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.

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. 

The Learning Curve Part 1 - What about Office?

Ok so let's say you have been following my journey and have decided to take the plunge on going all in on Google. So you buy that new Chrome OS device and now you have to work through the dreaded learning curve. We all know it exists. Whether it be going from Windows 7 to Windows 8, Windows 7 to Windows 10, or even from Office 2012 to Office 2014. It doesn't matter when technology changes, there it is the learning curve. What do you need to do to be successful in the transition?



I have been exclusively Chrome OS for over a year now, so I have already gone through the curve. I also have two colleagues that I convinced to go Chrome OS this year and have helped them through their curve as well. They were both surprised that there wasn't much of a curve at all. Why? Well, the answer is simple. Most of the work of Chrome OS is done within a browser. It doesn't matter if you run Windows or MacOS, you use a browser. And chances are it is Google's Chrome browser. So you already feel comfortable when you turn it on.

Now, the number one thing everyone that has made the transition from Windows to Chrome OS is how to deal with Office Documents. Now while I was transitioning over from Windows to Chrome OS, I did a little research and found an extension called Office Editing for Docs, Sheets, and Slides. What this extension does is allow you to open an Office document in Google Drive, edit it, and save it as an Office document. You never have to change it over to a Google Doc if you choose not to.

After I installed that on my account and my colleagues, that helped out. But in reality, it wasn't perfect. Which leads us to the biggest issue about Office documents, formatting. Google Docs is about 97-99% accurate when converting Office to Google and I will say that that number is pretty accurate. When it becomes a problem is when there is a lot of formatting on the Office document. Then when it converts to a Google Doc, there will be some formatting that needs to be done on your part.

But here in lies my point, with every transition there needs to be some front end work put into it. When teachers got computers, there was a lot of work done to put together those power point presentations, worksheets in Word, or even tests in Word. But education changes. If you are still using the same power point from 5 years ago, maybe it is time you update it. And that is what I would tell those teachers that will complain about having to change and do work on their lectures.

Other issues with Office I have noticed, there is no smooth way to add in music into a Google Slide. Also, there is no way to easily add a watermark to a Google Doc.

Office is the one thing that people will say stops them from moving to Chrome OS. I am hear to tell you that the main issue you will run into is formatting. My recommendation is to convert it all in to Google Docs, Sheets, or Slides and go from there. Just know going in there will be some formatting that will need to take place eventually if you go from Office to Chrome OS. Once again, if you are using the same powerpoint for years and years, there are bigger problems that you need to tackle.

Next time we will talk about printing.