Since its June launch, Google+ has emerged as a force to  be reckoned with in the realm of social networking. When Google finally arrived to the same party that Facebook and Twitter have been running for years, it did so with quite an entrance. It took Google+ a mere 16 days to reach the 10 million user mark – something it took both Twitter and Facebook over two years to do. So what does Google+ mean for the world of education? With this fall being the first full semester that schools, professors and students can utilize the powerful tool in the classroom, we’ll take a look at some of the potential features that could make Google+ a force to be reckoned with for years to come. Early adopter professors have commented on how a tool like Google+ fits better into curriculum based learning than other popular online tools like Facebook and Twitter. This is due to the vast amount of customization and flexibility in function that it makes possible. Google+ can potentially be a great tool to extend the teaching experience and make learning, especially distance learning, a more robust and interactive environment.

Circles

Circles are the secret key to the success of Google+. On the surface it may not seem like much – you can separate your friends into specific groups, so what? Twitter and Facebook both offer a similar functionality by way of Lists and Groups, but each is so cumbersome that few people actually use these functions. In order to really understand the power of circles, it’s important to know useful ways to set up your circles. There are two basic ways that you can build your circles: circles for reading and circles for sharing. Think carefully about how you want to separate your friends, understanding that there are people whose posts that you’d rather read, and others who you’s want to push your posts to. And if you haven’t figured it out by now, customizing who you share what with can be very powerful.

Sharing restrictions

On Facebook and Twitter, what you share goes out indiscriminately to everyone who follows you. But Google+ gives you the ability to select exactly who gets to see each and every one of your updates. Additionally you can prevent it from being re-shared, great for keeping things private within limited groups, within a single class section, for example. This selective sharing is great for collaborative learning or working on group projects. And for professors who have had privacy concerns with befriending their students on a social network, using circles to segment your posts gives you fine control of what your students get to see from you. That goes for students too, so the threat of embarrassing photos and status updates is greatly minimized on Google+.

Hangouts

One of the most remarkable features that Google+ boasts is Hangouts, group video chat. This is great for getting a group of people in a number of places all together at once. Many professors have also expressed intrigue in having virtual office hours using Hangouts. When a user want to start a Hangout, she simply click the “Start a Hangout” button and those you select to share with see that in their stream. It works great from what we’ve tested and has very little lag.

Mobile

Google+ also offers an additional option for users of their mobile app available for iPhone and Android. It’s called Huddle and it’s essentially a group chat. You can make as big or small group as you desire, only having to send once to the entire group. This is infinitely more convenient that group texting people, especially when it comes to trying to get plans together. Study groups, groups of professors and just about any other  group of people with a similar interest can benefit from the Huddle apparatus.

In Conclusion

With the upcoming school year, we are no doubt on the verge of seeing the potential of Google+ in the realm of distance learning. A powerful tool, it solves a lot of the nuances that make Facebook and Twitter not optimal for teacher/student interaction via social networks. With the ability to selectively share and consume whats’s in your streams by way of circles, Google+ is a fantastically flexible tool. Group video chat with Hangouts and group texting with Huddles bring us closer together than we have ever been before.

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