GEUG12 Opening up our Practices - Going Google

Sarah Horrigan, University of Sheffield

In the Learning Technologies Team, we've been taking an integrated approach to using Google to support and disseminate our work. Though we've been using everything from Google Calendars to Docs, Forms, Presentations, Analytics, Readers, Sites and more - this presentation will focus on our use of Google tools to share practice both internally and externally. Our Learning Technologies blog (http://learningtechnologiesteam.blogs...) and Google+ page have played a key role in this and have helped us to explore how best to use them as a means for communication and community engagement.

In less than 2 months, the blog has gained an audience of over 100 educational institutions worldwide; one simple blog has allowed us to open up our practices as well as make connections across the university and reach a far wider audience. The presentation also looks at some of the issues encountered, the rationale for the choices made - why we chose to go with a team approach, how we manage multiple authors, what gadgets to use in the sidebar, how we use pages for additional content - as well as offer some advice on how to build a blog from scratch and sustain it using Google Blogger. It also looks at the developing role of our Google+ page and shows how they can work together to help further create online community.

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  Education