Google Drive (part 2 of 3)

There is a lot of information below. I suggest you have Drive open so you can try each one as you read! Worth the time, I promise!

 Features you may not know about:

 ~ If you look in the tool section while typing a document, you will find the Spell Check, but you will also find "Research" and "Define" ~ if you have a word highlighted and click on either one, over on the right of your screen you will see a list of webpages for the former and the definition of the word in the latter.  But that is not all! In that same section on the right you can click on the little arrow to the left of the term you searched and filter your research query by pictures, text, tables, etc.  (look for the brown stars in the above picture).

~ Also in the tool section is the option to translate your document. I am not fluent in another language to really test this but for those that teach ESL students or foreign languages, this may be something you want to check out!

~ In a document you can "insert" an "equation" with the choices including typing fractions, exponents, etc. There is a slight learning curve with getting the equations to look the way you want (for me anyway) but, just like riding a bicycle, once you find the right pattern of keystrokes, you won't forget!  The tab key and arrow keys on your keyboard are very important here. (blue star)

~ Second only to the "undo" button, the document's "Revision History" is a favorite feature when working with students. I've marked how you access it with the red star. When you select this a window will pop up on the right side of the screen. This will show you all the times the paper has been edited and if there is more than one person working on that document because it has been shared, you can also see who was in it when and what they did. No more "one person did all the work" and others getting a free ride! I have really used this feature the most when a student (or adult, or myself) cries out that something has gone missing... I look back in the history, find what has disappeared, copy it, and then paste it into the latest version. 

~ One of Drive's fantastic features is the ability to share documents. For example, students can share documents with teachers for feedback, teachers can share templates with students, students can work together on a project, even without being in the same room, etc. Marked by the purple stars above, you can see where I left a comment (right) on a specific phrase in the paper (left)... what a great way to give feedback!

~ During a recent in-service, Mrs. Duke (8th grade English, using Google daily), also shared that she was tired of typing the same comments over and over again and she found a great solution. She went up to "Tools" and then "Preferences" and put a short-cut for phrases she was repeating... for example she put wc in the "replace" column and {word choice} in the "with" column. Now when she edits a student's paper, she goes right into the text, types wc where the student needs to choose a better word, and the phrase {word choice} goes right where the student needs to look.  The brackets are important so the comment stands out from the student's text. This preference change only works for the person who added the preference so if the student types wc, the same thing will not happen. And bonus, once the preference is set by a user, it works in every document from there on out. A little work up front but a huge payout later! (there are will already be standard preferences in the preferences table... the ones you add will be on the bottom once created).

~ If you or your students find a picture on the Internet that you know you have rights to use, click the picture and hold the left mouse key down and don't let go until you have dragged your picture into your document (up to the tabs, hover over your document's tab until you see your document, and place picture). Don't forget to credit your source!

~ The Drawing choice under the Create options (or conveniently under "Insert" within a document) is also a great tool. I used it above to create an image for the first page of my presentation when I couldn't find one I liked better, but it can also be used to create flow charts and for insert word-art into documents.


Google Forms tomorrow!

Google Drive (Part 1 of 3)

There are few tools that I have found that have helped my personal and professional productivity more than Google Apps. For years I have been suggesting using Google's offerings (Drive, calendar, Blogger, etc) with mixed success. If you are one of those people who were hesitant to try Google before, or tried it and hated it, I urge you to give it a second chance, specifically Google Drive.

The benefits of using Google Drive for teachers and students are plenty... far more than I can list but here are what I consider the big players:

• It saves automatically to your own password protected account... every five seconds.
• Unlimited storage for items created in Drive and a lot of storage for other documents you just want to store there.
• Access everywhere you can get online ~ no more flash drive at home while you are at school.
• Users do not have to have the Microsoft Office suite on their computers. If a student does not have Office on his or her home computer, how can he or she finish a project at home? If the user has started a project in  Drive, he or she can access it as long as the Internet is available. Options are good!
• Collaborating is awesome! Multiple users can work on the same document, at the same time. Bye-bye to the workload falling on just the motivated in the group or bye-bye to the project get hung up based on one person's slacking effort! Also, students can share a document with a teacher, who can then comment on it. No paper passing required... less clutter is a good thing!

Of course there are negatives; there are always things we would like to see work differently or better. The big one is needing Internet access and that isn't always available. Another struggle is students forgetting their passwords,  however, the requests for passwords to be reset diminishes if users use a program on a regular basis!

Tips to improve your experience & updated tools:

~ Browser choice matters!  If you haven't ventured out of using the big e to get on the Internet, now is the time. Google Drive works best in Chrome. Why?  Because they both products of the same company and are updated with each other in mind. But Chrome isn't the only choice; I often use Firefox for my Internet browsing and have had little or no issues with Google Drive doing so. My experience with Internet Explorer hasn't been as positive; they may play nice for a short time but then there is an update to one and everything goes wonky. Stick with Firefox or Chrome. 

~ Printing. Back a few years ago we had students here completing a report in Drive. When we went to print, the margins, the spacing, and the formatting was a disaster! Students ended up downloading to Word and then spending time reformatting their lengthy appears. What a waste of time! Now downloading to Word is still an option but clearly there have been improvements because now what is on the screen is what prints! Yay! What I have noticed is if you are in Firefox (and IE though we have stopped using that one for Drive, remember?) you will have to open your document as a pdf and then print (you are gently walked through this, no worries). If you are in Chrome, you can print directly to your printer.

~ Google's presentation option is best described is a simplified version of PowerPoint. There are limited choices of themes and the animation options are basic, but while students often grumble at the lack of bells and whistles, less is more in my opinion... more time spent on content during the creation and more focus on the speaker during presentations. Let them complain!

~ When you create a spreadsheet in Google Drive you can also graph the data, just like you would in Excel. A few years ago I was hesitant to recommend using Google over Excel because I found the process quirky. With the changes to both programs in the past few years, I now find them both excellent, and for students, I think Google's is a bit more straightforward.

Don't forget to contact your ITRT for assistance before, during, or after you try any of these suggestions! 
We want to help!

Google Drive's document options tomorrow!

SimpleBooklet

Make web flip booklets...

...for student projects, reports, presentations, and newsletters.

simplebooklet.com

Hola Amigos!

In middle/high school I spent five years studying German and in college I spent two years studying Spanish. How much of it do I remember after a couple of decades? Well, I can ask where the bathroom is if I am in Mexico and I vaguely remember that in German all the verbs pile up at the end of the sentences. That is about it.

I found learning another language challenging and as an introvert, I was always too nervous to try to pronounce foreign words in front of others. Those things did not work in my favor. Since my earlier education I have purchased several cd sets in hopes to once again master another language but sitting and listening to a cd isn't a great learning method for the easily distracted like myself.

So today, on my Twitter feed, I read about a link to this site: http://www.duolingo.com/. English speakers can choose to learn Spanish, French, German, Italian or Portuguese or native speakers of those languages can learn English. The game style of the website is fun, the interface clean, registration and participation is free, and for those who want to learn on the go, a Duolingo app is available for the iPad, iPhone, and Android devices. The practice activities I have participated in so far have included identifying which Spanish phrase goes with which picture, translating a Spanish phrase into English and vice-versa, and even recording my own voice and receiving computer feedback... I like this because I don't fear a computer wincing at my non-native accent. :o)  There is also a way to compete with friends if they are users, a discussion board for sharing of ideas and an immersion section with articles that users can work on translating.

This site would be a great addition to a foreign language curriculum (including instruction geared towards English-as-a-second-language students). And if you are fortunate enough to already be fluent in two languages and like to help others (don't all teachers?), there is a section of the site where users can help create new courses.

Enjoy!