Pupils in the clouds: Implementation of Google Apps for Education

Abstract

The study focuses on the implications of affordances identified in Google Apps for Education (GAFE), by strategic staff within a Swedish school organisation, with responsibility for schools in around 30 municipalities. A complex picture emerged, where GAFE was perceived both as a neutral, well-functioning tool and as a means of educating in partly new ways. Furthermore, the study shows that GAFE, despite its characteristic of being a non-generative appliance, still can be used in creative ways. The implementation of cloud technology, such as GAFE, endorses a tunnel-vision affordance that downgrades more nuanced perceptions of the different technological, economical, and ethical aspects of the technology. Studying GAFE, different tensions of power emerge: Google vs. the school, IT professionals vs. teachers, management vs. teachers, teachers vs. pupils, Google vs. pupils. Contents1. Introduction 2. Cloud computing as non-generative appliances 3. Method 4. Considerations before implementation 5. Implementation of GAFE 6. The affordances of GAFE 7. Discussion 8. Conclusion IntroductionWild technology tends to be domesticated relatively quickly, and tamed into everyday objects (Haddon, 2006). Domestication leads to technology being taken for granted. Indeed, information technology (IT) usually evolves into unexciting artefacts for routine everyday usage. In modern society, IT has become crucial at home, at work and in schools. Through the introduction of cloud computing the taken for grantedness of, and dependence on, IT seems even greater than ever before. Google Apps for Education (GAFE) is currently being introduced in Swedish schools (the national context of this study) and is successively becoming an accepted generic information technology -a tamed everyday object. This paper investigates how one particular school organisation implements this standard cloud software in their educational settings.Building on constructivist studies of technology and organisation, this article is concerned with GAFE as a generic bundle of IT tools in schools. Constructivist studies tend to draw complex, messy sketches of how technology is developed, negotiated and used within different settings. Technology is seen as co-constructed, rather than following a predestined trajectory. Technologies are not viewed as independent phenomena; rather, they are embedded in their social contexts (Williams and Edge, 1996).Furthermore, this paper is concerned with the issue of power, which has also been addressed within constructivist studies. Four clusters of power studies are possible to detect: 1) political power, 2) corporate power -often with a Marxist perspective, 3) code is law -i.e., power as encoded in the artefacts -and 4) power/knowledge -i.e., power encoded in organisational structures -in line with ideas developed by Foucault (1980). Recently we have seen an increasing number of studies on IT implementation and use within organisations, but this study addresses understandings of why the technology is implemented and how it is used -...

The use of cloud resources and services in distance learning of students in the context of restrictions caused by the pandemic

“…Team members can show their screens, watch, and work on everything together. Google Hangouts allows streaming live on Google+, YouTube, and the site (Lindh et al: 2016;González-Martínez et al: 2015).…”

Bridging the gap between policy and practice: Unpacking the commercial rhetoric of Google for Education

“…Issues that might be of concern, such as privacy issues, the influence of a commercial actor in public settings, and the favouring of Google-based services (and thus certain types of behaviour on digital platforms), tended to be ignored or modulated. In a similar study Lindh and colleagues (Lindh et al, 2016) examined the implementation of Google Apps for Education in a Swedish school organization and found several issues of concern, such as the lack of critique, the perceived neutrality of the technology and the domestication of pupils into a ‘Google citizenship’. These studies point to the perceived neutrality of digital technology in educational settings, in particular Google, findings that this study builds on and seeks to critically investigate further.…”

Uso de Google Classroom como repositorio de robótica práctica: PieroAcademy

“…Las herramientas de la G Suite for Education (GSFE), conocida anteriormente por Google Apps for Educaction (GAFE) han sido empleadas coń exito en la educación superior, con Docs [10], Drive [11,12], Sites [13], o como GAFE [14,15,16]. Al principio, tan solo era un Sistema de Gestión de Contenidos -CMS (Content Management System), que incluye la creación y administración de los contenidos de una página Web, pero con la incorporación de Classroom, GSFE posee también un Sistema de Gestión de Aprendizaje -LMS que automatiza las acciones de formación.…”