GOOGLE SERVICES FOR EDUCATIONAL ACTIVITIES

Hi there! Today we're going to speak about Google Services for educational activities. 

1.1 Google services for education

Google develops and provides many applications and services that can be accessed in any browser window. The most effective in the educational process are the following google services:

• Google ArtProject - interactive-presented museums of the world,
• Google Calendar - online calendar,
• Google Docs - online office,
• Gmail - free email,
• Google Knol - wiki-encyclopedia,
• Google Maps - a set of maps,
• Google Sites - free hosting using wiki technology,
• Google Translate - a translator,
• YouTube - video hosting.

Google Apps Education Edition is a cloud-based web application that provides students and faculty with the tools they need to communicate and collaborate effectively.

Google’s education services provide a free (and ad-free) toolkit that enables teachers and students to interact, teach, and learn more effectively.

Google’s online services for universities have a number of advantages, which makes it possible to use them in any educational environment where there is an Internet.

Let’s highlight the main advantages of using Google Apps Education Edition in education from the point of view of the user:

• Minimum hardware requirements (mandatory internet access);
• Cloud technology does not require the cost of purchasing and maintaining special software (applications can be accessed through a web browser window);
• Google Apps supports all operating systems and client programs used by students and educational institutions;
• Working with documents is possible with any mobile device that supports the Internet;
• All Google Apps Education Edition tools are free of charge.

Modern computer technology allows students and teachers to use several devices for communication and work: laptops, computers, smartphones, mobile phones, etc. Google Apps tools are supported by a variety of devices, Therefore, they are common and universal IT technology for working in an educational environment.

Consider the main cloud-based online services provided by Google:

Google Groups is a group management tool based on forums and mailing lists. With Google Groups, users can create their own groups. These groups not only manage and archive mailing lists, but also work with and communicate with group members. 
Every Gmail user can have many similar groups. The teacher can also have several study groups.

Google Documents is a free set of web services in the form of software as a service, as well as an internet-based cloud file sharing service developed by Google. Documents created by the user are stored on a dedicated Google server, or can be exported to a file. 
Google documents allow students and teachers to work remotely on shared documents and projects, and teachers to monitor and manage this work. Google Documents is an online office that includes full-fledged tools for creating text documents, spreadsheets, visual aids, PDF files and presentations, and sharing and publishing them online.

Google Calendar - Allows users to create events, manage multiple calendars, and share calendars with commands and groups. Users can view their calendar for a day, week or month. The curriculum schedule for students can be arranged in the form of a calendar, where several events - lessons or events - will be staged every day. The teacher can create such a calendar for himself or the group and set a reminder of an event on his e-mail or via sms to his mobile phone. Thus, the teacher can even receive a text message every day at a certain time reminding him of his schedule for today.
The calendar helps to optimize all important tasks and activities, do not keep them in mind, afraid, accidentally forget about something.

Blogger is a web-based tool that can quickly and easily post messages online. It is the leader among the means of publishing materials on the Internet - the creation of so-called web blogs or blogs.

Blogs are mini-sites that can be run by an ordinary person. Such a blog can be themed by the teacher - by the subject he teaches, or by the author - where he simply shares his thoughts, hobbies and ideas with colleagues, students and Internet users. Students will consider this teacher progressive, as blogs and websites are what they most often read on the Internet. The teacher will be able to add messages, videos, photos, links, as well as access to editing students, thus motivating them to search for interesting subject information to post on the blog.



Google Sites is a website builder with the ability to publish videos, images, documents. The goal of the service, according to the developers, is to «organize a single Internet space where users will share information». Google Sites allows you to add a variety of information to the site - calendars, videos, images, documents, etc. ; define site access settings.

Google Video is a service that combines video hosting for custom videos and search engines. With this service, videos can be securely placed and viewed. No special software is required to view and add a comment other than a regular browser.



Google Drive is a single space for storing and managing your files. It allows you to work on documents at the same time with other users - for example, to prepare a joint project with a colleague, to plan any events or to keep expense records with partners. With this service you can upload to the cloud and have permanent access to any files, including videos, photos, PDF, text documents and many more - only 30 types.

Google Mail
, is a free email service with innovative features such as «Chain View», search-oriented interface and large amount of disk space.

The main advantages of Google Mail:

• This service allows you to combine several mailboxes under one account;
• Letters easily attach files of various formats - text, table and graphic documents;
• Gmail Mail has a keyword search.

You can assign different «labels» to incoming letters. So, the teacher may have several folders-labels: «Letters from students», «Letters from colleagues», «Ideas for lessons», «Work plans, schedules».
Gmail works more than any other mail system to protect its users from receiving spam. Therefore, the time spent on deleting unnecessary and erroneous emails can be spent on working moments or communicating with colleagues.

An online chat feature is also available on Gmail. Google Chat allows you to send and receive instant messages from friends, relatives and colleagues. To speed up communication with your colleague, the teacher can invite him to Gmail and join the chat. In addition, group chats are possible, in which several people can participate. This allows educators to work in a group on a joint project and question online, and even to have parents' meetings or extracurricular hours online.

Google Chat has the ability to connect video chat and see your interlocutor through an image transmitted via a webcam. The function of voice chat is also available - when you can hear an interlocutor but not see it, many users are already replacing international phone calls.

Google Apps for Educational Institutions is a customizable application for communication and teamwork, which allows you to avoid many problems related to software and hardware maintenance.


1.2 Educational opportunities of Google Services

The Google environment contains many tools that can be useful for individual and collaborative activities. Google’s services focus on networking and educating people in this environment is about communication and collaboration. With Google, you can organize a variety of team activities:

• create, co-edit and discuss documents, tables, presentations using "Google Documents";
• create individual and collective blogs and add to them a variety of materials: documents, calendars, streams of notebooks, news aggregators, etc.;
• create personal Google search systems, complement them with useful sites that allow you to use secure educational search engines;
• create personal and collective Google notebooks, comment and classify records, open your records for public use;
• create personal news aggregators based on Google Reader-a, subscribe to news streams, classify news, publish general news in blogs;
• create personal calendars and add a description of events, collectively plan activities;
• create Picasa albums, place drawings and photos in these albums, and then use them on websites and blogs, link photos to Google maps;
• create your own educational video channels and groups, use YouTube media and upload your own videos;
• create a website on Google-site and build it from many familiar objects. Add documents, tables, calendars, photos, video, news feed, etc.

The constant practice of using new means teaches a new style of behaviour, suggests pedagogical and organizational solutions to educational situations. This collaboration makes the learning process open to students, teachers and parents.

With the help of Google services it is possible to implement distance learning at the university.





The wide introduction of distance learning technologies in the educational process at the university is explained by the following factors:

These technologies help to organize self-study students and implement distance learning support;
They are personal-oriented technologies and help the teacher to individualize the learning process, create for each student an individual educational route;
Training systems based on such technologies have a modular structure;


For today’s students, the Internet is a common activity, so they can easily adapt to distance learning systems.

The main general technologies of distance learning include case technology (correspondent training), Internet technology and telecommunications technology. The basis of the classification in this case is the method of delivery of educational material to the student. The first technology involves the delivery of learning materials and feedback by mail or the delivery of training materials (case files) to the trainee directly. The second technology involves the use of a global Internet network. In this case, communication can be synchronized in real time (on-line) or asynchronously in delayed time (off-line). Telecommunication technology is based primarily on the transmission of information via television broadcasting.



In modern conditions, the best choice in distance learning will be the choice of electronic educational resources, electronic laboratory workshops, With modern local and global computer networks, mobility has the advantage of traditional training materials.

It should be noted that the technology of distance learning can be in addition to the usual full-time education of students at the university and is focused primarily on the organization of independent work of students. At the same time, it becomes possible to increase the productivity of the teacher, to remove restrictions on the area of his activity by the walls of the educational building of the university, to provide the opportunity to receive education to students in more comfortable conditions, to implement personalresponsive learning.