This year there is a new tool available to middle school students called Google Apps. Google Apps was set up by Mr. Kampia with all kinds of different uses. This fast and easy program is a way for a person to e-mail, set up a web-site, get alerts and updates via a virtual calendar, and much more. Mr. Kampia says that his goal is for students to do most of their work electronically or over the Internet using laptops, iPads, or Kindles.

A lot of assignments have already been given and completed on Google Docs. There is also Google Draw, where you can use symbols and drawing tools to create pictures. Some of the eighth graders used Google Draw to create a seal for their Utopian community project. He said that what the students are doing now with Google Apps is just the beginning. Later the students will learn about the other applications like how to create web-sites anduse Google Talk, the calendar, Google Docs, the app engine, and the Web-master tools.

Google Apps is not only useful for students, but it is also useful for the teachers. There are many different things Google Apps can do, from creating documents to making presentations. The documents are automatically saved in a cloud as we make changes to them.  Google Apps also allows more than one student to work on certain assignments together. Another feature, Google Apps has is word count, it counts all the words used in a document so that we can monitor how many words are used in a document. Overall, it is a very useful program for both students and teachers.

 Google Apps has modernized the way Ascension student’s complete web-based assignments.