Inbox by Gmail for Educators Part 1

Email is something that has always just worked. We never really stopped to think if it was efficient or not. We just accepted it. We get an email and if we need to look for it later we just search and scroll around til we found it.

Well someone at Google decided to change the way we think email should work. Enter Inbox by Email. Inbox came out a couple years ago and like everything else with technology I jumped in. I used it with my personal email accounts for a few days and decided it wasn't for me. I can't really point my finger at one thing, it was just different. Then a few months later it was available for GAFE accounts.

Our district uses Outlook for email. I have never been a fan, so I decided to try it out. I simply

forwarded the Outlook account to our GAFE account. And within a few days, I found out that email could be "re-imagined". There is something nice about opening up my email and seeing this screen. Whereas my old email box always seemed cluttered and busy, Inbox works for you and only puts the important emails front and center. Inbox makes email more useful and introduces new ways to think how email should work.

So the question you might be having right around now is, why should I switch? Well, I have put together a list as to why you might want to make the switch and look into using Inbox. This first part will look at some of the new features that Inbox brings to email.

Snooze

This is probably one of the strongest features introduced with Inbox. Ask yourself if this sounds familiar, you have a special bell schedule for an assembly. You are sent the schedule a week in advance. Then the day of the schedule comes up and you don't know where the schedule is. You then spend a few minutes trying find it. Snooze takes care of that problem. Now when you get that email, you can Snooze it to the day of the assembly. Inbox will basically "re-deliver" the email again. So it will pop up again like it is being delivered for the first time. 

That in itself is impressive, but Snooze can also be used with locations. If you have the app installed on your phone, you can Snooze an email to come back when you get to a certain location. Have a meeting at the district? Is there an agenda attached to an email? Snooze it to come back when you reach the district. As soon as you reach your destination, Inbox will use your phones location and re-deliver it.

Done

This is another new feature Inbox has. Done is what allows you to keep your Inbox clean. Right now if you want a clean inbox, you need to either delete the emails or move the emails into folders. Inbox focuses on the emails you want to see. If you don't want to see them, you can just mark them Done. The nice thing about Done is that the emails aren't deleted. They are just moved from the main Inbox. This keeps your Inbox clear of any junk or unimportant emails that are in there.

Bundled Emails

Bundled works to put all the emails into a separate folder. Now this feature has a similar function in Outlook, but Inbox takes it a little further. First off, it is easy to set up. If you put an email into an existing Bundle, Inbox will ask if you want to do this all the time.  The killer feature that Inbox introduces is the ability to have Bundles appear in your Inbox when you want them too. For example, I get a lot of newsletters from certain sites. I don't have time to look at them as they come in. So have Inbox set up to put the emails into a Bundle and only have that Bundle appear in my Inbox once a week. 

Reminders

Ever read something and write a post it note to remind yourself of something? Well Inbox has a Reminder feature built in. This has replaced post it notes for me. I get something and simply create a Reminder. Reminders are automatically pinned to the Inbox. And like everything else, you can set your Reminder for a date/time or location. 

Those are some of the new features that Inbox brings to email. It will seem different at first, but give it some time. Inbox will change the way you think of email. The next part will focus on some of the other features that make Inbox worth the switch.

Google Classroom tips for Administrators

Google Classroom is a great tool for teachers. Teachers can share notes, post assignments, give instant feedback, and now teachers can push assignments just to certain students. So how can these tools for teachers be useful to an administrator?

• Administrators have to do annual evaluations on teachers. "Assign" their pre-evaluation forms to the specific teachers. Teachers can fill out their evaluations in a Google Doc and the administrator can see it right away. Teachers will love the idea of not having to download the file, edit it in Word, then attaching it back into another email. Everything is done in Classroom and never leaves. No more losing attachments.
• Give out beginning of the year packets to staff. These can include, but not limited to emergency information, maps, schedules, catalogs, and any other paperwork that will most likely get lost in the first weeks of school.
• Staff meeting notes can be given ahead of time. Have powerpoint to share? Put it on Google Classroom and let them preview it ahead of the meeting. 
• Post a question to the staff about best practices or informal feedback about an idea. Google Classroom allows for questions to be asked. Have the teachers share some of their best practices. Perhaps a teacher can't be apart of after school committees, post a question and get more feedback from the staff.
• Post a website or a video that you want the staff to watch or read. 
• An extra benefit, anything posted to the Classroom will automatically email the "students" in the class alerting them to new assignments or announcements.
• And many more...

The main benefit of using Google Classroom for an administrator is organization. Teachers will love the idea of not having to searching through their email accounts searching for specific emails. Everything that is important for the staff will be in one place. Google Classroom is a great tool for all educators and should be considered by anyone in education.

Thoughts on Windows 10S

So today Microsoft announced a new version of Windows 10, Windows 10S (the S stands for a few things, but also school). This is their new attack on Chromebooks and a way for them to try and get back into the education market, which has become dominated by Chrome OS devices.

Now I said before, I was a Windows guy. I loved Windows. I really felt like Windows 8 was going to change the direction of computing. But then I realized, Windows is still Windows. It didn't matter if it was Windows 7, 8, 8.1, or 10, Windows was going to have the same problems.

So what is Windows 10S? It is a stripped down version of Windows that allows for apps to be added only through the Windows App Store. So no downloading of programs here. Sound familiar? It should.

Here are my initial reactions to today's announcements;

• If you can upgrade to Windows 10 Pro for $49, then Windows 10S isn't really "light weight". A pro version of Windows 10 is in there, in the background.
• How will Windows 10S run on "low end machines"? Chrome OS is nice because it just needs a Celeron processor and 4GB of RAM and you are good to go. Windows is a notorious resource hog. 
• Why did they announce the Surface Laptop today? Windows 10S is supposed to compete with Chrome OS, so why show off a $999 laptop that runs it? Sure Google had the Pixel, but that was only released after people got used to Chrome OS and could really use a high end machine. Windows 10S is untested.
• A free year of Minecraft & Office 365...ok what's the pricing after? So schools are going to be burdened with the cost of maintaining these programs versus the free GAFE. 
• Microsoft has a long way to go to master the whole collaboration thing within Office. Students are getting used to sharing documents and working on them together in real time. 
• I didn't see anything mentioned about Microsoft Classroom or anything else that makes current GAFE schools make the switch. 
• What will the low end laptops look like after 1-3 years? I have had my class set for 3 years now and use them daily. They are still as fast as they were day 1. I have had 2 broken screens & 2 keys pop off of 2 machines. How will the Windows 10S machine hold up? Will they still be fast 2 years later? 4 years later? Or will the background resources finally clog them up and slow them down?
• It only runs Edge for a browser. That means lack of extensions. I have so many extensions on my Chrome OS log in that it makes Chrome OS function more like a full OS. Those extensions are no where to be found in Edge.

Those are some of my gut reactions reading and watching the announcements today. For me, I was hoping for more classroom announcements, but I guess that will have to wait. 

As for me, I'm not changing anything. I am sticking to Chrome OS. I don't see any reason to make the switch back to Windows. 

And the winner is....

...Chrome OS of course. Was there any doubt? The only reason I am writing this is because I realized that this blog was started 3 years ago to see if Chrome OS could replace Windows for me and it does. Heck I knew that 2 years and 10 months ago. Now this is a long post, but I felt it was a good time to sum it all up.

So before everyone starts telling me I hate Windows & Apple, let me clear some things up. First, I do hate Apple :-) not because they make junk. They make solid devices. I think they are over-priced, especially when they went to an Intel processor and still charged a ton. I also don't like the fact they lock down their devices so much. I like a little freedom and the ability to make it my own unique device. 

As far as Windows goes, back in 2012 I was a total Windows nut. I read all about the Windows 8 preview builds and was excited for what they were offering. I even went as far as to partition my hard drive and install the preview build on my work laptop. In fact, in 2012 this blog would have been called Windows 8 Challenge. It was exciting to see a new Windows. Add onto the fact they were promising one log in across all devices that would sync apps & data was mind blowing at the time. I couldn't imagine logging into a Windows tablet and having all my work apps & data there right away. I was such a Windows fan I was considering dumping my Android phone for a Windows 8 phone. 

At this time our work actually had a Chromebook on the campus, the Samsung Series 3. I remember looking at it thinking, it's just a browser. What can it do? It did boot fast, our laptops were taking minutes (5+ to boot), but web-based apps really weren't a thing in 2012. And all of the apps in the Chrome web store looked like links to websites. I was disappointed and kept my eyes on Windows 8. 

I never made the switch though. I saw that while Windows 8 was great for touch devices, on my work desktop it was difficult to operate with a mouse and keyboard, not impossible, but a lot of unnecessary clicks. And plus let's face it Windows is always going to be Windows. 

So when Windows 10 was getting hyped, I never looked into it. I installed it on my laptop, but that was at the beginning of my challenge and I couldn't deal with the long boot times, Cortana popping up randomly and Edge being a browser but not really cause it didn't work on some websites. 

Chrome OS delivered on all the promises of Windows 8. I can log into any Android phone, Chrome OS device or even a Chrome browser on Windows or Mac OS and have access to all of my files and settings. Flash drives are a thing of the past for me. Worrying about whether or not my file saved is a thing of the past. Chrome OS just works and it does it well. It doesn't run everything, but with Chrome Remote desktop you have access to your regular computer. My wife had a to use a specific program for her doctorate program and needed it for class. She didn't have it installed on her laptop because the program was for one computer only. So what did she do? Install CRD and use her computer through her HP Chromebook at school. 

Windows tried to downplay Chromebooks and Chrome OS, but now they see the gains, especially in the education market, and are trying to play catch up. Microsoft introduced One Drive, real-time collaborating on Word, Microsoft Quizzes, and Microsoft Classroom. Sound familiar? Google Drive, Docs, Google Form Quizzes, and Google Classroom. Microsoft is so busy playing catch up, that they aren't innovative. Google is still releasing new products to help out students & educators. 

Computers are changing. The need for super powerful computers with tons of storage aren't necessary anymore and wen-based apps are improving daily. Chrome OS can do everything I need from a computer and I would be willing to bet it would work for you too.

Updates

I just noticed it has been a long time since I have posted anything on this blog, so I thought I would update everyone on what has been happening.

• I am still using Chrome OS exclusively. I have my site issued laptop, but it just sits next to my desk and doesn't even get powered on. I seriously wished we would have gone with some type of Chrome OS device for the staff, but I gave them reasons why and that's all I could do. At work, I have my Asus Chromebox and at home I use my Dell Chromebook 13. It is so nice to have everything just sitting there as soon as I log in. Nothing to take home, no worrying about forgetting something, it's just there when I log in.
• My students still use their Chromebooks everyday. Having Chromebooks has really opened up and made me rethink the way I teach and assess. Honestly, I really want to get a class set of the Acer Spin 11 Chromebooks with the stylus support. Imagine being able to hand write in notes and have them at a moments notice. Add in the fact the recent integration of Google Keep into Google Docs and this is a no brainer.
• Personally, I am looking closely at the Samsung Chromebook Pro. I have a Note Pro 12.2 that I use with my students to do notes on. But the Android version of Docs doesn't show up the same as they see. Also some of the formulas I use don't show. So using a Chromebook would mean I see what they see exactly. So I am probably going to sell the Dell Chromebook and use that to get the Samsung model.
• Professionally, it is frustrating at times trying to convince people of the simplicity of Chrome OS & Google Apps for Education. I feel like I am at a point where it is more trouble to push something than to just give up. I have tried to implement various things within my department & the school and just get complaints. I showed the principal a Staff Resource shared document that had calendars, links, forms, and other things important to teachers. The idea is to cut back on emails with attachments. If you have one place for all the information, no need to search your inbox for it. Attachments of rosters would be gone because the rosters would be online and changed whenever the owners made changes. It started fine, but wasn't supported by admin and is dying a slow death. Moving my Geometry team to Google Calendar from the old paper pacing guide has been a mess too. I put links and attachments in the calendar and still get staff wanting email attachments. I created an online referral form for the staff to cut back on the paper referrals and it is sitting in limbo. Tried moving AP Applications to a Google Form to where the teacher would literally do nothing and it would flag who is in and who is out automatically, that is dead. They went with a Google Form that will still require the teacher to go through student by student. Frustrated beyond belief right now. I honestly don't know what to do and it is tiresome.

So that's where I am right now. Hopefully, I will get something posted before end of school. Maybe the next post will be about my new Chromebook.