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This tutorial is an introduction 
to Google Plus Communities.

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In order to access Google Plus Communities
you need to be a Google Plus user.

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So you are going to first need to
activate your Google Plus account.

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You can do that from you inbox,
your gmail inbox, or you can go to

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plus.google.com to get started
with Google Plus.

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Google Plus Communities 
are shared spaces on line

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where folks can come together
to share ideas, to share resources,

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and to collaborate with each other.

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Here are just a few of the ways
people are using Google Communities.

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I use Google Communities 
for a couple of the courses that I teach.

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Its gives us a shared space online
where we can post comments and ideas,

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share resources, ask questions. 


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If you are using it with students,
they need to be over, 13 or older.

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You can also use it with other
professionals that you work with.

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With your colleagues or
connecting with parents,

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or folks who have similar interests.

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So these are just a few of the 
communities that I am a member of.

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Some of these communities 
I moderate

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which means that I sort of 
set the structure for that community

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and some of these I created 
and some of these I joined

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that others created that were
interesting to me.

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And you can see that communities 
range greatly in the amount of members

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that they have.

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You may be looking for a community
that has a lot of members

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and a lot of activity happening
or you may be looking for

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a smaller close nit community
with just a smaller group of people

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sharing resources for a specific purpose.

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Communities can be private or public.


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As you can see here there is a community
for a course that I teach

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that is a private community.

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Only folks who I invite 
can be part of that community.

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These other communities are public
and open to anyone.

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Here is just a small sampling 
of communities that are available

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in Google Plus. There are lots and lots
of communities already out there.

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You can see alot of these have quite
a few members.

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So you can browse and find communities
that are already existing

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where people are already active
and having conversations with each other,

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sharing great ideas and resources, and
you can join those existing communities.

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Or you can create your own if there is 
a specific purpose that you want

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to collaborate with other folks about.

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Here are some things that 
Google Communities can do for you.

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You can get answers to your questions
and get feedback on your ideas.

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This is one of my favorite things about
Google Communities.

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If I'm pondering a new idea,
or just doing some brainstorming,

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or would like some advice,

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Google Communities is typically the 
place I go for that.

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So I can just post a question.
I can put it into a specific community

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which is what I've done here.


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I created a community for
teacher educators.

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I can post a question in there
and you can see that I got 7 comments

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that were on this one question.

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People giving me advice and resources
and suggestions.

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So the purpose of a community, 
of posting ideas in a community,

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is that people are there in this
community space on purpose.

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So membership in a community
is mutual.

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People choose to join 
for a specific reason.

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They want to engage in conversations
with other people.

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They have an interest in whatever
the community is focused on

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and they are there on purpose.

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Now, not every member of a 
community is an active member

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and you know is regularly participating
but lots of people are there on purpose

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and they are there because 
they want to participate.

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So the odds are pretty good 
that if you are a member of an active

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community and you post an idea 
or question

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you are going to get some feedback
from the community.

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Which I just think is really valuable.

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You can also find some great resources,
connect with people who are like-minded,

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and if you are a twitter user Google Plus 
can have some real advantages to you

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in that you can have lengthier 
conversations than you can through twitter

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so I'm actually going to go into 
Google Communities now

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and show you how to navigate.
Show you how to find communities

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and how to join them 
and how to create your own.

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So here is my Google Plus page.
If I hover over the home button

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here in the top left corner,
I can find my option for communities.

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Now these are communities 
that I moderate

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so these are either communities
I created,

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or communities that I am a member of
but also a moderator for.

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These are communities that other folks
created but I joined

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because they are about something 
that I am interested in.

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Now if I scroll down here to the 
section on discover communties

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I'll find other communities
that Google is recommending for me

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based on my profile 
that I've set up previously,

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based on things that I post about,
and based on my existing communities,

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these are some recommendations for me.

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So I may want to just pop into some 
of these and see what is happening there.

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You want to pay attention 
to how many members

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and how many posts are in there.

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So there are some communities
that have a lot of members

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but only a tiny bit of posts,
so there's a lot of people in here

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but not a lot of activity happening.

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I would maybe prefer to be in one
that has a lot of members

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but also has a lot of activity happening.

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And you can go into a community
and take a look at the kinds of posts

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that are being shared there
and see if its something

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that is interesting to you.

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If it is, you can just click on the 
community, go into the community

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and then you can click this button
to join the community.

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Now some communities you can join
without having to ask,

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but in some communities, 
the moderators have turned on a feature

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that makes them, gives them permission
to mod..., to control who joins.


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So you may see that button say
"ask to join" or it may just say "join."

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Here is a way you can find some
communities

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if you are looking for communities
for something specific.

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You can do a search here in the
Google Plus search bar.

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So here at the top of my 
Google Plus profile I can search

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for something here.

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Let's say you are interested in
using Chrome Books.

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So I'm going to do a search 
for Chrome Book

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and its going to search through
everything on Google Plus

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but if I'm just looking for a 
community,

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I'm going to click here on
communities and its going to find for me

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all the communities that have
anything to do with Chrome Book.

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And you can see there are quite a few.
So I may want to go into some of these

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and see which ones of these are active. 
This one looks like its pretty active.

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So I'm going to take a look at that 
community and see what kinds

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of resources and posts 
are being shared

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and if there is something great
happening in that community

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that you want to be a part of 
you can just join the community.

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So this one you don't have to
get permission to join.

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You can just join.

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Then another thing you can do 
after you join a community

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is you can turn notifications on
if you would like to be notified

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whenever someone makes 
a new post.

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Now this is a great thing in most cases
because you don't have to remember

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to keep checking the community 
to see if there has been new activity.

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Right here it tells me that I have 
notifications "off" but if I turn

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notifications on just by clicking here,
I can toggle this on and off

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and now I'll get a little notification 
up here in my little notification space.

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I'll get a notification when something
new has been posted here.

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So that way I wouldn't have to come
back and check on this every so often.

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I'm going to keep notifications off
because this is a pretty active community

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and I would be getting quite 
a few notification.

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You can see there have been 
several posts just this afternoon.

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I don't want all those notifications

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but you may have communities
you do want notifications on,

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for example, this community for a course
I'm teaching this semester,

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I have notification on because I want to 
know when one of my students

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posts a question or shares a resource
or posts an assignment

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or something like that.

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That's all about 
finding communities,

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and joining communities,
and using communities.

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If you wanted to create your 
own community,

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this is where you would go to do that.

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So you click "create community" and 
you can choose

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whether it is a private community
or a public community.

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Now a public community will allow
anyone in the world to join.

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A private community means that 
you can only invite specific folks.

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So lets say we're going to do
a public community

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and here is where you can choose
where you can control people who join.

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So you can either say,
no, anybody can join

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or yes, people can ask you to join, but
then you have to approve their joining.

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So I'm just making a fake community
called, "demo."

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Its going to show you 
if there's anything similar already

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because you may be starting 
to create a community and realize

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oh, there is already a community
like that.

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Then you would just create your own
and that community would be

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an actual community. Then you can 
share that link with other people

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and invite specific people 
to your community.

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So I encourage you now to go 
browse some existing communities

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find one to join or find several
and create your own and invite

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people to that community.


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So go ahead and get Googling.