To get started you need a Google account. Click here to get a Google account. If you have Gmail you already have an account.

Note: you are not advised to use the Gmail account given to by the school. First, if may not have enabled Google+ yet, and secondly, when you leave school to go elsewhere you will no longer have the account. Therefore, create a Google account or a personal Gmail account.

Sign in to your Google account or to your Gmail. When you do, you will get a black menu at the top of your screen like this:

Click the leftmost menu option (mine is +Jan) and you are in Google+.

In Google+ you can write posts or read what others have written. Here is a video that gives you an introduction.

And here is more of a tutorial:

Google+ is about five months old and new features and improvements are added all the time. Here is a list of 100 improvements made since the start.

When you start Google+ you have to add people to follow. Obviously you want to follow people who writes stuff you find of interest. Here are some ways to find interesting people.

1. Search by topic and add to your circles (i.e. follow) those who write or comment about the topic.
2. Ask someone who shares your interests to share one or more of their circles. That is a fast way to follow let’s say 250 math educators.
3. Check if the bloggers you follow also write on Google+. If they do, add them one of your circles.
4. Look at who someone you like follows (it is in their profile page), or who follows them. If you find their posts interesting follow them.
5. Search by name.

Famous people use Google+. Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu is one example. Here is his talk with his friend Dalai Lama.

What you get out of Google+ depends on two things: who you follow and who follows you, or, to put it differently who you read and who reads you.

Many use Google+ as an advertisement for their blog. This morning I found this interesting post which led to this blog. I am not an art teacher, but the idea explained can be used in various ways in a school.

This was just scratching the surface of Google+. Please use the comment section for questions and queries.

By the way, my Google+ posts are here.

1. Go to pbworks.com
2. Choose the Sign Up Now link from the For Education drop down menu
3. Choose the Free version
4. Type in a name for your workspace (the simpler the better!)
5. Check the box agreeing to terms of service
6. Fill in an email address
7. Create a password
8. Log into your email (the one you used for the account) to confirm
9. Choose your security settings (public or private?) – Source

“We wanted to customize to our hearts content. One of the lessons we’ve learned is that going forward, the costs associated with maintaining a proprietary system that’s been heavily customized is too expensive.”

For thirteen years a government high school in the Cayman Islands used a system I developed with the vice principal. It was written in MS FoxPro 2.6 and ran on the school’s network. For the last two years an international school in Thailand has used a system I developed (and continue to develop) with the head of its secondary school. It is written in MS FoxPro 9 and runs on the school’s network. All the teachers and everyone in the school administration have access.

A basic question in the use of any school information system is that if the school should adapt to the system or if the system should adapt to the way the school is run. The ideal solution is, of course, the last option, but as the quote at the top indicates, it requires a lot of work with possibly high accompanying cost.

Do free system exist? Systems that can be accessed via the school’s network or through the Internet. The answer is ‘yes.’ Here is a presentation of some of them.

To decide which is best suited to your school is not an easy task. I am afraid one has to run a demo or do a trial before one can decide. If no free system fits the bill even after using its customisation features (if they exist), one may try a commercial system or ask someone to write a system from scratch. Both may come with a hefty price tag.

My guess is that many schools have no system per se, but use home made spreadsheets and/or data bases to do its student management tasks. That implies a greater risk for inconsistent data, unnecessary work load for the teachers entering data, and little or no options for analysing the data.

I have listed some free systems here.

Blog. Page with this presentation.

An inspector visited an elementary school.
During his visit he noticed something that caught his attention: a teacher was entrenched behind her desk, the students made a big mess, the scene was chaotic.
He decided to present himself:
- “Excuse me, I’m the Inspector. Any problems?”
- “I’m overwhelmed, Sir, I do not know what to do with these kids. I have no paper, I have no books, the Ministry does not send me didactical materials, I have no electronic resources, I have nothing new to show them nor new things to tell them.”
The inspector who was a “Teacher of the Soul” spotted a cork on the cluttered desk. He took it and spoke to the kids with determination:
- What is this?
- “A cork, Sir ” shouted the students surprised.
- “Good. Where does the cork come from?”
- “From the bottle, Sir. A machine put it on”,” … a cork oak tree”, “… from wood”, responded the children animated.
- “And what can be made from wood?” continued the teacher enthusiastically.
- “Chairs …”,” table …”, “a boat”. Well, we have a boat.
- Who can draw it? Who will make a map on the board and place the nearest port for our boat?
- Write down which Argentinian province it is in.
- What is the other nearest port?
- In what country does it lie?
- Which poet do you know that was born there?
- What does the region produce?
- Does anyone remember a song from there?

And so started tasks in Geography, History, Music, Economics, Literature, Religion, etc.
The teacher was impressed. After the class she was moved and said:
- “Sir, I will never forget what you taught me today. Thank you.”

Time passed. The inspector returned to the  school and looked for the teacher.
She was curled up behind her desk, the students again in disarray.
- “Miss … What happened? Don’t you remember me?

Yes sir. How could I forget?! What luck that you have returned.  I can not find the cork. Where did you put it? ”

How to.

• Can a school’s administration share the parents’ email addresses with its teachers?

The assumption is, of course, that the teachers want to contact the parents re the students’ education, and not for selling them encyclopedias.

I guess the answer depends on where you live.

In Spain there is a law from 1999 called Protección de Datos de Carácter Personal.

Some excerpts:

From article 11:

1. Los datos de carácter personal objeto del tratamiento sólo podrán ser comunicados a un tercero para el cumplimiento de fines directamente relacionados con las funciones legítimas del cedente y del cesionario con el previo consentimiento del interesado.

2. El consentimiento exigido en el apartado anterior no será preciso:

… b) Cuando se trate de datos recogidos de fuentes accesibles al público. …

From article 12:

1. No se considerará comunicación de datos el acceso de un tercero a los datos cuando dicho acceso sea necesario para la prestación de un servicio al responsable del tratamiento.

I am not a lawyer, neither totally proficient in Spanish (and less so in legal Spanish), but this is what I conclude:

“The teachers can receive the email addresses of parents if they are needed for them to do their job.”

If that interpretation is correct, one may go on to discuss who decides if emails are necessary or not for a teacher to do his job.

Please post your view on this in a comment below.