WebedtecH

So you think you’ve finished all the planning for your new intranet and you’re ready to get to the building part.  Not so fast there…there’s still more thinking to come.

Concentrating on the problem solving

You have identified the specific needs you have to meet for your intranet to be successful, but now you have to figure how to accomplish those objectives with the tools at hand.  Personally this is one of the reasons why I love these types of browser based tools.  They force you to think creatively rather than running the code to just make it do whatever you want.

Let’s start reviewing some of the functionality you are likely to address in building out your site:

• Document management
• Lists of information
• Reference materials
• Discussions
• Links

There are a lot more that we’ll address later but this is a good list of things to get us going.

Document management

Generating documents is part of the lifeblood of most organizations and I’m sure yours is no different.  The challenge comes with keeping everyone on the same page when working with documents as part of the team.  There’s two main parts to this: editing documents and accessing documents.  Editing documents collaboratively online is the strength of Google Apps for documents and spreadsheets.  I’ll leave the focus on how to do that work there.  The strength of Google Sites when it comes to documents is the File Cabinet feature and embedding documents.

File Cabinets in Google Apps give you a place to upload documents to and organize them within folders.  Unfortunately there is little security there beyond the site level security.  In one of my later articles you’ll see that security in Google Apps is dependent on creating lots of small, targeted sites and weaving them together.

When planning your File Cabinets, think topically. You can only create one level of folders in each cabinet, so plan around a cabinet holding one topic area of information. It will make it easier for your users to recognize what is in the cabinet right away. For example a cabinet labeled “Forms” should hold only that, various forms broken down into folders. It’s fine to have a number of filing cabinets in your site, or even have sites that are nothing more than filing cabinets. Another example is if you wanted to have HR forms all in one place setting them up as their own site with read only access for most users is an effective solution rather than trying to manage them as part of a larger site.

Lists of information

There are a couple of ways to handle lists of information in Google Apps. One is to use the List page in Google Apps to create a basic structure of sortable fields. If you need a quick and dirty list of things such as to-do items or a phone directory this is a good way to go. If you need something more robust I suggest you create your list in Google Apps spreadsheet and embed the spreadsheet into your site. It is much more powerful and versatile than the built in list function.

Reference Materials

This is one of the times I recommend using the internal functions of the site over an outside application. Google Apps do not have a wiki function, but the Pages can be tied together in a way to make them very user friendly. Procedural documentation, policies, guidelines, anything that may need to be updated easily are good candidates to be a Page in a Google Apps intranet. One of the larger advantages is the ability to attach files and comments to the pages, making them truly living documents.

Discussions

Email is a critical part of our operations and instant messaging services such as Google Talk and Twiter are becoming just as valuable. Discussions in Google Apps take this to another level by making the conversation public to all the site members. Unfortunately, unlike other systems there aren’t any “discussion lists” within Google Apps. What’s a site administrator to do? Use the Announcements option instead, of course.

By using the Announcements option each new announcement becomes the beginning of a message thread and the comments are the responses. It’s a great way to leverage a feature in Google Apps for something different than it was designed for while still meeting a significant need. An example of this is using an Announcements list for a Q&A section in your site where users post their questions as announcements and your answers are the comments. You can subscribe to the list and always be in the loop on what your users need to know.

Links

By using the List page template you can create indexes of links for your users that act as supplementary navigation, reference lists, tables of contents, and more. If you are going to have a number of links in a list (20 or more) I suggest adding a category field that you can sort by so people can find the links they are looking for quickly and easily.

We’ve covered some of the basic components your intranet may need. Next is one of the more complicated aspects of Google Apps sites…navigation within a site and across multiple sites.

Far too many of us have bought into the new chestnut of “digital natives vs. digital immigrants” as educators and administrators. It does follow well with our habit of searching out a label for each face in a classroom; making them something we can count, measure, graph, and put on a PowerPoint slide. Unfortunately this sets up some drastic misunderstandings of the individuals within these groups. I challenge you as educators and administrators to look deeper, gazing into the infinite variety that exists between 0 and 1 on this person-based number line.

To assume the members of a particular generation group posses an innate level of understanding because they are part of that group is stereotyping. We would be shocked and incensed to hear the statement, “Oh, they don’t get technology because they’re old.” How is this any different than, “This should be easy for them, they’re kids after all and you know kids and computers.” It’s a fallacy that must be corrected or at a minimum recognized.

Students come from all backgrounds and levels of understanding. We recognize this when it comes to core curriculum, classroom composition, even school lunch programs so why do we seem to have a blind spot to this when it comes to technology. Is it fair to assume a student will pick up Spanish easily because they can speak English? Of course it isn’t. So why is it fair to assume a student will pick up blogging, video, online collaboration, and multimedia just because they use Facebook?

The only thing separating this generation from generations past is they lack the fear of unfamiliarity for the most part. Their aptitudes are the same, they have similar strengths and weaknesses, and experience the same joys and frustrations as we and our parents did. We must recognize this when working with them as teachers and planning for them as administrators.

There are no digital natives. There are no digital immigrants. There are students in all their infinite, wonderful variety. Peel off the labels and discover what lies within. Recognize they will all learn at their own pace, in their own way, the things that are important to them. No zeroes, no ones, only students.

Mobile technology is growing by leaps and bounds in the U.S. and as such we’re finally catching up with the rest of the world in SMS or “texting.” The question is can educational technology apply this effectively for parents, faculty, and students?

Closing the loop

The frenetic nature of families causes them to be in many places at once.  Sports practice, school, work, extracurricular activities, they all take their toll on the “together-time” that many of us grew up with.  Texting gives schools the opportunity to reach out to families, students, and staff in a more convenient manner for most.  Information can be broadcast to a number of people easily through SMS services.  Groups can be selectively notified of events and news based on groups.  In aggregation it would appear that SMS services have many of the strengths of email with a faster delivery time and fewer issues.  However there are a number of things that must be taken into consideration before approaching a texting solution.

Dollars and sense

In most cases, SMS messages still charge the receiver as well as the sender of the message.  This can be an issue and not something you want to overlook.  If you send out 10 messages in a month you could be charging each recipient $1.00 based on  their phone service.  Making text messaging a service people can opt-in to is a much better idea than making it mandatory.  If you do make it optional, it cannot be your primary mode of contact.  It must be considered part of your overall communications plan.

Brevity is not always best

SMS messages by design are short and to the point.  When communicating something simple such as a school closing due to weather you may be fine.  Sharing something more involved or requiring greater explanation is not a good use of SMS.  Information can be misunderstood leading to issues, rumor, and innuendo.  Recommendation:  if you have something important to share and you use SMS, tell them to go to your web site for details and post the information there.

Rain, snow, dark of night

Not unlike email you have no way of knowing whether someone received your message unless you ask them.  Some systems do offer delivery confirmation but that is only if they are on the same carrier network as the receiver.   Establishing SMS as a early notification and reminder of notices  you have placed in other locations is a much more effective use because you are training your audience if all else fails to go to the source of the information.

The use of text messaging by schools isn’t nearly as controversial as text messaging by students but if you’re planning on implementing this type of a solution you need to take a much closer look at your mobile technology acceptable use plans and make sure they aren’t in conflict with your strategy.

Do your teachers and staff have the tools necessary to work together as a team?  Considering building an intranet?  That’s what we’re doing and I’ll explain how.  The amount of power and functionality that a school has access to through a system such as Google Apps gives a great opportunity to build a collaborative workspace for teachers and staff with virtually no cost.  However the idea isn’t without it’s challenges.  When planning any sort of collaborative web effort, I recommend starting with three key questions:

1. What do you NEED to do?
2. What do you WANT to do?
3. HOW do you want to do it?

The first question is without a doubt the most important.  The second and third will change, even be discarded, if they don’t meet the requirements of the first one.  Our needs right now are simple:

1. A central location for forms and reference materials that can be accessed by any staff member on or off the network.
2. A shared location for policies and procedures (currently we use a network drive)
3. A simple way to keep said policies and procedures current for everyone needing access

Now this set of needs could be served by any number of solutions so we’re still at an impass.  On to question 2…what do we WANT?

1. A system that is easy to use
2. Integrated with our current email system
3. Available from anywhere
4. Reliable
5. Adaptable
6. Minimal (no) cost

Not much more specific, but it does point out some key requirements in narrowing the field.  For example, “integrated with our current email system” points towards Google Apps since it is what we have been using for email for two years very successfully.    Also, “available from everywhere” eliminates most network centric solutions and points us back to the cloud.

Finally we come to the HOW.  This can be a tough one since by this point you still have a couple of options left on the table and you need to do a critical analysis, cost-benefit comparison, etc.  For us this was made a great deal simpler by the last WANT…minimal (no) cost.  Looks like we’ll be building our intranet with Google Sites and Google Apps.

Next…functional requirements.

Jim Gates over at TipLine had the opportunity at NECC to ask some of our “thought leaders” the highly relevant question:

“Brick and mortar schools also carry with them the burden of the fear of lawsuits. That fear, both real and imagined, defines their limits and shapes their curriculum. Can B&M schools break the bonds of that fear to become the vision that both sides here have expressed, or is it a burden so heavy that it will crush them?”

Regardless as to whether the phrasing of the question could have been changed the message of the question was clear as crystal.  Our governmental leader ducked and the lead educational pundit flinched.  Disappointing on both sides.  Unfortunately it is an excellent demonstration of the answer to the question.

Our governmental leaders are paralyzed by such bureaucratic and legal inertia that nothing can be said or done.  Our educational “thought leaders” preach to the converted; a mass audience without the power to effect the change so desperately needed.  In so many cases our administrations are crippled with fear so that the smallest step cannot be taken without careful review by designated counsel.  This “trickle-down” runs to the classrooms as teachers are directly and indirectly pressured into inaction by the blade of Damoclese hanging over their head.

As educators and mentors we are to be teaching and guiding our next generators and leaders.  If we continue along this path we will yield nothing more than a herd of which Babe the pig would be proud.

So Jim, to you I say -  keep asking the questions.  They may duck and bob, weave and shuffle, but eventually one will land and maybe, just maybe, the shock will be enough to get out the smelling salts and make them wake up.

TipLine – Gates’ Computer Tips: Opportunity Lost.