Monthly Archive for March, 2008

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15 days of Google answers – day 6

Published on 5 March 2008 in google education apps. 0 Comments

Today we have another question from Dave Stacey from Olchfa School.

“Why are there differences between iGoogle and the personalised front page?” – Dave Staceyigoogle_logo.png

Google’s answer:

The needs of the education sector are slightly different to the needs of the consumer, hence the difference. However the you can personalise tha start page and add tools and gadgets to reflect individual activities and jobs. We’re certainly interested to hear from people about their use of iGoogle and the start page and what they would like incorporating into both.

15 days of Google answers – day 5

Published on 4 March 2008 in Uncategorized. 1 Comment

We’ve reached the 5th day of our series featuring the answers we received from the UK Google Education Apps team. Our question today was submitted by Ian Stuart, Principal Teacher of Technology and Design and ICT Coordinator at Islay High School.
“Where do Google see education in 5 years time? What products do they predict will be important?” - Ian Stuart

Google replied:

Well we don’t have a crystal ball but we do think that working in groups and providing tools that support collaboration will be increasingly important. Pupils today are very tech-savvy and they will increasingly expect access to email and to work collaboratively in school or college in the same way that they share photos, participate in conversations on the web and make ideas available to others in their day-to-day interaction with the Internet. With the cost barrier now removed, schools and universities can provide the type of technology which may have a positive impact on the way pupils and teachers work and interact with each other. This could have an impact on everything from how lessons are taught to the way homework is set, marked and delivered. In short, we hope technology in education will become a lot easier and user-friendly in the coming years.

15 days of Google answers – day 4

Published on 3 March 2008 in google education apps. 1 Comment

It’s the fourth day in our series of Q&A from the Google Education Apps team in the UK.  Question 4 was posed by Richard Millwood, Reader in Distributed Learning at the Institute for Educational Cybernetics, University of Bolton.

“Have you considered an option to mark text with a colour background or text colour to show which user contributed? For me, revving up the collaborative aspects of Google Apps is number one – far preferable to trying to match desktop software’s functionality.” - Richard Millwood

Google replied: 

“We absolutely agree with you – Google Apps was always devised with collaboration in mind rather than to mimick the functionality of traditional desktop solutions. Our aim is to provide an alternative way of working by focusing on collaboration to help people work together more efficiently and more effectively. We’re constantly working on improving how easy and useful it is for users to interact with documents, spreadsheets and presentations so watch this space….”