So, the education push about Google Plus has started. For those who may be unfamiliar, both of you, Google Plus is a google implementation of a social network. Somewhat akin to facebook in the ability to connect to people you know and twitter to broadcast to people you may know, yet somehow not quite either one. The tech elite had their own quiet time while the service, oh project, sorry, was gearing up and the doors are starting to open a little wider now and more average folks are finding their way in. Hopefully it will be fully open soon.
Here’s what is pretty widely known.
Circles: a granularized twitter. more control than the facebook wall. Looks very interesting and lends itself to setting up students in classes. This has the potential to be the most used aspects for ed.
Hangouts: video chat and conferencing. The next best this to having office hours/meetings in person. I am hoping and wishing I can convince the powers that be to hold faculty meetings this way. Office hours are a given. Possibly a good way to get students into class via distance. We’ll see after I’ve played with it a bit more.
I imagine that the rest of google services are coming. I expect to see calander, docs et al. to make an appearance as well.
