Skip to main content

T/A/P into Google Apps

I have been thinking about a way to successfully introduce, and integrate Google Apps for Education (GAFE) in schools since I first started using it in about 2008. It seemed as if there were some aspects that people found difficult to grasp, but were essential to understand in order to know how to use the tools to their full potential. Below you will see what i have come up with (there will be discussions over which area's different aspects lie in, and I welcome comments and suggestions - this could be a good discussion starter with staff?).

T/A/P (Technical/Administrative/Pedagogical) into Google Apps model (click on the image and it will take you to the live document)

This model is intended to be a flexible, interactive, one page visual document that is easy for staff to digest, without getting bogged down with too much pedagogical theory and lingo.  It aims to be personalised, authentic and collaborative - with the emphasis on the individual teacher and the
outcomes in their professional practice.  By learning and understanding the technical elements of GAFE the teacher can use them to become more effective and efficient in the administrative processes, and then have more time to foster pedagogical approaches that until now have been difficult to implement in a traditional educational setting.  I recently spoke about the Universal Design for Learning at a Primary Principals Association meeting and see it as an excellent example of the way we can re-design learning to become focussed on the learner rather than the curriculum, involving multiple means of representation, expression and engagement.

The T/A/P into Google Apps model has elements of SAMR, as well as TPACK - However I don't think that the concepts involved in these models need to be introduced in depth at an early stage - they are certainly good to check and reflect on when using technology, but don't need to be considered as the defining rulebook for using e-learning.  I didn't want teachers to be worrying about too much substitution or not being transformational enough, applying others theory to their own work - as we know, there are plenty of teachers who have been fostering creativity, collaboration, communication and critical thinking without using Google tools, and I don’t intend the tools to get in the way of good teaching - it is idealistic to expect that all teaching that integrates technology is going to be at the transformational stage.

The one page document also takes inspiration from the extensive work of John Hattie in making the learning visible so that teachers can see where they are going and know how they can get there by breaking it into small parts, there are multiple routes and channels and many things not even on there, which I hope others can add - the teacher needs to know where they are and plan the next steps.  This maps the journey and puts the control in the teachers hands, rather than saying we will be coving google sites next tuesday at staff meeting - some teachers already use google sites, and others don't know where to start!

The model assumes the teacher has a sound knowledge of their own subject content, and good teaching needs to be in place, but looks at scaffolding goals and exploring routes to help transform the way we are teaching to allow a more student centric approach.  To me, the most important element is the justification of the teacher to say WHY they are using the tool, and what difference is it making to the teaching and learning in their classroom - and this is the main underpinning of this model and is built into the process through a google form.

This model is not intended to be a static document either - it is intended to be a crowd sourced 2.0 dynamic document from within the school, and constantly evolving, there are plenty of things missed off that I am hoping teachers will take the time to create their own guides (using youtube, blogs, sheets, scripts etc.) - I am really keen on moving away from 'one tech person' or 'e-learning co-ordinator' in each school, what happens if that person leaves and takes all the knowledge with them? Does everyone breathe a sigh of relief as they don't have to use computers anymore and can go back to using their OHT's?  The intention is for teachers to explore how they can use the tools in their classrooms and topic areas and share it on the document by creating a hyperlink and 'how-to-guide' in any format they see fit.  This enhances the understanding, creates ownership and makes it a personalised document for the school and the teachers involved.

How I see it working;

1) Present the document to staff with a bit of background in GAFE and how it works.

2) Embed the document somewhere easy to access (Staff PL site), as well as emailing a copy to all staff.

3) Encourage the staff to fill in the forms to start setting targets (this could be built into the appraisal process, or teaching as inquiry model) 

4) When staff have completed the process they complete the reflection.

5) Some staff will complete the form to insert their own 'how-to-guide'.

6) The world is a better place....!

I have licensed this under Creative Commons attribution, non-commercial, no-derivitaves - which means schools are welcome to use it, but as it involves google forms you will have to create your own (in order to collect the staff goals and responses), and to do that you will have to email me and I will share the original files and templates through google drive, I'd also like to see if anyone else has any success in using this model, and modifications that need to be applied - so please contact me if you'd like to use it.  I have created a professional learning site to host the forms and documents on and I will upload the site as a template if anyone is interested.

Update 8/5/14: Templates added;

Site template is here (please change the forms and let me know if you have a chance to use it)
T/A/P into Google draw file is here (please maintain the background)

Creative Commons License
T/A/P into Google Apps by Tim Gander is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Based on a work at https://sites.google.com/a/gisboyshigh.net/tap-into-google-apps/home.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How to collaborate with ChatGPT in the research process and actually learn something

If you have used chatGPT before, it can sometimes feel like talking with someone who has done too much of their 'research on Facebook', filling in gaps with random facts marginally related to the topic just so they can respond and keep the conversation going. However, if applied or 'prompted' correctly, with the user utterly aware of the limitations and ethical considerations, chatGPT can be a helpful research assistant. There is already a wide range of tools available that are built on chatGPT that can support many of the things described below; however, I am still a bit hesitant to rush in with most of them being 'freemium' or asking you to upload your own research and other details or data into their database, I'm happy to stick with the open version of chatGPT as it is what our students have access to. Image created with AI The following guide highlights some prompts, some follow-up questions and most importantly, what you need to do next to follow up a

Motivation and homework follow up...

Last week I wrote about setting a homework challenge to learn muscles of the body as an online game - the students then had to post screen grabs on google+ to show they had done it and to be in contention for the hallowed prize of 'King of the Muscles' and a cafe voucher. I wasn't quite sure how it was going to go, but by Thursday the buzz in all my senior classes was about ' poke-a-muscle '.  The boys were so excited about it they'd post a score, and then find out that someone had beaten them, and then rush out of the class at interval to get to a computer and beat the top score.  I even had an email on Saturday (two days after the due date) from two boys who had been practicing and spent the afternoon working together to try and beat the original high scores they had submitted with the homework!!!

Assessment beyond 2020

Where is external assessment going, and who are we thinking of when we are deciding the future of assessment beyond 2020.   This picture is the actual view I was confronted with, walking into our local community college gym, aged 16.  A place where we had played volleyball, netball and cricket was now being used to measure how much we knew about the things we had spent our school lives practically doing inside this hall, to see if I could pass GCSE PE.  It is now clearly ironic the amount of time that we spent actively exerting ourselves and demonstrating competency in the ‘doing’ of the skill was now going to be measured by writing down everything we knew about it in 2hrs to double check we knew what we were supposed to know.  The previous 24hrs before this vista had seen me cramming the information written on tiny ‘flash cards’ into my short term memory, even up to the walk down the corridor to find my seat I was memorising the diagrams I had drawn about things I don’t reme