it crashed a bit! Wasn’t keen to share with so many in this method. Closed window and tried again.
• Opened each doc individually and added collaborators that way - no issues this time around. Use this method in the future.
• Decided with teaching colleague that the children were going to work with a partner on a shared poetry journal, but they would share that presentation with their partner and me.
• Modelled creating presentation and altering the title and adding theme - I would be using this presentation as a class poetry journal.
• Children created their own poetry journal presentation and altered theme.
• The children shared the doc with their partner and with me.
• We now returned to the Docs home page and I modelled creating a folder, naming it and colour coding it. We used (as I mention above) blue as our literacy books in class are blue. We then created a nested folder called Poetry.
• I then showed the children how to select a number of docs, including those I have already shared with them for today’s lesson, and Move To a folder using the button. The docs could also be moved by dragging them to the correct folder on the left. The Move To option is easier and less likely to result in docs being added to the wrong folder.
• The children had no problems creating folders and the children who were not logged in will need to make the same folders in their own account.
• It would be useful to be able to share a whole folder with another collaborator. A teacher could share a number of docs they need children to engage with in a lesson. Would be a useful option.
• After reading the poem that we are working on I asked the children to talk with their partner about their first impressions and to try to explain an image that appeared in their heads as they heard the poem. I added some feedback to the class poetry journal and then asked the children to add their own thoughts to theirs.
• I took a wander around each pair and talked with them about progress and what they thought of the poem, I was also able to check on any issues or problems. It appeared that the initial period when we immersed them in using Docs has given them familiarity leading to confidence.
• 2 or 3 pairs had presentations with tiny images visible. I think this occurs when the initial window the doc is opened in is small. When it is resized the presentation image is not - hence the problem. We resolved this by refreshing the page - save and closing and then reopening would also work.
• All of the children were working confidently with their presentation and we had no major tech problems at all. Able to focus on the literacy/poetry response. Pleased with the reliability of it so far. I reread the poem to focus them on the task. The children’s familiarity with the app is deceptive as not had formal training / teaching on it. But they inherit skills from Docs and Spreadsheets and also from Powerpoint - they bring these to the party and it gives them confidence. Common layout, generic structure, simple to use - one of the most important aspects of the tools.
• As soon as the children had completed their first impressions on the poem I checked that the children had shared their doc with me. Some had not so I asked them to check by looking at the Collaborator list in the share options. Revised adding me and partner in.
• Second task was to add to a single document examples of alternative titles for the poem The Magic of the Brain. We discussed the topics of the poem and explored some ideas together and I asked the children to open the doc and add to a table I had created. We talked about being aware of other users adding to the doc at the same time and to watch out for over-typing.
• I had the doc open on the SMARTBoard and I could see who had opened the doc to edit from the pop-up “Also editing…” message. The children began adding their alternative titles and then a few pairs told me they could not alter the text. I took a quick look and they did not have the toolbars and it was clear they were just viewing the doc and not editing even though they were valid collaborators. It seems that any one document has a limit on the number of concurrent editors. I exited the doc on the IWB and then asked someone to refresh and see if they could now edit and they could.
• I asked pairs to work with pairs (groups of 4) so they could continue to add their alternative titles. Talking to some of the children we tried to figure out how many users could work with a document at the same time. I think it is 10. This has implications on sharing work in the future, for example when every child is using a laptop and logged into their own account and then working on a shared doc. We will only be able to work with 10 at a time. Perhaps using different docs, differentiated for different groups, and so you have 3 or 4 docs shared with children and smaller groups working together on a similar activity.
• Another option here would be to use Google Talk as a way to collate ideas - for example instead of editing the alternative titles doc ask children to join a group chat and then to encourage them to write and submit alternative titles as instant messages. These could then be copied out of Chat and into a doc for future reference. The use of the instant messenger in this way would be an important motivator.
• Added new user for a child who had left and then returned to year group.
• Edited user who had incorrect surname - the name could be changed but not the username, I need to investigate whether I need to delete and re-add the user, or if I can alter the actual username.

Wednesday - 7/5/08

• Ensured all children had created appropriate folders. Children logged into account who had not on the previous day to ensure same folder structure.
• Some children still need to to completely appreciate the different views that are available in Docs home. They may think they have not got a Doc but it is the view they need to change. New way of managing Docs - views. We need to ensure that we include a teaching point about the management of docs home - encourage them to use Search and options down the left to sort their view, such as “Items by Type” and various folder levels.
• In first part of the literacy session the children opened up a Doc of the poem we were working on. It was still a shared copy, we reread the poem and the children talked with their partner briefly about the patterns that they could see.
• I asked for some examples and for one child to then highlight on the document a pattern they could identify in the first verse. I thought I might need to remind them of the highlight tool but they were able to do this without any problems. This highlighted section was then, of course visible on everyone else’s screens (including the IWB) as we were looking at a shared doc.
• I wanted the children to then work on their own copy and they, as planned, clicked on File > Save as New Copy - an alert box pops up asking if they would like to inherit all of the collaborators for the doc, they need to click CANCEL for a clean (no collaborators) document to work. Unfortunately I did not tell my teaching colleague, Rick, this small but very important detail. Rick has kindly contributed his thoughts in his own words below (italicised).
• Having modelled making the folders with the children we then discussed the need to have their own version of the poem as it would not be beneficial for all the children to contribute on the same document. Although I wasn’t aware of the issues involved in creating a copy of the poem with the class we worked through it. We encountered the message box as described above and I explained to the children that we did not want to copy the collaborators and therefore the children needed to click cancel. Once the children entered their google docs, hand after hand reached for the ceiling. I was faced with children wanting to inform me of the fact that they already had a number of copies in their folder! It appeared that a number of children from Tom’s class had clicked OK and copied the collaborators. As my children attempted to make a copy of the document it became apparent that they were also copying the collaborators.
  
• At this point I stopped the children to inform them of what was happening and why a number of copies were appearing. I again informed the children of the need to click cancel. Unfortunately a number of children still clicked OK and the whole vicious circle started again. As a class we deleted all copies and I decided to move on from that activity, opting to look at the task of identifying patterns within the poem together on the IWB. In my opinion the problem occurs because the children tend not to read the pop up messages through habit even though Tom has discussed this issue on a number of occasions with them.
• After the lesson, I spoke to Tom regarding the problems we both encountered. I began by reiterating my commitment to the project to Tom. However, my personal view was that individual photocopies of the poem with highlighter pens may have been a better, more efficient way of completing the activity. I also went on to explain how well I felt the presentation worked as a tool for sharing and planning ideas for poetry writing. We talked about the issues of handing out documents and established it needs to be just as easy and accessible as traditional methods. We both felt that this problem could be easily resolved as the children become more familiar and confident.
  
• Even though the technology presented problems with this particular activity, I feel that with work this can be an invaluable tool. Without experimenting and experiencing the possibilities it is impossible to assess the benefits these new tools offer the children and the teaching and learning taking place in our classroom. I feel this leap into the unknown is an exciting time for myself and the children.

• As Rick points out the process of giving children a piece of text to work on is a very important process. In this digital approach we, as a year group need to be completely comfortable with saving a shared document as a personal copy. It is a crucial process and the children need practice and familiarisation. We are, after all talking about the first time we have done this - going from a shared doc to an individual copy. Needless to say the process needs to be as easy as saying to the class,”OK please get your self a copy of the document named ???” The process needs to be fast and problem free.
• My class did manage to save a copy of their own, although some were still working on the shared copy. I pointed out that they needed to check that the doc title was preceded with COPY.
• I showed them how to insert a comment, from the INSERT Menu, from the Right click menu or by using the keyboard shortcut Control+M. Children highlighted and commented on the patterns that they could find.



• We then ensured that the text marked doc was shared with me and their partners. I suppose this is another very important process - handing in your work.
• After looking at the patterns in poem we moved on to creating a spider diagram plan in our poetry journal presentations. The diagram consisted of some simple shapes and it proved a good activity for the children to practice using the shape tool.
• I modelled the use of the tool and allowed the children to work with me at creating the diagram. We then added text over the top and I told the children to not worry about the location until they had finished entering the text. Their understanding of SMART Notebook as an object based app will prove useful when using Google Presentations



• This simple diagram will form the support to drafting a verse based on the structure of “The Magic of the Brain”.
• I thought initially that the children could write their first verses in their journal presentations. But there is no spell check nor the benefits of a clear writing tool. So I will highlight the importance of using the correct tool for the correct job. Perhaps asking the children to think more closely about this choice in the future and highlight the change of choice I made as a model of this behaviour.

Thursday - 8/5/08

• We began the session by clearing up some Docs that had been shared with children by mistake, as Rick pointed out above. I stressed the importance of the children getting to grips with managing their own space.
• Today’s task was to continue with the planning of our poetry inspired by The Magic of the Brain and then to begin drafting verses.
• I simply said to my class they need to get into Docs and load up their journals. They got stuck in straight away and had no problems. The only issue that is worth mentioning is how some children were still confused about the view of the docs they had. They were saying they couldn’t find something when in fact they needed to adjust the filtered view.
• I opened our class poetry journal and went through the different parts of the poem plan we had created yesterday.
• I opened a new Doc and we discussed the importance of using the correct tool for the task - and so explained the benefits of using Docs for writing and explained we will add our verses/poem to presentation later.
• It felt like less Google interface teaching and accustomisation today and more engagement with the poetry, the tools began to take a back seat- I know we have to experience a period of familiarisation but I was encouraged to involve the children in a more extended independent session with their Docs tool.
• Each pair would plan the next verse together by duplicating the spider diagram from yesterday and altering the text. I showed them how to right click the slide thumbnail on the left and Duplicate Slide.
• Once the plan for the next verse was prepared the children split up - one drafting the verse in a new Doc and the other working on a whiteboard. They then got back together and checked through their versions making alterations and amendments.
• A pair of children had some issues with their journal presentation and I used the revision history function to revert to a copy that was correct. Revision history is really important and as the children are editing their poem drafts I must included this as an important writing tool. If they don’t like something they have done or the changes they made they can revert to an older version. They can also compare versions to see which is best, this crumb-trail of the whole writing process is a powerful aspect of working in GDocs - not possible to see this when working with paper and pencil.
• I have been thinking about linking pairs up to share their poetry drafts so that peers can add suggestions and edit for improvement. This could be done by either adding comments (Ctrl+M) or by making changes and then engaging the children with the revision history and getting them to compare versions to see what they like.
• Rick explained that some of the children had opened a presentation thinking it was theirs when in fact it was the class poetry journal - the mistake came about for two reasons: due to similarly named Docs and because the children have not got to grips with filtering the view. Owned by Me would have directed them to the correct Doc in this instance.
• Rick also pointed out that all of the actions in GDocs home seem to be driven by single clicks and not double - which the children use out of habit.

Friday - 9/5/08

• Unfortunately I have got a bout of tonsillitis so I have not been in school today.
• I checked in later in the day to see what the kids had managed to get done in my absence.
• They continued to create planning (in presentations) and drafts of the different verses for their senses poem (in Docs)
• I reviewed everyone’s poetry journal from my Docs home page and added some comments and marking where appropriate by simply adding text or by highlighting parts to look at. Very easy to have this sort of access from any computer that is online.
• It would be ideal to have the option of inserting audio into Presentations, (likely) and Docs, (less likely) - as this could be a simple way of providing feedback.
• It looks like the next step is to complete drafts and edits of the poems, perhaps pairing the pairs up to review.
• I have noticed that the work they have done in their journal presentations needs a spell check, a noticeable absentee from the toolbar. I hope to see that soon.

Overall reflections on Week 2

It has been an exciting week for all of us in Year 5 as we learn how to embed Google Docs in a unit of work. No time for theorising about its implementation and possibilities anymore this was the real deal, 60 kids working with Docs as part of their literacy. The practicalities and processes have been the main focus.

• How do children hand in their work when it is complete?
• How do we organise our docs?
• How do we give each child a copy of a text?
• How do two children best work on one document?

We have, as you may have read above, managed to answer these questions and in the process uncovered possible problems you may come across. Such as how children must not inherit collaborators when saving a doc as their own. Or how the children need to understand how their view of the docs home page can be filtered in so many different ways: Name, Date, Sharing, Folders, All items, Owned by me, Opened by me, Starred, Hidden, Bin, All folders, specific folders, Saved Searches, Shared with, Documents, Presentations, Spreadsheets. That is 17 different filtered views and unless the children appreciate how to manage their docs using these they may, as we have seen this week, think they have lost some. Of course this is not to mention the ability to search for a document, which is very powerful as you would expect. And the advanced search options really mean that nothing is ever lost! I hope to engage the children more fully in this management tool next week.

I feel that I have come a long way in understanding the possibilities of these tools in a very short space of time. When you are engaging 60 children with Docs everyday you see what is missing and the limitations. For example it would be useful to be able to share a whole folder rather than a single doc, so we could give out work for the whole week in one go.

As Rick has said it is an exciting time and I hope you can learn from the lessons and problems we face in our journey into using Google Apps as part and parcel of our classrooms, our teaching and the learning that is taking place.

It is great to finally get some of the Google Apps tools in the hands of the children in my year group. I have been thinking about their deployment to support my teaching and learning for a very long time. In this post I reflect on our first full week of use and explore some of the issues that were raised.

We are using the Google Apps Education Edition installed on a domain that I picked up during the sign up process. I have decided to focus the children’s efforts on the tools that I consider to be the most important, so we introduced them to Google Docs and GMail. The other Google Apps tools, such as Calendar, iGoogle and Sites will have their place and will come in time, but for now Docs are king.

Below I have recorded my thoughts and Google Apps related actions that occurred throughout the week.

Monday - 28/4/08

• Created a CSV file in Excel of both classes username, firstname, surname, password.
• Generated accounts for domain using “create multiple users” tool.
• Shared my excitement with all 60 year 5s!
• 20 minute introduction to Google Docs and Gmail for all Year 5s.
• Brief look at Docs homepage and looked at each individual tool - looked at similarities with MS Office.
• Explored Sharing facility in Docs.
• Talked about when we should share and when we shouldn’t.
• Discussed the importance of security and appropriate use.
• Talked about measures if there were any inappropriate behaviour.
• Explained that we would work together to form some rules/advice to make the most of G Apps.
• Emphasised the importance of Gmail as a way to communicate the sharing of docs.
• Children had no problems with Gmail - the rhetoric of email is very familiar to them.
• Explored what spam is and how we have to deal with it if we use email.
• Set challenge of sending an email and creating and sharing of a doc.
• Explained that we will have a Google Break Tuesday lunchtime 12.30pm to 1.00pm to give children who cannot access internet at home chance to use the laptops in class.
• Shared teacher email addresses and pupil usernames and passwords.
• Children made a note of these on info sheets to take home.

Tuesday - 29/4/08

• Responded to children who had already -approx 8- logged in and shared a document with me / or emailed.
• Provided children with 30 mins in the morning to login and offered appropriate support.
• Congratulated those who had independently accessed G Apps at home.
• Had a Google Break at the children’s lunchtime when the children from both Year 5 classes could choose to work on a laptop and access their G Apps account. A very successful session with more than 16 children accessing their G Apps acc.
• Observed how children are very good at discovering new features not yet explained. Within the 30 minutes children were accessing Google Chat and nattering away to each other. When they are working together as a group, on an individual laptop, and they make a new discovery they are quick to explain to their peers what to do and how to get to the same discovery.
• There was lots of excitement about using Docs and the majority of the children were keen to tell me that they had either worked on it the previous night or were planning on doing so very soon.
• During a Geography session about the location of India the children were given a choice about how to present a piece of work and it was great to see the range tools that they turned to: SMART Notebook, MS PPT, MS Word, MS Excel, Google Docs. Many of the children chose to use Google Earth as a way to support their learning. They are making better and better tech choices.

Thursday - 1/5/08

• Had a conversation with teaching colleague in Year 5 about his concerns and thoughts about using G Apps.
• Discussed the issue of managing 30 docs that are shared with him. I talked about RSS feeds for doc changes but it seems that Apps Edu Edition does not currently support it. Boo. We talked about making folders in Docs home and I talked him through the process. We made a First Attempts folder to collate initial docs shared with us in this early stage.
• Marking and assessment of work is an important issue and we discussed the realistic merit of typing a document, pros and cons. We felt that if the children could record an idea for a sentence in audio form and have that embedded within a document adjacent to their typed effort there would be great benefit for review, support and editing. Unfortunately GDocs does not allow embedded media at present. Perhaps Presentations will soon as it allows video.
• We explored how we could assess the children’s writing if they have used GDocs. We discussed the grammar and spell check indicators in MS Word and I explained that these were not present in the GDocs so the children’s mistakes would not be flagged up to them as they work. This is a good thing when doing an assessed piece. They could use the spell checker but we could ask them to bypass this so the work is a true reflection of their writing ability.
• Time is a key issue when thinking about how children work when typing. They cannot produce as much as if they were handwriting the piece due to their slow typing speeds - I explained that perhaps we need to just give the children more time.
• I explored our next literacy unit from the Primary Framework based on the compilation of poetry “Sensational“. Throughout the unit the children add to a poetry journal. I discussed with my teaching partner the possibility of everyone creating a GDoc for this instead of a paper copy. I want the children to engage with GDocs in a structured way ASAP within the frame of a subject or topic. This is a good opportunity to do so. Taking it from exploration and an immersed approach with free reigns to a structured application of the technology to support the curriculum.
• I produced 2 documents that form part of activities within the first week of poetry unit. One of them needs to be a shared doc so that everyone can contribute to the same space - looking at alternative titles for a poem. The other needs to be a doc that each child can have a copy of and work on individually or in a pair. The solution for the first doc is easy as I can share with everyone in the year group. I think to distribute a copy for everyone for the second doc can be done by emailing it as an attachment. The children would then see the email attachment and open it as a GDoc. I need to check this.
• The ability to share a doc with a peer is also a useful way to share ownership of work. So even though when the children are working in a pair - if you only have access to 1:2 laptops, or the activity was to work with a partner, then the final step of the work would be to share it with the child who did not start the doc.
• I discussed with my colleague the use of email contacts to create sharing groups. This can be done in two ways. The first is in GMail contacts and then creating a group by adding email addresses, but you cannot see a list of who you have in your contacts so you have to go down a class list and make sure you have added everyone. The other way is when you share a Doc with someone you get the option to choose from your contacts. You tick them off and then there is an option to create a group from that bunch.
• We have created different email groups for whole year group, whole class, differentiated literacy and numeracy groups. This way we have lots of flexibility to share different documents with appropriate groups.

Friday - 2/5/08

• Checked against class list those who had not completed the challenge of sending an email and creating and sharing of a doc.
• Directed those who needed time to get online to use the 30 mins in the morning.
• Asked those more confident in G Apps (often those who had logged in at home independently) to offer support for those who needed it.
• Explained to these children that when you provide support not to take over but to carefully direct. Could we have some children to be Google Experts?
• Discussed guidelines with whole year group for sharing docs and created a simple set of positive statements to help children know when it is best to share a doc with the teacher.
• Created and shared a doc about sharing guidelines with all children and encouraged them to add to it if they thought of any new statements.
• Explored with the year group avatars and online identities and why it is sensible and safe to use something other than a photograph.
• We used the Simpsons Movie website to create an avatar and save the icon to their network folder. Some children in my class had already made theirs and emailed it to me after a brief chat with them the previous day. One child had preferred to use a Star Wars avatar - some of them had already worked ot how to upload the avatar image to their GMail profile
• We uploaded avatars to their GMail account profiles, the children worked really well together to help each other with this. Learning together.

Overall reflections on Week 1

The children’s attitude towards the introduction to Google Apps has been the most positive aspect this week. I was excited to see them engaged with these tools and their enthusiasm throughout the week has been great to be caught up in. It is clear that the procedures for distributing documents and work in a primary classroom needs refining and exploring, I am sure there is much to learn about what is best. We have spent 5 days in an immersed state, the children have been sharing their docs with me without any boundaries. On Friday we discussed guidelines for when it is best to share docs with us. I wanted the children to have freedom and space to practice the process of sharing docs without restriction. Now they are familiar I want them to think more carefully about what is shared.

It has been very interesting looking at the units of literacy we are yet to teach and planning for the implementation of Google Docs in a structured way to support our work. Many of the Tweets I received this week about GApps use in school has centred on the question of email and whether the children have it or not. From my own experience the sharing and notification of documents is driven by the power of GMail and so it is important for the children to also understand this. I look forward to having a better appreciation for the practicalities of working in GDocs from our work next week.

A little while back the EdTechRoundup team had the wonderful opportunity of interviewing the Google Applications Edu Team in the UK. We asked our networks, via the blog, wiki and Twitter, to contribute their questions.

Over at the EdTechRoundup blog the serialised answers are being published, as the title suggests, one per day. Please take some time to head on over and read the three responses so far and if you had submitted a question perhaps yours will be up next.

We would particularly appreciate any comments left there that continue the debate, as I know the Google team are watching!

I hope that some of you have enjoyed reading the 33 Interesting Ways (and tips) to use your Interactive Whiteboard. The Google presentation continues to grow as people contribute, the last three tips are titled:

• #31 - Snap it! (using the SMART capture tool)
• #32 - Check by order (self checking method using the layering of SMART Nbk objects)
• #33 - Befuddle It (using Befuddle to create a picture puzzle from your Nbk pages)

Well there is a new kid on the block looking for help!

I have begun a new Google presentation (currently) titled: “Four interesting ways (and tips) to use Google Earth in the classroom.” It follows the same model as the IWB presentation, in that it is an open resource that needs your contributions in order to grow. Please feel free to share with your colleagues if you find it useful, spread the word or even embed in your blog.

Contribute one idea or contribute ten! I have made a start - the process is easy.

1. Go to the presentation and take a look at was has been contributed. If you would like to be added as a collaborator send me an email (thomasgeorgebarrett [at] googlemail [dot] com - or use the contact tab at the top of this page - or even send me a direct message via Twitter I am tombarrett) I will invite you in as a collaborator.
2. Add your one slide, one idea and one image.
3. Change the presentation title slide and file name to match the number of ideas.

It will have a humble beginning as before, but I know with your help it will soon grow into something that offers a uniquely authored resource, sharing good Google Earth practice from around the world.

I use Google Docs just about every day, as much of what I need on a regular basis is there and I often flit between computers. I was pleased to discover (or at least what I assumed to be a discovery!) the Forms tool as part of the sharing feature in a Google Spreadsheet. For a fleeting moment I thought I had made a first ascent, seen a new island, found a new species, stumbled upon a hidden civilisation! But, alas, my RSS feeds told me otherwise (of course what was I thinking?!) so I got down off of the table and began to think about ways to use it in the classroom.

We are soon to be delving into some data handling work from the new Primary Framework for Maths. One of the aspects is to plan, carry out and present a data handling investigation. There is a possible link with the Google Forms tool.

Creating an online form is not particularly ground breaking for data handling, so why the excitement? Google Docs is such a straight forward set of applications, there are very few bells and whistles (yet). The apps are being developed all of the time and personally I appreciate the simplicity it currently has, the slow approach to new features and the gradual emergence of those features. I feel like I know the app very well and I am not overwhelmed by a cacophony of whistling and ringing.

The Forms tool inherits that straightforward template - making it ideal for children to use. Compared to many other online survey tools Google Forms is raw and almost rudimentary in it’s functionality. But I like that. Short learning curve for all. Just the sort of tool we need for the classroom.

Here is a couple of screenshots showing how to create a form and what happens with the data. Click on any of them to get a closer look.

One of the most important aspects of using G Forms in the classroom is that the data remains dynamic once it is collected. It is not a static graph, automatically created - the data is as raw as the tool. It is conveniently added to your spreadsheet ready for you to manipulate and analyse accordingly. As a teacher this is ideal - for there is much to learn about what you should and could do with data in it’s raw state.

As I mentioned before, after I stopped congratulating myself for finding this tool I began exploring ways it could enhance what is going on in the classroom. I began a Google Form of my own, as a simple example and asked people on my Twitter network to take a look. One of the questions I added was about what classroom uses they could envisage for such a tool. I have summarised some of the responses I received below. (Thankyou to all of you who have contributed your thoughts)

• How about using Forms to get students to rank the factors that they think make a good piece of work, e.g. in English or using it for short multiple choice (objective) assessment? The automated entry into a spreadsheet would make marking easier!
• I’m thinking that it would be a non-patronising way of collecting traffic light information from pupils.
• Site technology survey
• I use informal surveys and such all the time… might be a simpler way to do it than my current method….
• This will be invaluable for any research project, the data goes with you.
• Surveys
• Sports lists
• Staff responses
• Multiple Choice answers - test, revision, quiz
• I set one up today to poll the staff about professional development needs. I can see amazing possibilities with students.Imagine you could check for prior knowledge and have everyone’s “starting point” be pushed to a spreadsheet. What a great way to use data to shape instruction.
• I need to survey a whole year group. I was going to try and use Kaleidos, but I still can’t access it from my laptop. Love the idea of using this instead!
• Evaluation of their work.
• My “class” is actually made up of teachers. This will be a great “feedback” tool!
• Feedback on learning
• Beginning/end of term surveys, data collection for grad school, immediate feedback when I finally have a laptop in each child’s hand…
• You could use it at the beginning of the year to get a snapshot of their profiles (likes, dislikes, multiple intelligence questions, other views … so that you have a group profile and individual profiles to start lesson planning. Note: of course for schools that have computer facilities.

The release of this tool is timely for me due to the nature of our maths work we will be doing very soon. But the tool does have to be the most appropriate for the data investigation. I will introduce this as a way for children to collect data but I will also expect children to choose it carefully. Is it the best data collection tool for the investigation?

This sort of awareness of whether a tech tool is the most appropriate is central to what I am doing in my classroom.

I am looking forward to including this tool as part of our data handling work over the next few weeks. Hand in hand with making the most of Google forms is an understanding of the use of Google Spreadsheets too, so that will need to be thought about. It is appealing to know it is all in one place.

One of the ways I have been tracking the responses to my demo survey is to add the Google Forms gadget to my iGoogle page.

It is a simple no fuss way (if you use iGoogle) to keep tabs on what is happening - you can even create a form from the direct link.

Here are some of my offerings to the melting pot of ideas for the uses of the Google Forms tool in the classroom.

• Book review database of your library area - invite the children to complete a standard form for a book they have read. Questions could be on genre, a rating etc.
• Peer or self review of writing success criteria for a completed piece of work.
• Creating databases is something that many UK primary teachers are doing in ICT- this would be a great data entry method. It could work for all sorts of topic areas - Egyptians settlements, world rivers, habitats, minibeasts, musical instruments, rocks and minerals…
• School/parent questionnaires or even feedback on reports.
• Question by question analysis on test papers. We have just completed some progress tests and the most time consuming aspects is always (if you choose to do it) the analysis of questions. A form could be created with each question from the paper as a separate question. The children could have time to go through their own paper recording their correct/incorrect/omitted responses.
• Website reviews - similar to the book reviews above- could be linked to the class del.icio.us links.
• As yet there is no way to embed the form in another site - but with Google presentations going down that path I am sure it will not be long before you can drop a Google Form into your website or class blog.

The release of this tool does offer an interesting twist to how Google Apps can be organised in the classroom. I have been working with my children on pooling data in a spreadsheet for some time in various ways - using a single user login, everyone editing the same spreadsheet. This is clearly a very open approach and requires multiple logins on multiple machines. Or it requires you to share the s’sheet with many recipients via email.

However if you were to use the Forms tool to collect data instead of using the spreadsheet itself then you would retain the pooling of data to one place but restrict access to the data once it has been submitted. Children could view the responses but not alter, delete or overwrite anyone else’s.

Google spreadsheets refreshes approx every 30 seconds so many machines doing so does chew the bandwidth - especially if working on wireless machines. Now with numerical and text data that is not massive but I can vouch for it slowing down access to other websites that are usually rock solid. A Google Form for data entry would not create such a problem. There is no such live updating and the only time data would be moving about is when the “Submit” is hit. It would also produce the scenario that allows a teacher to login to the Google account for the spreadsheet that is pooling the results on a main PC with projector and the other machines just following a link. This would dramatically reduce the setup time as there is no need to login everyone through a Google account, in turn cutting the chances of having problems logging in.

I hope you get an opportunity to use the tool - please let me know how you get on and how you have used it to support learning in your classroom. Perhaps leave a comment with your thoughts or better still complete this form.

There seems to be no other way of actually managing a large number of Google accounts then working through a domain. So today I registered through Google priestsic.net for our school and began exploring the apps that are now available.

To my surprise Google Notebook is missing from the list which is a great shame as I consider it to be perhaps the tool with the most potential to school users. However there is still the ability to personalise the start page (iGoogle page) for a user. So as a teacher I can add locked content (widgetty thingies) and the others can be personalised - this is ideal.

My advice then currently to anyone planning on exploring the setup of Google accounts is to stump up the £4.91 or whatever it was for the domain name and go through the process of having a central place you can manage the accounts. I think that although there may be some bits and pieces missing in this single sign in, namely Google Notebook and Reader, the time saved due to management outweighs it.

So I am going to create a separate class Google account to share work in other apps such as Google Reader and Notebook. This afternoon I explored how Notebook worked when two people were working in the same login, it seemed to hold out OK, both views of the same notebook updating as the other worked on it. Not ideal, but would allow a class of children to work on research together and get the most from this excellent tool, sidestepping the issue of the app missing as mentioned above.

Further to my ideas related to Notebook, a single sign-in poses a new problem as there is no direct indication of who is adding what. So titles of notebooks could name specific tasks or children, to allow them to add the content in the correct place and for us to properly monitor and respond to what is happening. Imagine then a series of guided reading sessions during a week of literacy work, where children add the answers to Diigo set questions on a specific text - each child opens the notebook via the FF extension and navigates to the correct notebook (either by name or by task) adding their responses which are now labelled due to there location. Complete Notebooks could be archived into Google Docs so the list does not get too crowded over time.

In addition I have also signed up for a class Diigo account so that we can share annotations and signpost online text to children.

So iGoogle is a start page for Google account users which can aggregate all of the Google apps into simple little widgets, plus many, many more. I have been thinking carefully about how the children in my year group may be able to use this iGoogle page.

The page itself can be highly personalised through themes and the choice of a variety of different widgets, so it would be useful to have a mandatory set of widgets that the class need to add - for example widgets for:

• Google Docs/Spreadsheets
• Class Google Reader account
• Google Mail
• Class Google Calendar
• Google Notebook
• Class del.icio.us links

All of these would be a click away from the home page so easily navigable - there would possibly be a mixture of individual and class use of these tools. I like the way that every child’s page could look different giving them a sense of ownership for this bit of online space - yet maintaining a sense of consistency with the above list of class widgets they need to add. Perhaps this would be the first sort of task the children can undertake when exploring their page and learning about how to add different content.

There is a vast array of widgets available for the iGoogle page, naturally ranging in quality. But within this variety are some real gems. For example Brain Tuner (just search for this on the content page) for primary age children is just what they need - a simple dose of regular mental maths right there on their home page.

I have found two version, the first is a mixture of multiplication and addition; the second being just multiplication. Every time they take the quick challenge records how quickly they have completed it adding a nice little slice of competition to keep them motivated. This may seem a leap straight out of the Nintendo DS book but it is great for keeping primary age kids sharp with their mental maths. I imagine children completing a task may nip and get one of our laptops and just have a quick play on Brain Tuner on their homepage (or even search for maths tagged sites via the del.icio.us widget and get stuck in somewhere else - who knows!)

Then of course there may well be a widget that supports a particular topic of work that you are doing in your class during the year. For example when we are doing work on space we might add the NASA Image of the day widget. During our RE work this year the Photos of Sacred Places widget could develop some discussion.

As I use it more and more I think that it would be a great place for children to start their online session. It just depends now on how the accounts are managed. (Just signed up for Google Apps on a domain) It looks like Notebook is not available via a domain type use of Google Apps, including no iGoogle page - but one that is shared.

Just realised that the iGoogle page (via Google Apps for a domain) is a combination of shared content and personal choices. Good news!

End users of the page still have the ability to incorporate any content from the web, or any Google Gadget, enabling them a degree of customization over the content of the page.