Google Gears Up as a Digital Equity Strategy

Every once in a while the universe throws you into a situation that challenges you to take a closer look at how well you understand the reality of those you advocate for. As an advocate for digital equity, I pride myself in promoting strategies that help bridge the digital divide. So there was a certain degree of irony to the fact that I have found myself in a situation with no Internet access for the summer.

Living in rural Vermont, where many communities have no high speed Internet access or cell service, I've always been sensitive to the challenges of students and teachers whose only Internet access is dial-up and even more sensitive to those for whom a computer or the monthly fees of having Internet access are cost prohibitive. Yet I was still surprised at the adjustments I needed to make at my new summer place at a campground without Internet access. A friend from my Personal Learning Network recently gasp at the fact that my last Twitter update was 18 days ago, and suggest that I change my username from 'techsavvygirl” to “she formerly known as techsavvygirl”. I'm grateful that he agreed to make an exception to his personal Twitter rule -- “drop followers who fail to update after two days.”

Ah, but alas, the “Internet withdrawal” symptoms made me sit up and take notice of one of Google's newest additions – Google Docs Offline made possible by Google Gears. Google Gears is an open source browser extension that allows you you to view and edit your Google documents offline, without an Internet connection. Well, maybe not 'all' of them. It allows you to view and edit word processing documents and to view (not edit) spreadsheets and presentations offline using Google Docs. Google Gears is now part of my summer 'survival' kit and has earned a place in my list of digital equity strategies.

Since our school has adopted the use of Google documents as a digital equity strategy and implemented Google Apps for your Domain (Educational Projects), many students have been able to continue working on their assignments outside the school day. There is a big equity gap between students who type 80 wpm and those who type 15 wpm when giving kids computer lab time to complete an assignment. Unfortunately the latter, is also usually the student who does not have a computer and high speed access at home. Our students who needed more thinking time or typing time were now able to finish the assignment offsite. Even those without Internet access at home, claimed that Google docs helped them access their schoolwork at the library or a friend's house.

But suddenly some of our teachers were finding themselves in the midst of their own digital divide problem. Students started eagerly sharing their documents with teachers or submitting them electronically using the Share feature of Google Docs. This proved challenging for teachers with only dial-up access available. I wasn't sure I could do more than empathize, until I discovered Google Gears.

Now I show them how to access their Google Docs offline. Clicking on the “Offline” link on Google Docs toolbar will result in a prompt to install Google Gears and give it access to your computer. (Make sure you don't do this on a 'shared” computer.) Then the next time you log into your Google Docs account, check out the "work off line" tab. You will be prompted to allow Google Gears to work with Google Docs off line. The documents will be stored and made available to you on your computer, even when it cannot access the Internet by typing http://docs.google.com into your browser or by clicking on the desktop shortcut that is downloaded during the installation process.

I not only used Google Gears to work with my Google Docs, but also synced it to work with my Google Reader. Getting ready to spend the weekend without Internet, I did some preliminary research for a project I was working on by adding the sites to my Google Reader, then made sure to sync my computer with Google Gears before I left. For the rest of the weekend, I was able to access information that would not have been available to me otherwise! Even though Google Gears didn't provide me with “full text” or ability to follow hyperlinks, it certainly gave me access to more digital resources than I would have had otherwise.

Although the list of applications that work with Google Gears is fairly short, those of us with limited access now have a new strategy in our digital equity toolbox. And as much as we would like to believe PC World's prediction “that it won't be that long until we're always online.”, we are thankful to those Web 2.0 products that understand that ubiquitous online access is not everyone's reality.

Google Apps for Your Domain in Education

“Google the Jelly Rolls;
Become a Jelly Rolls expert;
Connect to other Jelly Rolls fans;
Create your own content and contribute to the global knowledge base about the Jelly Rolls;
Plot the band's tour on Google Earth and create links on theKMZ file to your blog posts on the shows…”

instructs Google certified teacher, Kyle Brumbaugh, as he sets the scene for students to begin their own 21st century learning experience using powerful Web 2.0 tools. The Jelly Rolls are a fictional punk rock group, that Kyle uses to help students visualize the strategies and skills they will need to participate in Global Communication- a program aimed at making students better consumers of the content they have access to in an online world.

The interdisciplinary program includes Social Studies, Language Arts, and Health working on content standards using topics from Globalization to Digital Citizenship. The program provides an excellent model of integrating technology to produce a learning experience that would NOT have been possible without today’s technology. It also models a way to meet several of the new ISTE National Education Technology Standards for Students

Capuchino High School has adopted Google Apps for your Domain as one of several tools used to implement the Global Communications program. The program uses tools that expand the circle of influence these students have outside of their local community by helping them connect and collaborate. Google Apps for your Domain provides the school with several powerful Google tools, while allowing them to keep their own school domain name: http://www.capuchinohighschool.org/ and allowing them to keep control of the student accounts using a web based control panel.
According to Kyle,

“The kids have access to the Gmail function, with chat turned off, docs
and spreadsheets and their own homepage (iGoogle) that they can customize.
Wealso allow them to use the calendar function. The students also use this
e-mail account to create their 'blogger' accounts. Every kid in the Global
Communications classes has their own blog. The next step in the process
for some of them is to start to use reader to subscribe to feeds. “

On the opposite coast, a Vermont school district has taken a different approach to adopting Google Apps for your Domain. Rutland South Supervisory Union started with administration, then teachers, and are now piloting student accounts. Looking to move away from maintaining his own in house post office, network administrator, Jayson Casavant examined outsourcing. The Google Apps for Your Domain free education access resulted in a substantial savings per year for his district. He set up trial accounts for each of the admin team then sent several weekly "google tips" for them to experiment with. Prior to the roll out to staff, he built an extensive addition to our web site offering FAQ's, tips and instructions for the staff.
Jayson feels the change has been well received by his district...

“Having a web based solution has offered our staff more flexibility than our
previous client based solution. Docs and spreadsheets is widely used as are
email and calendaring. We have currently rolled out roughly 100 students as a
beta test and plan to offer email to more going forward. All in all we have
found Google apps to be user friendly and easily scalable to our needs.

Meanwhile, a group of students from Burr and Burr Academy's Research Lab are hoping their district will follow suit. Adam Provost's students have created a proposal for their school to adopt Google Apps for Your Domain. The solution is currently pending, but Adam and his students are hopeful that the school will consider their proposal. They feel that

“Google for Domains makes a wild amout of sense. Have a company offer a
school free email, a management console, collaboration tools, integrated web
2.0 services and spam filtering...for free ? Using your own domain name ?
This program saves schools money and also all configuration and maintenance
time. Reclaiming that money and personnel time alone... Good problems to
have in my book. Most schools are barely scratching the surface educating
kids for the present day. Embracing opportunities and technologies like this
in secondary education, discussing and modeling these technologies instead of
limiting their experiences will bring us closer to educating students for
the future - where they'll be working. “

Best of luck to these pioneering students and other schools as they venture into Google Apps for your Domain as vehicle to provide tools that transform the way we teach and learn.