Last week, I shared tips and tricks during my #ACPA15 Genius Labs session on Google Apps for Education. If you were not able to attend or missed it, no worries – there’s a Google doc for that: http://bit.ly/acpa15google Please feel free to SHARE your ideas on how you use Google applications in your student development curriculum and program planning. This Google document is OPEN and accessible for others to contribute suggested practices for the student affairs field.

Many universities and colleges are turning to Google Apps for Education as a solution; however this is not just an email solution. A number of Google applications can improve your daily workflow, contribute to your program development, and enhance your curriculum on campus.

Google Apps to Explore & Use

• Google Docs – rich, shared documents with social commenting
• Google Sheets – surveys, forms, and spreadsheets
• Google Forms – collect data, build surveys, review information, etc.
• Google Slides – Presentations, slide decks, etc.; collaborate with co-presenters
• Google Sites – shared wiki, website, or portfolio; project plan; meeting notes
• Google Calendar – connect & share for office hours/meeting scheduling + Hangouts
• Google Voice – VoIP phone calls, texting, and voicemail
• Google+ – Communities & Hangouts – now offers texting & VoIP from phone
• Google Drive – save files, share large documents, shared folders, etc.
• Google Chrome – web browser with apps and plugins for productivity
• Blogger – Google blogging platform; group or class storytelling/sharing
• YouTube – Google video platform; specifically the YouTube Video Editor
• Google Classroom – learning management system; to test out for training or a course

Examples for Google Docs & Forms

• First Year Seminar Class Syllabus
• Instructor Information Sheet – Semester Start Survey & End of Course Evaluation
• Sign Up Sheet  => http://bit.ly/media15
• Training/Workshop Handout
• Meeting Agenda  e.g. NACADA #advtech commission
• Guest Lecture with  Q & A http://bit.ly/josie4121 or http://bit.ly/jlknott4121

Google Video – YouTube & Hangouts On Air [EXAMPLES]

• Mentor Match “How To” – Instructional Video/Lecture Capture (Learning Object)
• Guest Speaker in a Course – Hangout with an Expert

3 Google Apps to Check Out More Often

• Google Scholar What it is: Academic search engine for publications of scholarly research Why It’s useful: Search of scholarly literature across many disciplines and sources, including theses, books, abstracts and articles. Pro tip: Identify articles available from your institutional library on campus. Also able to search & preview millions of books from libraries and publishers worldwide in Google Books.
• YouTube Trends Dashboard What it is: A handy tool to figure out what’s trending on YouTube. Why it’s useful: What are your students watching on campus? What is being shared most often near you? With the Trends Dashboard, you can tap into the zeitgeist quickly and easily. Pro tip: Compare the “Most Shared” (across Facebook and Twitter) with “Most Viewed” to get a sense of what content gets viewed often but shared infrequently. To see what was trending in the past, check out
• Google Trends. Use the optional forecast checkbox to anticipate whether interest in a particular topic is expected to rise over time. Google Keep What it is: Lets you easily jot down whatever’s on your mind via a beautiful, simple interface. Why it’s useful: Share any one individual note with a collaborator, create to-do lists, drop an image into notes as needed, and organize notes using eight color options. Pro tip: Don’t want to forget to do something? No problem: You can easily turn any note into a date or location-activated reminder.

Resources

• 5 Ways Google Tools Can Make Education More Exciting | Edudemic
• 7 Great Google Forms Tools for Teachers ~ Educational Technology and Mobile Learning
• 8 Outstanding Google Tools You May Not Know About
• From Guilt to Google: Experimenting with Tech Tools to Improve Writing Feedback

This  post is cross-posted at Laura Pasquini’s Blog.

> BONUS <

Podcast on ACPA 2015 with Juhi Bhatt