TeachOIT: a Blog for People Who Teach with Technology

OIT is partnering with Google to launch “Google Apps at UMass Amherst,” a customized version of Google’s popular suite of online productivity and collaboration tools, including Gmail, designed especially for educational institutions.

Beginning in late summer, the university’s 19,000 undergraduates will be able to sign up for a Google Apps account, choose to have their official UMass Amherst e-mail delivered to Gmail, and start using the other tools in the Google Apps suite, including Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Calendar.

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If you’ve set up a UMass Blog to document your research or teaching, you might be interested to know who your visitors are. The days of the simple hit counter are gone, replaced with Google Analytics, a Google tool that tracks a wealth of data about where your visitors are coming from, which sections of your blog they are reading, and how often are they returning. 

Here’s how to enable Google Anayltics on your blog, (instructions via Kevin Skelly’s OIT Software Support Blog)

1. Log in to the administrative dashboard of your blog.
2. Click the Plugins link (at the right hand side of the banner.)
3. Click Activate to the right of Ultimate Google Analytics.
4. Go to http://www.google.com/analytics/
5. Click the Access Analytics button.
6. To the right of Website Profiles click Add New Profile.
7. Enter the URL of your blog. The http:// is already supplied, so enter the rest of the URL e.g. “blogs.umass.edu/YourUsername”.
8. Click Finish.
9. Select the string that looks like UA-#######-# and copy it.
10. Return to your blog dashboard and click Settings (at top right).
11. Click Ultimate GA under the banner.
12. The box labeled Account ID should now have that same number in it, but if it doesn’t, you can paste it in now.
13. Click Update Options.
14. After some people have visited your blog, you can go back to Google Analytics and click “View report” in the line next to where your blogs website is displayed. This will take you to the report for your blog, where you will be able to see how much activity your blog has received.

Google provides a variety of web based tools such as email (GMail), online mapping (Google Maps), and video sharing (YouTube), but two lesser known tools are Google Groups and Google Docs which may be of particular interest to instructors looking for more ways to collaborate with students and colleagues via the web. (more…)

Our second Emerging Technology and Pie event of the semester will be Thursday April 3rd, 1:15-2:15. The topic for the event will be using Google Groups with students, our guest speaker is Ruth-Ellen Verock-O’Loughlin from the School of Education.

Google Groups is a free Web-based discussion tool by Google where students can have discussions about coursework and academic interests. Since Google Groups are engaging to students who are already familiar with Google’s interface and productivity tools, faculty members have a powerful tool for promoting discussion, group projects, collaborative research, and community service learning.

If you are interested in attending this event, please follow this link to the registration form:

http://www.umass.edu/accoprod/workshop/register.php?s=2008-spring-emerg-tech-pie

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Google has been busy lately releasing tools and programs that we thought might be of use to instructors at UMass. We’ve listed three of these below, but more of Google’s new products (most are prototypes) can be found by visiting Google Labs.

Google Docs (now for presentations)

Google’s answer to PowerPoint has arrived. Google recently added presentation software to its Google Docs suite. Because it’s Web-based, you can access your presentations from anywhere with an Internet connection and easily collaborate on files with colleagues. You’ll need a Google account to get started.

Google Research University Program

Google, Inc. recently unveiled its Google Research University Program. If you are accepted to the program (there is an application process) you’ll be granted command line access to the depths of the Google’s search technology and the Web.

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