This year, Iona PS is introducing Google Apps for Education (GAFE) for all staff, and students in Years 4-6. In Term 2, working with Mr Graffin (ICT), the Year 6’s recently became the first classes to “Go Google”.
What are Google Apps for Education?
Google Apps provide teachers and students with a suite of collaboration and communication tools which enable them to work together on documents, presentations, etc in real-time – on any device, anywhere, anytime through a web browser.
Introducing Google Apps will help us explore some exciting learning opportunities which simply can’t be found through a worksheet or internet search, both within and beyond our classroom walls. For example, students can use Google Docs to create and edit collaborative stories and presentations. They can use Google Forms, under teacher supervision, to collect real-world data from international teachers and students for school projects (this is our first Google project). In the longer term, students could use GAFE tools to engage in global collaborative projects with students in other countries, an area in which I specialise.
Iona PS students in Years 4-6 have access to the following GAFE tools:
- Drive (cloud storage)
- Docs (word processing)
- Presentations (slideshows)
- Sheets (spreadsheets)
- Forms (surveys)
- Sites (websites)
- Classroom (similar to Edmodo).
- Gmail* (from late 2015).
Student Email
While students use an email address to log into GAFE, they do not currently have access to email (which is switched off). We plan to reintroduce student email in late 2015/early 2016 as part of our ICT program; however, students will be unable to send or receive email to/from outside the school.
Online Safety and Security
The introduction of Google Apps for Education enables us to teach our students how to safely communicate and collaborate in real-time within a secure, supervised online environment, as well as how to use cloud storage solutions to save and submit work to their teachers.
By default, students’ work is only accessible within the school, and it can be shared with collaborative partners and teachers. Students’ work will not be publicly available or accessible online, with the one exception being the use of anonymous Google forms to collect information from outside the school.
Students’ use of Google tools is governed by the Digital Citizenship rules outlined in our Parent Internet Access Agreement 2015, available on the school website.
Questions?
If you have any questions, or would like to learn more about your child’s use of Google Apps for Education, please feel free to get in touch with Mr Michael Graffin, ICT Coordinator through the school, or via email at graffin.michael AT cathednet.wa.edu.au.