Digital Learning Day!

As you may be aware, Digital Learning Day is a little less than a week away.  On February 1, educators all over the country will be holding conversations and sharing ideas for digital learning in our schools.  We’re doing so many great things, and we want to share it–with each other and the community!  

Collecting and sharing the wisdom, experience, and ideas of a group of people is called crowdsourcing.  It’s a new way of sharing for us and it’s a good thing.  Please take a few moments to share what you’re doing and be inspired by your colleagues.

Here’s how:

A Google Presentation has been shared with you, click here or check your Google docs home page to open it.

To access many new editing tools (and animations!) use the new presentation editor.  If you see this, you’re working in the old editor:

To switch, go to the gear icon in the uppermost right corner and select Documents Settings >> Editing tab >> Check the box for New Presentation Editor.

Open up the DLD presentation and add a slide or two.

Share how your students have used any sort of digital technology to learn or demonstrate their learning!  (some examples to get you thinking… Glogster, Prezi, VoiceThread, GoAnimate, GoogleDocs, Moodle, Twitter, todaysmeet, blogging, mobile apps, copyright-friendly image searches, multimedia production…)

 

Here are a few hints about how to edit the presentation:

Norski Ninjas: Week 6

Norski Ninjas: Week 6

Calendar:  If you like to see your daily calendar events in a list, the “agenda” is the tool for you!  Click it and you’ll see the day’s events, ready for printing.   Want to have that list on a daily basis?  You can have your daily agenda emailed to you every day.  Click Calendar Settings >> Notifications >> Check the box to receive a daily email with your agenda.

Email Etiquette:

• Be concise.  Say it in as few words as possible.  If the message is lengthy, let recipients know in the subject line.
• EOM:  add this to the end of your subject line if the message is so concise it can fit there.  Your recipients will know they don’t need to open the email because you’ve summed it up in the subject line.
• Subject line:  Make sure the subject accurately conveys the topic of your message.  Besides being proper etiquette, many people mark their email for later follow-up.  An accurate subject line helps them organize.
• Timely replies:  Try to respond to necessary email within 24 hours.  If you’re ‘emotionally compromised’ (we’ve all been there), wait until you’re level-headed and/or have a colleague give some feedback.
• Reply All:  Avoid using “Reply All” unless you’re certain everyone in the group needs to receive, open, and read your response.
• Proofread:  most browsers will automatically underline misspelled words.

Docs:  You may notice that more features are periodically added to docs, presentations, spreadsheets, forms and more.  The new presentation editor has some nice additions, including new themes, animations, transitions, shape linking, and drawing.

Don’t forget to send me an email or add a comment below to be included in this week’s prize drawing!  What tips have been useful for you?  

Norski Ninja: Week 5

Here’s this week’s Norski Ninja Tip which includes more ways to organize and customize.

Calendar:  You can add other calendars to yours, then toggle them from view whenever you like (like lifting a transparency off an overhead projector).

On the left side of your calendar, click the dropdown box next to Other Calendars and select, “Browse interesting calendars”  Here you can add holidays, sporting events, and a whole variety of interesting calendars from phases of the moon to days of the year.  Here’s the best new feature… adding deforestschools.org resources.  (That’s the computer lab and room calendars)  Just click “subscribe” for the ones you’re interested in and they’ll appear in your list of calendars.

Gmail:  Gmail has some features for organizing and sorting your email.

• Star:  Click the star next to an email to mark it for later.  On the left, you can click “Starred” to just see those important emails.
• Conversation View:  You can turn this on and off in Mail Settings.  “Off” means you get separate emails when folks reply, like Groupwise.  “On” means those replies are nested with the original email.
• Display Density:  With the new look, you can decide how dense you’d like your emails to display.  Click the gear icon and select Comfortable, Cozy, or Compact.  You can also decide how many emails to display on one page.
• Profile picture:  In Mail settings >> General, you’ll see a place to upload a profile picture.  Do so!  With professional accounts, it’s a good idea to choose a professional looking photo.

Docs:  By now, your Docs home page is probably filling up.  Here are a few tips for organizing your docs.

• Star:  Click the star next to a doc to mark it “Important”.  On the left, you can click “Starred” to just see those important docs.
• When you check the box next to a doc/s, you’ll see some options at the top.  You can share, organize, delete, rename, etc.  “Don’t show in Home” is like archiving—out of sight, but tucked away in “All Items”
• Here’s how to search and navigate your Docs list.
• And here’s another way to sort your Docs (by file size, by title, most recent, etc…)

Post a comment below, or send an email to Christine sharing what you’ve found helpful from the previous tips or what you’re enjoying about GoogleApps.  We’ll add you to the drawing for fabulous Google prizes!

Repurposing with Chromium OS

Friday, January 13th was a lucky day for students using our new/old lab of Dell Minis . . . they’ve been recycled and now run Chromium OS. This project is a great example of teaching staff identifying a need and LISD finding a tool that fit it. In the process, we found a way to make these original minis last a bit longer. Good techs and good teachers.

Norski Ninja: Week 4

It’s week four of your Norski Ninja challenge!  Here are a few ways to advance to blue, red, and purple belts in GoogleApps.

• Calendar tip:  In keeping with last week’s theme of organization, you can create a task list!  Here’s a description of how.  And here’s a quick video that shows you the Tasks feature.

• Mail tip:  You may have noticed a section in Gmail called “Chat.”  This is a great feature for communicating with someone in real time.  To give it a try, choose a colleague available for chat (with green dot) and start typing!  If you’d rather not be disturbed, or would like to let others know what you’re doing, you can set your status.  Under your name, click “Set status here” then add your custom message or choose from a list using the drop down arrow.

• Docs tip:  You’d like to share a document with others while keeping the original intact… Think about creating a handout that others can keep for themselves, edit, or share back with you… You can create a GoogleDocs template.  Your users can grab the template which creates its own copy in their Docs home page.

Please add a comment below to share how you’re using these tips and be entered into the drawing for fabulous Google prizes!

Norski Ninja: Week 3

This week marks a new year and a fresh start. Why not share a little with others and add color to your Gmail, calendar, and documents? These tips are all very quick and, if you have any resolutions regarding organization, can be very helpful!

Share & Color Code Your Calendar:

• You can share your calendar with colleagues or others and determine how much access they get.  This video has the simplest set of directions I’ve seen for sharing your calendar with others. While you’re there, you can make your calendar “public” but can also limit whether or not people see all of your appointment details or just “free/busy” on your calendar. I would recommend only sharing “free/busy” with the world and sharing “all event details” with individuals you add to your list.
• Color-coding your calendar makes it easier to find people or events.
  • First, you can color-code events. Maybe you’d like all your staff meetings to be purple. Maybe due dates are red. It’s up to you and here’s how to do it.
  • Second, you can color-code calendars shared with you. For any calendar on your list, click the arrow to the right of its name. You’ll see a list of colors–just choose the one you like.

Docs–Adding Color to Collections:

• Collections are like folders . . . you can add documents to a collection to keep them organized. You can also create a collection for long-term sharing. Say, that you know you want to share lots of files this semester with your team. Create a collection and share that with them. Now each file you add to that collection will be shared automatically.
• To add color to your collections, do (sort of) the same thing as for calendars. Click on the arrow to the right of your collection >> select Change Color and select the one you’d like.
• If you’d like step-by-step directions, here’s a good resource.

Add Labels and Color-code Your Email:

• Gmail lets you add labels to your messages–sort of like folders, but more flexible. Unlike a folder, you can add multiple labels to one email. For example, a tips email could be labeled with tips, Google, and Gmail.  The simplest way to create a label is to open a message and look for the label button above the message >> Click Create New.  (It looks like a luggage or gift tag.) You’ll be asked for the label name and whether or not you’d like it “nested” under another label. Once you’ve entered that, click Create.
• To add color to a label, you’ll do the same thing as you did with a calendar. Point your mouse over any label. You’ll see an arrow to the right. Click on that and add the color you’d like.
• Now that your label is created, you can add mail to that label when you read it. Or select lots of messages in your inbox and add the label to them all at once. Here’s more information about labels.

To be entered in this week’s drawing for Google stuff, add a comment to this blog posting telling us about how you use any of these tips. We just received a new store of prizes and there are some great ones!

End the Year, End Groupwise

Two important and happy notes concerning Groupwise:

• Yesterday another Groupwise knot was untied . . . there’s no longer any need to check Groupwise for Tech Request system emails. When a note is added to a request and shared with you, the email will now go to your deforestschools.org. Initially, this mail may be in your spam folder. (You can check your Gmail spam by going to “Spam” and selecting Deliver for the messages you’d like to keep. If you don’t see your Spam folder, look for “More” in your folder list–it’s usually at the bottom.)
• Next week, we’ll be taking all the mail going to deforest.k12.wi.us and rerouting it to deforestschools.org. That will mean any mail sent to deforest.k12.wi.us addresses will be showing up in your Gmail inbox.

We will have lots of other news in the new year. We’ll be sharing that via Gmail and here. Stop by and read awhile.

Google Giveaways

Check out our new prize stash. You can enter to win your choice of prizes by participating in the weekly Go Google! tip sharing.

Our new prize stash includes these items:

• Green Google shopping bag
• Green Google travel mug (Bill Porter won this!)
• Red Google travel mug (Cody Sorlie-Theis won this!)
• Portable mini-speaker
• Google gear bag
• Google bug light
• Google pens
• Google light-up superball (not pictured)

GoogleApps Ninja: Week 2

Week 2 of your Ninja Quest includes tips for Gmail, Google Calendar,
Google Docs, and a chance to win a prize!

Gmail:  Add a signature to your outgoing emails.  Click the gear icon to get to mail settings >> General >> scroll down and find ‘Signature.’  Type what you’d like and click “Save changes”  (see a few non-tips below)

Calendar:  Viewing others’ calendars:  Under “Other Calendars” try typing my name or your principal’s name in the box.  You’ll be able to see whether they are free or busy—handy for scheduling meetings!  Now, think of your calendar as an overhead projector and each shared calendar is an individual transparency.  By clicking on the name of the calendar on the left, you can add or remove that calendar from view.

Another Calendar tip:  By default, your calendar will send you email reminders 10 minutes before each event.  You can modify this by going to Calendar Settings >> Calendars >> Notifications.

Docs:  When you create a document, it’s unnamed.  Make sure to name it by clicking on “Untitled Document” in the upper left corner.

Another Docs tip:  When someone shares a document with you, it appears on your home screen.  Want to hide it?  Check the box next to those documents and click “actions” or “more” at the top and select “Remove from Home”  Your doc is still there, just packed away out of sight.  Need to find it?  Use keywords in the search bar at the top.

Etiquette Alert!

General:  You can create a contact group which works for email, calendar invitations, and sharing docs.  Here’s how.

Gmail:  Here’s a tongue-in-cheek look at how not to create a professional email signature.

Calendar:  Remember that when sharing or inviting an entire group (such as a school, YESstaff, DAHSstaff, etc.) that your invitation includes everyone who works in the building, including support staff, custodial staff, etc.  While it’s easy to type one large group, take a moment to consider whether you there is a subgroup you can hone in on.

Docs:  Sharing a Doc vs. sending a doc as an attachment… Consider whether the doc is something you want your collaborators to have in their Docs Home page.  If yes, share away!  If not, consider sending it as an attachment.  Same goes for sharing docs with an all-school list.

Prizes!  To be entered in our drawing next week, add a comment below about what you love about GoogleApps so far…

This week’s winner is Elisa Welch, who shared how collaborating on a document keeps you on the “same page” and saves time!

GoogleApps, Ninjas, and Prizes

Each week for the next 10 weeks, we’ll be sharing some tips for Gmail, Docs, and Calendar with staff. Our tips are based on the Norski NInja skills some of you may have seen. So, if you follow along for 10 weeks, you too can become a NInja.

• Gmail: Themes are a great way to make your mailbox your own. You can change colors and other features to make your mailbox look the way you’d like. Here’s how.
• Docs: Besides letting you create documents, Docs can be your flash drive in the sky. Need to use a file at home? Upload it. If you’d like your document to stay as Word, PowerPoint, or Excel, you can choose not to convert it to a GoogleDoc.  Each time you upload a file, GoogleDocs will ask whether or not you’d like to convert it. Here are more details about uploading.
• Calendar: One nice thing about calendar is that you can see who’s coming to your event. If you’ve created an event and invited attendees, an RSVP list builds as they respond. Here’s how to create an event and add people. You can even give people rights to modify the event or use the “Find a Time” feature . . . no more emails trying to find just the right time.

In addition to the tips, you can enter a drawing each week for some Google prizes. All you have to do is share how the skills have helped you. And how do you do that? Add a comment to the blog post. The first drawing will be next week for those who share this week. Besides entering the drawing, you can share with colleagues and gather ideas.