 | An important step to take as a school on a digital journey is registering with Google as an educational institute and become a part of the Google Apps for Education cohort. It’s free and it unlocks a world of amazing tools for students and staff. |
Registering is a matter of sending a few emails back and forth, not an overly difficult task but a little time consuming. You come out with a domain name for your users (staff and students), which is tagged to email accounts. Setting up also requires the uploading of users onto the Google system. This may seem a little confusing, but a savvy colleague can walk you through it. Once this is done, you assign administrators who can then add or remove users easily, allow certain permission settings for groups of users, and reset passwords etc.
SJB began with staff accounts only, which was a good move. It gave the staff time to navigate Google Mail if they hadn’t used it before (I believe they're doing away with the term Gmail), and strategically be introduced to Google Docs, Sheets, Slides and Calendar. The phasing in of Google apps to replace alternatives such as Pages or Word and Numbers and Excel initially occurred during whole staff meetings. Dee and a few other members of staff had played around with transitioning key documents. Documents were projected, the staff were assisted with logging in, and then asked to contribute to the collective documents.
Just as with any class new to Google’s collaborative properties, people were amazed at the technology and, just like students, funny messages were written, laughs were had. This process was continually repeated until it became part of normal practice and gradually the use of Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides permeated team documents and individual planning.
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