Impact of Conflicting Accounts

Having made the decision to transition our Google Apps accounts, we decided to do a little homework - including reading the manual! Or at least working through some of Google's help sheets and videos.

The most important thing for us was getting our head around the dreaded 'conflicting accounts" and how that would impact our users. We are not a big domain with only 500 accounts, but at least 400 of them have conflicting accounts and no-one wants to be the help desk for 400 people when they discover things are no longer how they should be.

There is a perfectly intelligible video from Google at the bottom of this post which gives their perspective on conflicting accounts, but let me give you mine.

Long before we moved to Google Apps for Education I had signed up for a number of Google Apps to use at school. My list included Docs, Sites, Blogger, Picassa, Reader, iGoogle etc. I used my @ptengland.school.nz email to sign up. It was so easy and once I had signed into one of them in a session the whole lot were available.

Then we moved to Google Apps in 2008 and now I had an account inside our Apps domain with exactly the same email address. And it all worked fine once you got it sorted that when you signed in using the green box you were inside Google Apps, and when you used the blue box you were in your public Google account. It would even let you have both accounts open in the same browser - as long as one was a public (blue) account and one was a Google Apps for Ed(green) account.

Warning: after the transition, I would no longer be able to use my school email address to access my public Google Account. Fair enough. And Google has a process to talk you through the first time you try to sign in. Sounds easy to anyone reading this blog, but there are lots of adults - and 350 children - who might finding the warning screens and 'helpful' emails incomprensible if not scary.

The next scenario is the children at the school. They all have a personal blog that is owned by the school (ie the Admin account) but they are able to Author their blog through a class sign in, set up by the school - and this is a public Google account. So they will find themselves confronting this too the first time they try to post to their blogs. And even more, they will no longer be able to have their Google Apps account open and their Blog open on the same browser. They are used to having different tabs open and flicking between them. This will create a conflict and no longer be allowed.

So we put some thought into how we could prepare for this before beginning the transition.

More about that next post...

Transitioning our Google Apps Account

In 2008 we became a school using  Google Apps for Education .  This means that Pt England School set up our  domain with Google Apps for Education ie we signed on with Google and became an account holder using the domain name ptengland.school.nz.  This free service for schools allows the account administrators to choose Apps from the limited list made available. We are able to 

• create accounts for teachers and students
• manage all the accounts
• communicate, collaborate and customise in a cloud-based environment

...all hosted on Google's servers at Google's expense.

"Google Apps for Education offers a free (and ad-free) set of customizable tools that enable faculty, staff and students to work together and learn more effectively."

 We had a very gradual introduction experience, with the early adopters piloting the use of Google Apps initially. Next we added all teachers, then we added class accounts for the students to share (eg room29@ptengland.school.nz). Finally after 18 months we provided the students with individual accounts, set up for us by Hapara.

We also introduced the Apps gradually, leaving email till the teachers had become used to Docs, Sites etc.  We have found this process remarkably smooth and have enjoyed the collaborative opportunities created by this cloud based learning and teaching environment.  So much so that we discovered an urgent need to give the students 1:1 access, as you have read much about in this blog.

Recently the Admin Dashboard has been displaying a notice that our Google Apps account would soon be transitioned to a new infrastructure.  The selling point seems to be that we will have the opportunity to add dozens more Apps to our domain account and we will only have to sign on in one place to access them all. For anyone who has had the frustration of having a separate account for Blogger, Picassa, Google Reader etc etc this seems like a great idea.

It is a great idea, BUT ... there's a catch.  For those of us who have used the same email address (ie our school email address) to sign up in many places we are now going to have conflicting accounts to deal with. More about that next post.

We were being offered two options; to work through the transition process ourself in our own time OR to have Google do it for us when 'they' decided to. 

We chose to work through it at our own pace and I decided to write a series of posts documenting the process we are going through as a school.

The video below is from Google explaing why this is a great idea.  I particularly love the Admin guy sitting at his desk throwing Apps into the keepers and ignore piles.

T.E.A.M. work : behind the scenes of a 1:1 rollout

Our 1:1 rollout has had some amazing people and organisations donate time and passion - and most importantly a sense of belief that this is actually possible!  I would like to acknowledge some of these organisations here.  In a recent update to the Minister of Education, Russell Burt attempted to list all those who have been involved so far:

• It has been invaluable working in partnership with a government initiative in our community (The Tamaki Transformation Programme)
• Working with MOE to problem solve and receive advice has been absolutely crucial and the support of professional development and research essential.
• WINZ have been of great assistance treating the Netbook bond payment as a stationery item 
• Housing NZ has helped with access to the roofs of houses and with finance for the 1st phase of the wireless build 
• Equico under Paul Beattie underwrote the cost and the liability of our 1st 450 netbooks for parents to lease, to the value of $xxx
• Fusion Networks under Andrew Gurr, have donated development & design time to the wireless build 
• Hapara Ltd under Jan Zawadzki, have donated countless hours of design & build time to our cloud solution the 'Teacher Dashboard' 
• Simpson Grierson donated the time to develop and establish Manaiakalani Education Trust which is now the holder and distributor of these joint resources. 
• Cranleigh Merchant Bank donated the time to help us improve our business case and
  planning 
• A Volunteer Developer Group (the Manaiakalani Hackers) built our netbook operating system free of charge ( a contribution of 100's of hours) 
• Norrcom, under Paul Norris and Edtech, under Peter Nelson helped us acquire and roll out the devices at an affordable price. 
• Manaiakalani Education Trust with its establishment trustees, Pat Snedden (chair), Brett
  O'Reilly (ICT NZ) Robert Carter (Devanti) Anthony Samuels (community) Greg Va'afusuaga (community) Mele Latu (community) have accepted the liability and responsibility for resource and support.

Together Everyone Achieves More

1:1 Reflections from the Chalkface

A lot has been written on this blog from a facilitator's perspective about moving into a 1:1 environment, but I expect there are a few of you wanting to know what it is really like if you are a teacher, thrown in at the deep end. 30+ eager kids looking to you to make the dream work....

This week we had our first after school meet up of the teachers from the 17 pilot classes in our cluster of schools. They teach kids ranging from 8 - 15 years of age and all have one thing in common; this is the first year their students have ever owned a netbook to use at school. I wasn't sure who would even turn up because I have been in and out of their classes and seen how hard they are working for it - and another after school meeting could be a bridge too far. They have been using the netbooks for 3 weeks at the most. So I was quite blown away when 24 turned up; including extra teachers who don't want to be left behind and came to learn from the pioneers.

Once we got the most important item, food, out of the way, we followed the agenda we copied from the Maine schools;

• What is working?
• What is not working?
• How have we problem solved?

I created a Google form for people to fill in online and we had some lively and honest conversation for about an hour and a half.

What I am going to do is this; give you a link to all the feedback we collated, paste the positive stuff below and embed a movie from the youngest class in the cluster as we filmed their "Go Live" moment.

Hope something in this is useful to you.

What is working in my netbook class? (submitted through online form)

Year 5/6

• Children's engagement with learning. All they want to do is go on the netbooks. They love to do anything and everything.
• Commitment to writing. The kids are getting a buzz out of seeing their writing on their blog. They no longer have to wait for the multimedia machines to post, so I think their commitment to writing will continuously grow.
• Kids helping each other out with problem solving and trouble shooting. Nice to hear great convos about what to do or how to possibly tackle issues.
• Certain kids are becoming experts with the netbooks and Google, and are really showing their abilities to help others and become leaders.
• FINALLY I have enough machines so that kids have unrestricted access to blogging, docs, research - whatever! Has been everything I hoped for in this regard.
• I am so happy with the netbooks. I use the LEARNZ virtual field trips a lot with my class and it is just so much easier now each student has individual access to the on-line information and can listen to the audio conferences and watch the videos as often as they need to.
• Use G-edit as default to go on to when docs or internet down. Means time not wasted and students' work can go on
• Enthusiasm for writing etc from kids
• Finally after 4 weeks of repetition most kids are becoming competent logging on and off Google Doc/ blog/ mail etc
• Have now got set time for typing practice which I have made structured and monitored so children are actually practising correctly and working through the levels of the Tux typing programme on their netbooks rather than playing the typing games. Working much better.
• This week I've have started to introduce some online reading activities -Google forms related to journal activities and the kids are enjoying using those.
• "Key Things to focus on"
  
  • Keyboard shortcuts
  • Logging on and off Google Docs/Blogger till confident
  • Copying and pasting from Google docs to blogger
  • Uploading photo to blogger
  • Command T to open new tab so have docs/blogger/mail open
  • Commenting on others blogs and leaving footprint.
  These are pretty much the main things we have worked on in 4 weeks and some are still just getting their heads around it.

Year 7/8

• Having child experts/technicians to help trouble shoot

What is working? (Notes from discussion)

• The kids want to work.
• 4 weeks in, everyone can now log on and get working.
• Head down, tail up. Group work is working well.
• Finding new things to share. Getting the students to create forms themselves rather than just fill them out.
• Getting over the log on practice has taken time, so tasks have been minimal in first 4 weeks. Reading activities, using Google forms.
• Having visual keys to help through problem solving.
• Troubleshooting - the students do a lot of figuring it out themselves.
• Netbooks mean there is always something to do for early finishers.
• Having a virtual teacher online was a new thing (using a maths video from Khan Academy) , and released the class teacher for support.
• Willingness of students to help each other. Commitment to improving their keyboarding skills.
• Communications from students who would not normally do things like that. ie student emailing teachers who would not normally speak up
• Typing practice. Lots of teachers trying to enforce faster typing habits
• Personal challenges for each student as they are no longer sharing machines.
• Take screenshots of work as they go to give a record of what they have achieved in a lesson. eg in a Maths challenge

Go Live in Room 13 from KPE TV on Vimeo.

T.E.A.M.

Together Everyone Achieves More

This is a favourite saying of a friend of ours, Greg Va'afusuaga, and the recent events in Christchurch have exemplified it.  It has become a repeated refrain from city leaders, that people need to rely on their friends and neighbours as frontline resources are stretched thin. Tonight on TV3 we watched a whole street pulling together to cook and share resources and courage in this unbelievably distressing time. TEAM work in action.

The 'ordinary' Cantabrians have been an example to us all as we can only watch and pray from afar.

I have been touched by the response from children around New Zealand as they use social media to try to make sense of what they are seeing on their screens.  Posts like this and this are among dozens that have been coming through my RSS feed in the last week.

Kia kaha Christchurch.