First Impressions: Comparing #Google Apps to #Office365

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Image from http://thedroidlawyer.com/2012/09/google-apps-or-hosted-exchange/

As many of you know, I recently accepted a new position at a school district closer to home.  Interestingly, this district decided to go with Microsoft's Office 365 as its cloud based storage/collaboration platform, whereas my previous district  was using Google Apps.  In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that I am somewhat of a Google FanBoy, but at the same time I like to keep abreast of the latest developments with all educational technology tools.  

My initial impressions are that Office 365 is a clean and simple user interface, but that it is not as developed or mature as Google's.  In particular, Google Drive has many more features, such as the ability to connect additional apps, compared to SkyDrive which is simply a file creation and management tool.  Perhaps some would take issue with this, but it is my initial impression anyway.

On the plus side for Skydrive is that the actual file editing interface and functionality are what most people are comfortable with as it looks and acts just like traditional Office docs.  So if you value that aspect, then it makes sense.  However, I have come to value morethe collabration aspect of document editing and have found that Google's tools in that regard are second to none. 

 As I use Office 365 more, I will post more thoughts here.  I would be interested to hear from those of you in other districts that have also gone "Microsoft".  How has it been for you?

Information Sharing is Power

On the way in to work recently, I listened to an interview with Vint Cerf, a foremost Internet pioneer turned Google's Chief Internet Evangelist (how great would that job be?).  You can listen to it below.  I was struck by many of the things he said in response to questions from Andrea Seabrook, formerly of NPR and now the creator of her own podcast, DecodeDC. Chief among them was the way he talked about current business models and how they are not accurately monetizing given the current technoscape.  

As an educational technologist, this rings true for me in the arena of digital access to curriculum in the classroom.  The traditional textbook publishers are trying to impose a scheme upon schools and districts that requires an annual fee per student for their content.  In reality, this does not seem feasible for schools when they have been used to purchasing a set of texts and recycling them for a certain period of time among many users.  

If the traditional textbook companies want to remain relevant, they must evolve and adjust, otherwise, the OER movement may gain enough traction to force them out.

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Embedding Google Hangout in Edmodo Stream for Secure Webcasting

I had been waiting with much anticipation for Google to finally open up Google+ for K-12 Apps for Education domains.  They finally did so just a few weeks ago and I quickly had our domain administrator open it up for staff (after checking with the CTO of our district, of course).  The main reason I wanted to open it up for staff was to take advantage of Hangouts, the multi-point video conferencing feature that is only available to those with a Google plus account.  My vision for this was to be able to record conversations among our district staff who have been using iPads over the past year, so that teachers who are new to using them this year can watch and learn a thing or two.  I was able to make this vision a reality as you can see here:

Uploaded by Justin TalmadgeSVSD on 2012-12-13.

It did require quite a bit of planning on my part:  scheduling time with the experienced iPad teachers, making sure they had a webcam, helping them enable their district Google plus account (which is an issue itself as now folks may have two Google Plus accounts) and making sure we were in each others' circles.

All in all it worked well for staff, but it made me think about how this could be used for/with students. When our domain administrator reviewed the settings for Google Plus in the Apps control panel, it was quite clear that there is no way to keep posts private, so at this point we have no intention of opening it up for students.  But that doesn't mean we can't still use Google Hangouts for students.  What I am thinking about here is the feature of Hangouts on Air that allows you to embed a hangout.  When you copy the embed code and paste it in an Edmodo group message stream, the hangout can be watched live or asyncronously right there, and perhpas even more importantly a secure, private chat can occur below the post. Here is an example of en embedded Hangout:

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It would also be possible for students using a personal Google Plus account, or one of their parents', to actually join the hangout as well.  But I haven't fully fleshed out the security/legal/ethical ramifications of that yet.  So, what do you think? In lieu of opening up Google Plus for students, might the combination of Edmodo and Google Hangouts be a viable alternative?  

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Edmodo