Why Google Apps for Education is such a great platform for schools

I have recently blogged on a number of different aspects of Google Apps for Education (GAFE), from using Sites/Drive as a school intranet to Google classroom and Teacher Dashboard. However, as we are now heavily invested in Google as a platform, it is worth discussing some other developments that have been enabled by our use of GAFE.

Where we started

As we started using GAFE, it was clear that we had the opportunity to exploit the power of Google Apps scripts to create our own custom systems. We had already exploited the add-on scripts written by +Andrew Stillman for a number of systems, such as using a combination of #autoCrat and #formMule to create a learning observation system for teacher feedback and development. We also made use of the features of Google sheets (I'll go into some more great uses of Google sheets later) to do some post-processing on the data, so that we could analyse the results of the learning observations. 

1.1 Learning walk form - on submission uses autocrat to send a pdf version of the feedback.

Scripting

When I started at Nexus as an ICT integrator I started exploring the potential to use scripts to send Google form data into a calendar for a homework system, but found that I was startlingly incompetent and did not have the time. However, we really wanted to exploit the features of Google Apps scripts so we were fortunate enough to employ +Sam Scholefield to work with us to create some exciting new systems...

...Everything begins somewhere

Our initial problem was our homework system, which was effectively a Google spreadsheet embedded onto a Google site. A solution to a transparent system of homework setting that it was, it was rather clunky - staff submitted homework to a form, students then had to filter the resulting sheet by teacher / year group etc. to find homework.

1.2 Our old homework system - a form feeding into a google spreadsheet hosted on a site

Sam's first job was to make a better homework system, which, after a short time familiarising himself with Google apps script, he did. The new system pulled data from +Hapara's Teacher Dashboard (which is in turn taken from our MIS registeration system) so that we had all of our classes, staff and students. This then allowed staff to set homework using a to their classes using drop-downs, text entry fields and start / end date fields. The new system shows our students their "active" homework and also allows them to copy the tasks to their calendar for reminders. It is simplistic, intuitive and works well.

1.3 Our new homework system, combining data pulled from Teacher Dashboard with Google Apps script

Moving on

One of our next big goals as a school was to develop our own middle years program. Our Principal was keen to have a system that allowed us to define our own curriculum using a concept-based approach, which allowed us to map the curriculum by searching through a database of curriculum documents. Through a series of meetings, the content of the curriculum documents was established and trialled, and the next step was to create the system to host all of this. Sam spent a considerable amount of time creating the system. It is again based on GAFE scripts and works like this:

1. Staff complete a custom Google apps script form for the 'Scope' of a unit of work. The scope contains learning goals, concepts, personal and transferable skills, success criteria etc.
2. When complete, the form data is 'published'. This copies the data into a Google doc using a pre-set template.
3. The completed documents are searchable using the custom search facility which allows searching by concepts, subject, title etc.

So, what next...

This post is really focussed on the power of GAFE as a school platform and what it can offer.  With a few tools utilised alongside it, such as Google classroom, you are approaching an excellent, free VLE. However, it is not perfect. You don't have a lot of the features of bought systems that have modules that can be added to allow homework submissions etc. However, with a few minor exceptions, many VLEs are expensive, clunky, outdated and horrifically designed. They are often mis-sold to schools/districts/governments who buy them without having a vision of technology but know they need something to move them on.

Anyway, stepping off my soap-box for a moment, the great thing about GAFE is that by using scripting (free ones, or paid) you can start to customise and build pretty much any kind of systems you want, all sitting on top of a core of a robust, collaborative cloud-based document storage system, which also happens to be free. 

The question is, how can schools gain access to a team of competent coders that also know the machinations of the average mind of a teacher or school administrator? 

In some private international schools, it might be possible to employ a coder (we did have one, but he has now left us...), either in the school or on a project-by-project basis, but this is potentially costly and fraught with issues (but maybe not compared to the cost of an expensive and inflexible corporate VLE). In public schools, the New visions cloud lab in the US is the start of this approach - a collaborative approach to solving the problem of getting customised systems written at a reasonable cost.

I feel that a shared approach like the New visions cloud lab is the best - a small team (maybe of one!) of developers that can be utilised when a school has a problem to solve, or to find ways to save time and teacher workload. However, how I might get together a group of Google-based, like-minded local and/or international schools that could utilise a group like this with Google scripting skills is the next challenge.

Google sites - Perfecting permissions

In my last post, I went through the use of Google sites to make an intranet (or a simple site for your school, department or classroom). However, perhaps the real power in sites is the ability to set permissions for different users. For your Google domain, this allows you to make sites for staff and students and even have outside users accessing certain content or pages.

This post will hopefully help you to understand how permissions work in Google sites and the different complications that arise with sites shared with people both inside and outside of your domain.

There are two basic scenarios that I will use to outline how the permissions work. One, a site for users inside your domain and the second for external users.

Sharing and permissions inside your domain

These instructions relate to sharing with users inside your domain (e.g students and staff). If you want to make a site for the public / people outside your domain, the sharing works similarly, but you may want to skip this first section.

Default settings

By default (unless your domain administrator has changed this), your site will be Private. This means that no other domain (or external) users can access, view or edit your site. The first step is to change this setting by sharing the site with your users (either individuals or a group). You can then Enable page-level permissions.

What the different permissions mean:

By default, new pages inherit permissions by default. This means that any new page you make will automatically have all of the users that are added at site level. To add a new user, you have to add them at site level (the top level of the site - don't confuse this with the home page).

The dialog for setting custom permissions

To change these settings, you have to navigate to the page (in sharing and permissions view) you wish to change. Once there, you can change to custom permissions:

1. Custom permissions: Add new users to this page.
   
   Basically, if you add a new user or group at site level, they will be able to access the page. This is useful when you may want to remove users  / groups later, but aren't so concerned about privacy (e.g. Year 7 students accessing an IB site)
   
   e.g. Year7_student is added at site level. All users in the group Year7_student will now have automatic access to the page on your site.
   
   
2. Custom permissions: Do not add new users to this page.
   
   If you add a new user or group at site level, they will not automatically be added to the page. This is useful of you want to ensure that you have total control over which users / groups from your user pool are added (e.g. students accessing a staff site)
   
   e.g. Year7_student is added at site level. All users in the group Year7_student will have to be manually given permission to access this page.

Sharing and permissions outside your domain

In this scenario you may be making a site for external users to access (e.g. parents) who do not have accounts in your Google domain. The main difference here is that anyone outside of your domain (i.e. not in your Google Apps for Education domain) who does not have a Google apps account:

• Cannot have view or edit access to the site (unless they create a Google account)
• Cannot be invited as part of a user group (even if you make a contact list in gmail).
  
  For example, if you have a gmail contacts group with 10 mail addresses, of which 5 are not Google (e.g. hotmail, yahoo), they will not be added to the site as users.
  

Basically, if they don't have a Google account and aren't going to get one, forget about permissions other than Public on the web or Anyone with the link.

The solution

To get around this, there is only really one solution (besides getting your potential users to sign-up to a Google account!). 

At site level set the permissions to Anyone who has the link can view or Public on the web. Then, on each page you can change custom permissions and change this setting, if needed. This will only work if you have content that is suitable for sharing in this way (i.e. there is nothing on the page that you are concerned about sharing).

The dialog for changing visibility for a page when the site visibility is set to Anyone who has the link

To do this:

• Turn on the Custom permissions on the page. This will allow you to change the basic sharing access from Anyone who has the link can view to Specific people.
  
• You can still Add / remove users from your Google domain as normal (based on the settings described above) for either Add new users this page or Do not add new users to the page.

Last, but not least

Finally, there is one more important consideration for the content of your site that is on your pages. If you have embedded +Google Drive  or +YouTube content from your Google account, make sure that you check the sharing permissions on these documents. It's kind of embarrassing to spend all that time setting permissions on your pages, only to find the important document / video that you want your users to see isn't shared with them...