What is it?

Google Apps is a collection of online tools that you and your students can use as a part of your courses. This includes commonly used applications such has Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, as well as Carleton-specific Google Groups, which you can use to supplement your Moodle course and add functionality.

Why is this useful?

Google Apps

Students may find Google Apps useful because they can be used in place of standard Microsoft applications. If a student does not have access to Microsoft Word, they can use Google Docs. If they don’t have access to Microsoft Excel, they could use Google Sheets, and the same for Google Slides in place of Powerpoint. In addition, these tools are increasingly ubiquitous, and it’s likely that your students will be expected to understand and be competent with these applications in their future workplaces. It’s helpful to give them the opportunity to use them here.

Google Groups are useful for emailing everyone in your class, creating calendar appointments in Google Calendar, or sharing files and folders in Google Drive. This can serve as an extension of your Moodle class site and add functionality and opportunities for interaction that don’t exist in Moodle.

How do I use it at Carleton?

Many of these apps are available to you and to your students simply by clicking the nine dot grid in the upper-right hand corner of your Carleton gmail screen. You can create a Google Group for your class and have it automatically populated with all your students. To do that, log into the HUB and follow these directions:

  1. The course resources opt-in form is part of the Hub. As a Carleton faculty member, when you log into the Hub you should see a new link under the Faculty Information heading called Faculty Course Resources. Click this link to get started.
HUB Site for Faculty
HUB Site for Faculty
  1. You’ll see a screen with a drop-down menu asking you to choose a particular course section. Courses are named according to the year and term, followed by the course number and short name. Choose the section for which you want to request one or more resources.
Faculty Course Resources
Faculty Course Resources
  1. Finally, use the checkboxes below the course section dropdown to select one or more resources for this course section, and click Update.

CARE Strategies

Need a quick example or description of how one of our tools can be viewed through CARE?

Not sure what CARE is? Please see this blog post on CARE for more information.

Community: A Google Doc can be used to collaborate and work as a group on a document, create shared classroom notes, or share information about each other as an ice breaking activity.

Agency: Students can choose how to interact in any number of Google products including, text, writing (ex. stylus), link images, URLs, and videos.

Representation: Google products are easy to embed images and link information out to a wide variety of people across all disciplines from around the world.

Equal Access: Google products contain many options, including accessibility related options in their products. For example, Google Meet is screen-reader capable and calls out action buttons, can work with keyboard shortcuts, closed captions, and will generate transcripts in meetings.

Want to help others out with CARE strategies and Google Apps? Please enter your strategies in the Poll Everywhere section below. As a reminder regarding personal or sensitive information, these will be available to those who visit this site. General content moderation may be on, so your shared strategy responses may be delayed.