BP14-Part 3 & Final Risk Free Activity

Google Docs-Great tool for collaboration

Awesome learning experience this week. As I finish up this risk-free activity, I am amazed at how easy it is to create forms, spreadsheets, and drawings. In addition, you can simply insert images and photos easily from your computer or the Internet. Having this Web 2.0 tool to use, and training others how to use all of the features, will make it much easier to help trainers, teachers and students in any educational setting.

Using Forms for Research Data . . .

There are several features that I will be using for my Action Research project. The first will be spreadsheets with forms to compile my data. What a wonderful option this will be and the time it will save should be great. Just think- no more waiting for email replies or survey answers where I would have to manually enter and calculate all the data into usable formats- Google Forms can do that for me.

Hurray for anything that will make the research

process and data gathering quicker and easier. I use spreadsheets all the time to organize information and for preparing lesson materials. Can't wait to put together my research documents using Google Docs and the many tools available.

As I searched for tutorials and training materials to use when learning how to use all of the tools in the suite, I located several great examples at lynda.com and YouTube. The videos were all simple and provided easy instructions on how to use the various menus and actions available in Google Docs.

Drawings add visual interest . . .

One of the tools within this suite is the drawing tool. Using the various shapes and lines along with text to create simple drawings can add interest and supplemental images to presentations and other types of documents. The process is very easy; using the drawing tools, changing colors, adding text and resizing or groups and aligning various parts of a drawing can be done quickly without a lot of extra training to master the menu options.

Adding images from the Internet . . .

Another task that most computer users and designers do frequently is to locate images from their computer or Internet for use on documents and in presentations. The process can sometimes be tedious but Google Docs offers another method for taking care of this process that makes it very fast and easy. All you have to do is find the image on the Internet that you want to use such as a logo or photo, and then drag that image to the tab of your document where you want to insert the image. No more saving or copy and paste of the image before you can use it. The drag and drop procedure makes this task so much easier thus cutting out another stressful action that takes precious time away from more important tasks. If you want to see more, just view the training video on inserting images under Google Apps Essentials by clicking on the following link for lynda.com

Well loyal groupies . . . thanks again for following my progress this week on my blog. I found so much valuable material and great training videos to watch that will help me learn even more. I plan to use many of these wonderful collaboration tools in the Google suite throughout the remainder of my Full Sail program and for my Action Research. Sure will make my life less stressful and I hope it will do the same for you!

(Editorial note: all screenshots by Kathy Valunas from training videos at lynda.com, Google Docs, and YouTube.)

Until next time, LILLI Ghostraven (aka Kathy Valunas) signing off . . .

BP13-Part 2 Risk Free Activity

Exploring Google Docs

So here we are again; progress is slow but I am beginning to get a handle on how this tool works. I think once I figure it all out I will like what it has to offer. I hear so many teachers and the other students in the FSO program just loving this great tool so maybe I will eventually feel the same way. I do see a lot of benefit to this especially for the ability others will have as collaborators and editors.

The first day or so, I spent looking at templates and trying to edit a few for presentations but that got to be horrible. Nothing seemed to work and I knew I would have to spend some serious time working through tutorials and watching some training videos.

Today, I tried the quick budget spreadsheet template (screenshot shown above) and found that to be relatively easy to change for what I needed. I liked the fact that you can customize the columns and the template includes formulas for some data charts for comparison.

The screenshot example to the right, is the edited template that I am calling Planning Budget Worksheet. This edited version is a starting point for a student publication class that creates the school yearbook. Each year they have to try and determine what to do and how to set up a budget based on books sold, ads sold to help support the cost of publishing the book, and their expenses.

If they have a document where they can collaborate on a working budget and make changes based on actual sales and expenses, I believe this would be a tremendous help for those students.

Using this template has been a big jump for me in becoming more familiar with google docs. I am hoping to try something different after viewing some additional training videos and reading through some tutorials on lynda.com

Well thanks for hanging out with me today and reading about my progress. I promise to have more to share and even better results within the next few days. Keep watching and come back to my blog again to see what else I have discovered!

TTYL my loyal groupies!

Week 4-Risk FREE Learning Activity

Google Docs: Drawings and Presentations

WOW! What a great opportunity to spend time getting to know one of the Web 2.0 tools we have been exploring throughout this class. Looking at our options, and since we will be using more Google Docs (drawings and presentations) in our next course, I decided to spend some time getting better acquainted with the great features in this tool.

My first inclination is to explore how to use some different templates. Then I want to try to create a drawing and a simple presentation using one of the templates. Because I love to design my own backgrounds and templates that are customized to what I need, I will first try creating something using one of the available templates for making a drawing and for making a simple presentation. If I have time, I will try to design a template of my own to share.

As this life-long learner experiments with some of these great features, I will keep you posted as to my progress. Check back often this week to see how I am doing.

BP11-OMM-Zotero

Another One Minute Moment brought to you by LILLI Ghostraven your hostess with the mostest or as my fellow FSO classmates know me- Kathy Valunas. Today's commercial features Zotero- a wildly fun and easy add-on extension for Firefox to take some of the stress out of conducting research. Enjoy!

BP10-MyComments: Crystal Davis shares Platogo

What a great find that Crystal Davis shared on Flash gaming using Platogo. Check out my comments on her blog by clicking on this link.

BP9-MyComments: Pamela Hickman shares Moodle

Enjoyed reading about how Pam plans to use Moodle with her business classes. Click on this link to read my comments on her blog.

BP8-Web 2.0 Tools: Zotero

SocialText vs. Zotero

When looking for tools that our group could use for our team project, we found two different types of options that could be used for action research collaboration and sharing. One, Socialtext (http://www.socialtext.net/), is a type of wiki workspace and the other, Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/), is an add-on feature for use with Firefox that provides even more tools for use specifically when conducting research.

On this week’s Web 2.0 tool blog I want to talk about some of the great features that Zotero offers. I wish I had known about this a lot sooner and my hat goes off to fellow FSO student, Crystal Davis, for sharing this within our team. After spending some time exploring the wiki workspace, Socialtext, I decided that Zotero had more to offer for Action Research, is much easier to use, and is very intuitive when it comes to quickly discovering all of the available options as an add-on for Firefox when conducting research.

First of all, the add-on extension is FREE and simple to install. This extension gives the user tools to collect, manage, cite, and share resources and all of your research data, and is part of the Firefox browser. You can capture information from books and journals with a click of a button on your browser toolbar/dashboard. In addition, you can archive entire web pages into a library for storage and later retrieval, and you can store all types of files including PDFs, doc files, images, and links into an organized library.

Zotero’s intuitive organizational functions provide interfaces to saving media files into iTunes and photos into iPhoto. The drag and drop feature gives the user a simple method for adding items into organized collections and then tag for easier search techniques. Another plus is that you can type notes right alongside your items for descriptions and details to use when compiling your data and research entries.

Next, you can create a bibliography and drag/drop it into any type of program for use by others or the research compiler. This would include email for sharing between colleagues, blog posts, or word processing programs to use with plug-ins for Word and OpenOffice for organizing references on the fly. Then you can cite the entries using any of the preloaded citation styles including APA, MLA, and thousands of additional journal-specific styles.

Another great feature of Zotero is that you can work locally on one computer and sync globally between multiple computers. The syncing capability also allows you to access your collections from any web browser, and you can use mobile devices like the iPhone to view the collections. The sync process can also help make your collection public so you can share research with the world.

Finally, you can share group libraries with other Zotero users, publish dynamic bibliographies to organizations, classes, or research groups. Needless to say, I believe this will be an awesome tools to use for my Action Research project and make my life a whole lot less stressful.

Hope you found this review helpful and will be game for trying this wonderful add-on extension. Never hurts to have something that will make life easier with all the work we have to do for our research.

BP7-Hitting Brick Walls?

Here is my 60 second commercial enticing my viewer audience to try some of the kool Web 2.0 tools was a fun project to complete; reminds of my clowning days when I could be funny and not worry about who I was. This PSA, entitled "Hitting Brick Walls?", for our ETC class was a great diversion to the typical class assignment . . . ENJOY!

BP6-MyComments: Dana Smalley shares Museum Box

Wow- check out this awesome Web 2.0 tool that Dana Smalley shared on her blog. It's called Museum Box and is like a "one-stop" shop for organizing all types of files that others can share and look at. Can't wait to check it our more; hope to use this for sharing and collaboration with my critical friends in my AR project.

Want to know more? Just click on the link to see my comments and read Dana's comments about this fantastic tool.

Click on this link to go to the Web 2.0 tool and find out more. http://museumbox.e2bn.org/

BP5-MyComments: Kiytivity shares Smilebox

Follow this link to my comments about the Web 2.0 tool Smilebox shared in Blogger by Kiylise Crutchfield. Great tool for online student portfolios!

BP4-Web 2.0 Tool: iDriveSync

iDrive Sync

Ever get to work or school and try to put on a demonstration that worked fine over the weekend, but for whatever reason, today... you can't get the files to show up or worse yet- find them on the server or in the email you sent yourself?

Well, fear no more! Those nightmare scenarios don't have to happen anymore if you take advantage of iDriveSync. This great Web 2.0 tool can securely sync online and share files across multiple computers. You can get a free 2GB account or pay for unlimited storage for just $4.95 per month. This Web 2.0 tool offers many different tutorial videos to help teachers and students learn how to use all of the functions and features. In addition, this tool is an excellent option for providing availability of files for sharing without having to email files back and forth to others. Size limitations are no longer an issue when sending large files when you use iDriveSync. Though this tool is specifically for PCs using Windows operating systems, it still is very useful in both a lab and school setting or for students at home since the majority of people and schools still are using Windows platforms. In fact designers also should be checking their work on a Windows machine in addition to a MAC to make sure all images and Web-based layouts are viewed appropriately by the intended audience.

According to the sync facts and frequently asked questions on the iDriveSync website, “your files and folders are transferred using 128-bit SSL (Secure Socket Layer) technology. Data stored at our world-class data centers is encrypted using the encryption key (known only to you in case you set the private encryption key). IDriveSync uses 448-blowfish encryption on storage (same as that used by banks and the military).”

Any type of file can be shared with anyone and all you need to complete the process is accurate and working email addresses and verification that all computers you want to be able to receive the files have working Internet connections. This would be an excellent tool for teachers who want to share files with their students both at school and at home or between colleagues who need access to files and other types of media files for collaboration.

To see more for yourself, check it out at the link below.

http://www.idrivesync.com/index.html

BP2-iGoogleScreenShots

Here are my iGoogle pages with 4 different images to represent each of my tabs: home, FSO, ARP, and ETC. Will be adding more goodies as this course continues.

HOME

FSO

ARP

ETC

BP3-embedit.in: Any File in your Website

hi fellow educators... u will absolutely love this web 2.0 tool especially if you are like me and many others who need to embed kool stuff for your students to use so they can take advantage of all the awesome tools to make education more fun and meaningful!

in my district... we are so limited as to what students AND teachers can do without restrictions... this is one tool that can make your life so much easier and take the control back when it comes to providing awesome tools for you and your students... can begin to tell you how many times I wanted to demonstrate something or show a tutorial during class only to find out that i could not do it because technology guru would not allow us to use quicktime or flash player or a myriad of other plug-ins necessary to provide a great learning experience!

EDITORIAL NOTE: in case you are about to question my lack of capitalization and all the elipses in my blog posts... well there is a reason for this... this method of posting, while not always grammatically acceptable or correct, it engages my students and grabs their attention because this is the way most of them text; I still can't bring myself to use all of the text-ease language, but I am working on that as well because I don't want anything to hamper grabbing and holding their attention. I do however, stress the use of strong sentence structure, grammar, and spelling when they write journals and formal papers!

WEB 2.0 TOOL REVIEW BY EDUCATORS:

According to all of the reviews from other educators from the embedit.in site, you can upload and embed all kinds of different types of files (PDFs, Word docs), images and websites, all kinds of media files, and provide permissions and privileges for printing, sharing, and viewing.

Teachers who posted reviews also stated that the tool is very easy to use, rarely caused problems, and that there was lots of help and tutorials to use to make learning how to use the tools simple to master in a very short time.

I can't wait to try this for preparing screencasts and "groovy movies" for my students for the next school year. If YOU would like to know more about this tool, check out the link that follows: http://www.go2web20.net/app/?a=embedit.in

When life hands you lemons... don't forget to try and make lemonade!

well loyal followers... it is already Friday, July 2, i have an assignment due in about 80 minutes and keep loosing connectivity... thanks wonderful hurricane alex for all that glorious moisture... lol... and they tell me this is my welcome to houston... haha!

ok, ok... i get it and am lovin' every minute of this new adventure... a nightmare moving experience... you know... murphy's law??? everything that could go wrong has gone wrong... two-hundred-fold... but we are finally moved in... lots of boxes to unpack and lots of room to put things away into without being cramped... an extremely tempting pool that keeps calling my name (good thing it has been storming all day with torrential rains or i would be out there swimming and getting nothing else done)... internet that works 1 minute and disconnects the next... fun assignments that if my brain can stay focused long enough without shutting down, might get done on time... oh yes... and did i mention... old neighbors from our old neighborhood keep stealing everything from our house that we left behind just because they thought we left it up for grabs to the first person "brave" enough to take it... ahhhhhh- isn't life grand? well... back to homework and thanks for being my followers...

until next time... ttyl gators :-)