On February 15th 2011, Loughborough University hosted the first Google Apps for Education UK User Group meeting at the Holywell Park Conference Centre. Here's what people said about the event... |
Coverage
Jo Badge (University of Leicester)
My highlights and thoughts from the day: 1. This stuff is free – still struggling to get my head around the fact that Google Apps for HE are free. A four-year contract, yes, but for free. So why are we paying for email? 2. Meeting Mark Allen and Zoe Ross in person, and loving the Google Apps ‘VLEcosystem’ for (mostly primary) schools that Mark has developed using google apps and other free tools to get children and teachers working effectively online. Via twitter, Kevin McLaughlin pointed at his take on this idea that he has written up in the ALT newsletter. This is a wonderfully inspiring example of how home-grown solutions using free tools can provide the flexibility and simplicity that children and staff need online. 3. I have to admit to being rather star-struck by the Google brand, their people and the great stuff they do (the majority of which I’d already seen and used, like live collaboration in Google Docs and the google goggles solving suduko puzzles). However, I think I checked my critical faculties at the door. 4. I got a first look (albeit at a distance) at a Chrome OS notebook . This made me think about when ubiquitous always-on wifi will be good enough in schools and universities for us to use this type of OS with students. 5. Interesting to hear that the OU help desk cross charges course teams for any errors on their moodle sites that result in increase calls to the helpdesk. Certainly focusses the mind… Overall it was a mind-expanding day in many ways, even if I didn’t even come close to winning the war of the tweets with Steve Wheeler |
Matthew Mobbs (University of Leicester)
 [...] In terms of some of the educational presentations, there was a very interesting talk by Niall Sclater, Director of Learning Innovation at the Open University, who discussed the OUs migration over to google apps. He spoke abouthttp://my.open.ac.uk/ and how they plan to enable each student to have an iGoogle as their student homepage. One of the key issues that he raised was they are discovering some accessibilty issues with some of the apps. One of the highlights of this talk was how they intend to ingrate the google apps to make an ePortfolio system for their students. |
Paul Shoesmith (IET Associates)
 Yesterday I attended the 2011 Google Apps for Education User Group at Loughborough University. It was an excellent event, attended by over 100 people from higher education through to the schools sector, and well organised by Martin Hamilton.This is a run through of some of the highlights for me. I stayed with the strategy strand of the event, though I was disappointed that it meant missing the very interesting looking technical strand. And the amplified nature of the event via Twitterand elsewhere added to the value of the event for me and others. |
Sheila MacNeill (JISC CETIS)
 Though the day was focused on google, the presentations, discussions, tweets did show an increasing demand from educators for more flexible, easy to use systems that just do what you want them to and are either free or have little cost. Google do seem to provide an awful lot (including jelly beans and rubik cubes). However they're not the only game in town. But they do have awfully deep pockets, and I did have an overwhelming Pinky and the Brain sensation (what shall we do tonight, the same thing we do every night try to take over the world) but they have a much more successful strategy than my cartoon friends Picture by Jo Badge |
Steve Wheeler (University of Plymouth)
 Together with the University of Portsmouth's Manish Malik I will be presenting a paper on our latest thinking around Cloud Learning Environments. Other speakers include Tony Hirst and Niall Sclater (both at the Open University), Nick Skelton (University of Bristol) and presided over by Martin Hamilton (Loughborough University). You can follow the entire day's proceedings by checking the Twitter hashtag #guug11.
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Chris Sexton (University of Sheffield / UCISA)
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Arthur Clune (University of York)
Some key points from guug11 noted by Arthur:
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Zoe Ross (DoDigital Ltd)
[...] the opportunity to meet the hugely enthusiastic Google Apps for EDU team again was great, especially the open question and answer session at the end of the day. As someone mentioned yesterday, the opportunity to hear it from the horse’s mouth is invaluable when dealing with the ever-evolving innovation of Google Apps. Image cc Graeme Fowler |
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