Google Apps for Teachers

Recently, our district decided to make the switch to become a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) school.  We are in the middle of the transition and are slowly adding teachers to our district account, one site at a time.  This transition has made things simpler for me, and the discussion that I have had with several teachers has gotten them in the mode of thinking about how Google could be leveraged to making their lives easier too.

The difficulty I have had is helping them understand just why they should use Google Apps.  The biggest and best answer I can give is that Google allows the following:

• Free Cloud Storage - 15GB for a Free user, 30GB for a GAFE Teacher
• Access to Google Drive
• Real Time collaboration - share docs and collaborate from anywhere at anytime with an Internet Connection
• Google Docs - word processing in the cloud
• Google Forms - for quizzes and tests
• Google Sheets - for collecting and sharing data
• Google Slides - convert your PowerPoints into slides and access them from anywhere.
• ...and the biggest...NO NEED TO CARRY AROUND FLASH DRIVES ANYMORE!

To help our teachers learn how to use these apps, I have created a few tutorial videos that I wanted to share with everyone.  

Google:  An Introduction

Google Docs

Google Forms

Google Slides

Beyond these videos, there are several links that will help new users keep up with Google News:

Google Gooru - http://www.googlegooru.com/
Google Educators - Sand Springs - https://www.facebook.com/groups/GoogleSSPS/
The Official Google Blog - http://googleblog.blogspot.com/

Hopefully the videos and the links will help you as you Go Google!