Chanatown

As more teachers create their websites and more students set up portfolios using Google Apps, it becomes increasingly likely that both parties will stumble upon "more gadgets" and the bounty of gadgets that come with a potentially unfiltered part of the application. I wrote in an earlier post  how to setup DGDM , a gadget management feature that easily limited what was either shown (whitelist) or not shown (blacklist) when site creators went searching for gadgets. Later, I created a video tutorial that demonstrated the process from start to finish. Recently, a fellow GCT (Google Certified Teacher) created a site that included his own tutorials as well as a category listing for specific gadgets useful for educators.  Check it out here: Gadgets4schools  and read more after the jump for a few of our teachers' favorites gadgets.

One of the earliest experiences I had with Google Sites when we started using Google Apps for Education was noticing all of the cool gadgets that you could use in Sites. Unfortunately, many gadgets were also inappropriate and able to fly in under our school's filter. With Domain Gadget Directory Manager (DGDM), we can set up a "White List" filter and specifically choose which gadgets to allow for users on the domain. Alternatively, one can also create "Black List" filter to exclude specific gadgets. I chose to implement the former due to the large number and possible expansion of inappropriate gadgets. A video tutorial on how to set up DGDM follows after the jump.

Image by Kinologik via Flickr I'm a big fan of Google Sites, and we're starting to see some momentum in that students are creating their own sites for class projects or digital portfolios. Part of the fun in creating your website involves customizing your pages to express your own personality. Google provides opportunities for such expression beyond text and images through Gadgets. Unfortunately, a quick search of "hot" when Inserting a Gadget reveals many applications that are far from appropriate in the classroom. There was a suggested tool from Google (Feed Server Client Tool) that could be installed, but this seemed a bit more involved than it needed to be. Thankfully, courtesy of a recent GCT post by E.B., there's the Domain Gadget Directory Manager (DGDM), and I found this to be a very quick and easy way to manage a domain's accessibility to gadgets. More after the jump.