Google in School (Institute) Administration

Google a name of company almost everyone heard of it or probably might have used its products. It's Search Engine and Gmail is most commonly used things in India and around globe. People often get mistaken that Google is all about Gmail and search only which is it absolutely not ! Google provides a wide range of products say more than 50, of which Google Search and Gmail is only two among them. 

                                      In early 90s Google started their journey. They started initially as an Search Engine provider, later introduced many products. They initial thought of providing support to users by simply search engine and later by Gmail, but now they are providing full range of solutions to all of the Enterprises and MNC across the world. In education Sector too they are providing tool which can prove real blessing and can bring revolution in education efforts, particularly in India.

                                 India has vast population and the students here are in plenty. It is expected that there are 60 million students in India which is on the rise. For that 60 million students, school and colleges are only few thousands . All schools, colleges which run by government are flooded with crowd and has no space left for extra admissions and thus cannot absorb this surge of learners. Due to these overcrowding getting new students admissions is not a very big deal for Private Institutes in India, thus they doesn’t seems to invest much in administration of the Institute. Why to Invest if getting new admissions is not a big deal ? Also competition is less. Same is with the government schools also, here overcrowding causing problem. Handling large number of students cause entire shift of their administrative focus on arranging capacity, planning for resources etc, left no space for efficient administration, quality of teaching and governance. However Central Government new initiatives like the tight AICTE regulations, DIET compulsion has put some whip on them but still they doesn't utilise their administrative capacity in full in day-to-day practice. Lack of Proper training and apathy is the root cause of such situation & this is where the role of Google comes in.

                                        Google for education is an initiative by Google incorporation as an effort to extend quality of education across the world that too without any cost. Most of that tool for education administration is designed and developed by Google itself while some of them are outsourced as well. They provide additional benefits to work & make Macro Level Institute Administration asy, along with Micro Level administration i.e from classroom to study management. With my Six years of experience I am going to explain everything about them here.

Google for Institute (School) Administration

                         Google provides G suite for education, an online IT Platform to all school / colleges who are AICTE, CBSE, State Board approved and that too free of cost ! Most of the colleges and school don't know that even such things exist. They always tend to jump around various IT consultant companies and spend thousands to acquire the same, but Google provide it free of cost (At Least it is free until now). Before you start with Google Suite for Education prior requirements are

A website of college / school that everyone has nowadays and that website must be registered under their own domain name like www.sampleschool.com.

Scanned copy of approval letter from AICTE, CBSE, State Board

Some basic technical knowledge for day to day administration of G Suite.

                                    Now if you have all of this just go to the www.edu.google.com and register.

Advantage of using G suite for Institute administration

• Professional Email: G Suite provides personalized and professional email address domain like example@school.com unlike traditional Gmail which provides domain like abc@gmail.com. This makes email quiet professional and increase sense of “oneness” & teamwork among users. Point one should here must remember that we can add unlimited user (email address) under our own domain but one should add only for those  who are working with our the school permanently. as he may access confidential chat / messages of school via Hangout messaging. 

• Hangout: Hangout is chat embedded already in Gmail. Everyone probably knows about it, but they really don't know how to efficiently utilise them. Before knowing how to utilise it properly first let's see what are the features of it. Hangout provides chat service like WhatsApp, but unlike WhatsApp would we don't need any cell number from anyone. Just email address is sufficient.From hangout we can send pictures, share location etc. We can do video conferencing with it. Hangout is considered as the most sophisticated video conferencing tool available today. For that we just need to know each other’s gmail addresses and that's it !we are done.  We can immediately start video conferencing with that gmail address. It is useful particularly when other party doesn't want to share their personal cell number for the given task. Hangout provide formation of groups within it like WhatsApp group do. I can say this is the most important features for school administration as far as my Experience iis concern. With Group chat feature we can form various committees, subcommittees, Teams etc, within the school and from there we can discuss any topics we need to. Advantage of using group chat in Hangout is that, it is tightly link to Gmail. Hangout can be operated it directly from inbox and hence inbox can become “mission control” where we can manage all of our work from a single window, ie Google inbox. One hidden advantage and basic reason of using hangout is that no-one can delete outgoing messages in it, hence the messages / chat can serve as documented proof of work done by you thereby avoiding chance of manipulation.

Now see how to utilise Hangout for Institute administration

1. Ask every users to download hangout app (available in Google app store)
2. Follow principle of “document what you do and do what you have documented”, that means every discussions, ideas, groups-chat etc you must make it on hangout only. That means, you will have a tangible proof of everything you have done on hangout. This will not only improve your accountability but stimulate trust and thereby productivity.
3. Form as many committees as possible ie of everything and anything your user do in your Institute, starting from groups related to Institute administration to teaching to marketing.. Make list of such groups and add members suitable to it. Maximise discussion on hangout as an oral discussion has 0% value. In the age of WhatsApp writing two lines in Hangout for day to day discussion is not a very big deal. Make someone from the committee a “chairman” who’s job will be to send final info via email to the concerned user seeking information. 
4. Anyone wants to initiate any discussion about ay issue related to committee can send personal email to concerned  member of committee and in turn he will get a report from chairman of that committee regarding an issue.
5. Such practise will make committee workable & accountable unlike traditional committee with zero accountability, who meets once in a blue moon. This will improve quality of service in administration

• Reminders 

Reminder is a part of inbox by Gmail and it is very useful tool hence suggested earlier enable it over traditional Gmail.

As it is very useful tool, we can say it can laid an foundation of effective administration. With the help of reminders we can set reminders of our routine task like calling, collecting fees, arranging committee meeting etc

From this, we can keep an eye on our routine work without any hassle. We can set reminder of any type of work we need to do and it will display notifications in the inbox window hence no worry of forgetting anything of routine nature.

Routine activities can be efficiently tracked using this. For example: cleaning of tank, safety inspection, meeting with the parents etc. From the point of view of Committees & group It not only increases routine activity but also increases productivity within them by setting reminders of regular meetings etc.

Types of reminders are

1. Simple Type: It is used for reminding a  task set for particular specific date
2. Reoccuring Type:This are repeating ones or we can say they are set for repeating after every some days, weeks, months or years etc. They automatically repeat itself without setting it each time. 
3. Notice Type: Such reminders is just for notice. It does not include any date where it will pop up & notify you. Urgent work need to be done is one example of it. Hence It includes no time frame & it is  used just to show what is urgent right now.

Reminder must be set regularly for all kind of repeating work & tasks for efficient routing management. One point we must remember here is  that we can convert any type of reminders into into any type and that too anytime (in customise section).

Important point to remember for Institute administration

1. Form as many number of committees and documents in Hangout & drive whenever necessary for improved communication. 
2. Used inbox by Gmail instead of Traditional Gmail
3. Use Google Inbox Reminders to get organised.
4. Avoid Call for every single things, use hangout instead.
5. Add users only after getting approval from Google
6. Always enable two step verification process for additional security
7. Get some knowledge of how to use Google docs before start using the Google apps.

• Google Drive : This is complete set of cloud based office management solution where we can get anything related to office work like documents, spreadsheets, ppts etc.

• Google sheets: These are nothing but spreadsheet. They are as same as Microsoft Excel but has some additional advantages over it. Google spreadsheet has some additional custom functions & formulas which you can found only in google spreadsheets, example  today formula, importsheet formula, html formula etc which provide google spreadsheet an upper hand over Microsoft excel. Spreadsheet can be published online & i think this is very useful feature from the management point of view. Everything can be made online like live balance sheet daily time table, Payroll, Test results etc. Publishing a Google spreadsheet is very simple just create isheet go to file > publish > select the way u want > copy the link. Important thing to remember here is we can install addon on the sheets to make it further productive, which i have already explained.

• Google Slides: Google slides is used particularly for presentation. However, we can use it for marketing, making self- paced course by publishing it online. Another advantage of it is it remains on cloud forever so no chance of losing it anytime may be because of hacking etc

• Folders: Folder is used to store documents like files, sheets, slides, forms etc. It is like ordinary folder at your Desktop. Advantage of using it on google drive is that it can be publish online, that means if we make it online every content in it will automatically get published. Thereby no need to publish them individually.

• Google Forms : Google form is very important tool. It is used to collect data. It can store data standalone (in Itself) or can store data in Google spreadsheet where we can manipulate its data as per our need. Form can be published online, can be sent via email to collect information, can be extremely useful in surveys etc. Google Forms can be used in many ways like if we want only one email address should submit their data only once we can make this happen.In such case form will require sign-in process. Another way of using Google form is the one where anyone can submit as many times their data needed. Here no sign-in process is required. Such way particularly used in handling grievances, complaints, where anyone may have multiple complaints /grievances. Other most often uses of Google forms are attendance marking, test creation, collection of student info etc

• Google Sites: Google Site is nothing but website we can make inside Google drive. Google Site is very useful for making intranet of college / school or departmental websites where only specific authorised user can access it. It is very easy to use & make. We can make professional sites within minutes without even having knowledge of coding. It is Generally seen that Institutes places an order of making website to some external agency which in turn charge some money to make it or to update it.  Updating an website is not an one time affair, it is everyday process, but Institutes hesitate to pay them for updating sites regularly, consequently now a days every institutes has their websites filled with obsolete contents. Hence making our own website will be beneficial for such institutes and that’s what Google sites provides. Make your own website in Google sites & update it regularly is key to efficient management and marketing of your Institute.