As the school year winds-down many of us are planning summer PD sessions. If you’re going to be leading a PD session about Google Apps this summer, here are some of my tips for leading a successful session. These tips are based on my experiences gained from leading dozens of Google Apps trainings over the last few years.
Unified browser choice.
Documents. Not surprisingly, Google Chrome does support all features of
Google Documents and Google Drive. For that reason it is preferable to
have all participants in your training sessions use Google Chrome.
Google Chrome automatically updates whenever a new update is released by
Google. A day or two before your training session send an email to all
participants asking them to install Chrome if it’s not already installed
on their laptops.
If getting all
participants in your training session to use Chrome is not an option for
you, at the very least stress to them importance of having the latest
version of their preferred browsers installed. Not only is this a
browser security issue (older versions of browsers are more susceptible
to security threats) it is a Google Documents functionality issue. The
latest versions of browsers support the most functions of Google
Documents. For example, as of this writing Google has officially ceased
supporting Internet Explorer 8.
Finally,
regardless of which browser you ultimately have participants in your
training sessions use, have them all use the same browser during your
training session. Initially, this might be uncomfortable for some
participants, but by the end of the day most people will be comfortable
with a different browser. Having everyone use the same browser will make
your day easier. When everyone uses the same browser if there are
unexpected glitches or problems they will likely be the same for
everyone in your training session. Solve the glitch once and you’ve
solved it for the whole group for the day.
