Preparing Your Class for GooglePlus

Monday marks the first day of the intersession course that will include Google Plus integration. The course lasts for three weeks and I teach it three times a year. It is a virtual course with three meetings. I’ve spent the last week creating the framework that will help students navigate this new place with a minimum of headaches. The more I worked through the prep stuff the more I realized that the integration was a lot more complicated than I had originally thought it might be. Here are some of the questions, problems, solutions that I have come across in the days leading up to the first day of class.

Before class starts

About a week and a half ago I emailed my entire class and welcomed them, introduced myself and told them that we would be incorporating Google+ into the class.  I told them that an invite would appear in the next few days with more instructions. Two days later I emailed them all an invite and a link to my profile. The great thing about a mailed invite is that it allows you to put that group of students into a circle for the course based on their emails. What is fantastic about this is that google+ will email all of the students who have not signed up any of the content that you are posting. So even if they don’t log on until Monday, their email will have a log of everything that has been going on.

I created a spreadsheet that allows me to track who has logged on and made contact. I also keep a careful eye on changes in the course roster. Originally I was concerned that a late-registering student would fall through the cracks and not get the chance to receive those early emails but the Director of Online Learning poked around in ANGEL until she figured out how to automate sending a packet of information to a late registering student.

I emailed them a few times over this last week. I emailed them the link to why I felt that Google+ was a great tool for the classroom. I emailed them basic overview tutorials. I posted several times in google+ and sent it to their circles. Class starts in 2 days and I currently have almost half of the class on google+. I think that’s pretty good.

The Syllabus

I had to go back and change about 30% of my syllabus to reflect the way that the course structure has changed, added “google+ account” to the list of required texts and materials, and incorporated my requirements and expectations into the syllabus. This included what use to be discussion board assignments being transferred to google+.

The Course Page

Nothing says “This is important!” better than a large, focus-pulling graphic on your main page. It will get the attention of those coming in that don’t know what is going on (the ones who haven’t checked their college email), and the ones who have been reading but putting things off. Give them a big icon and make it clickable. I also have a link to the folder that contains information about google+ and my expectations for how the students will use it in the class.

Integrate.

Don’t wait to get them into google+ and working. In my syllabus, getting your profile is due the first day, creating your circle is day 2. I have kept the original introduction discussion forum in ANGEL but now have added the requirement that they post the URL to their google+ profiles. I added a short Jing video showing how to find their personal URL. (And if you’re not using Jing, you should be! It’s easy and free.) Be encouraging and enthusiastic. Create a decent amount of stream activity early on. Get them use to finding new stuff over there. That can be everything from quotes to cartoons. I have some great Dilbert cartoons about speaking anxiety that I am excited to get out and dust off.

Inform.

You are going to have to provide them with two sorts of information. First, how do you use google+. Do not forget that high end users often don’t have a problem figuring out how things work because we know what to expect. It’s kind of like going into someone else’s kitchen. We know what should be there, it’s just a matter of finding it. For some students, they’ve never been on anything like a social media platform so literally everything is going to be foreign. Break the information that you give them up into small, manageable sections. There is fine line between optimal and overload.

In my google+ folder I have four sections. How to make a circle, how to post, privacy, and brass tacks. The first two and part of the third deal with google+ and how it works. I provide short Jing videos explaining each of the concepts. The rest deals with the second sort of information that you will have to provide to your students, what you expect from them on google+. There are a lot of ways to handle it. This is mine.

Now that you’re set up and ready, we’re going to use Google+ in a lot of different ways.

When I post to the class I will always preface my post with a word. That word will let you know what I expect you to do with that information.

Announcement: This mean that the information is important for you to know and may be pressing. For example, if our speech room changes I might send out an announcement. Google+ has a +1 box under every post. When I post an announcement I expect you to give it a +1 so I know that you read it. I’ll put that at the end of the post to remind you.

Discussion: This will be followed with a two number sequence. The first number is the module that the discussion goes with and the second is a 1 or a 2 (the first or second discussion in the module). These you must reply to and respond to two of your peers. These are graded, the grade will appear in angel under the number provided. These will be worth between 5 and 10 points each.

Deadline: These will come from time to time to remind you of upcoming course deadlines, no response is necessary.

FYI: Interesting information, no response necessary (but please do if you feel so inclined!)

There are still a lot of unknowns. I’m wondering if I should break the class into smaller groups so that the discussions don’t get so busy. I’m still working out the kink of managing repetitious content in circles, although it did make me quite happy to begin dumping discussion questions into the archive circle. I don’t think I really admitted to myself just how much I hate LMS discussion forums and always have.

Now we just wait and watch. I’m sure that new problems will present themselves before we know it. I’m sure that something in all this is going to fail, big time. I’ll be sure to come back and share and we can all have a good laugh at my expense.

Tags: ANGEL, Blackboard, edblog, edtech, google plus, google+, googleplus, Online Learning