Google Sites Resources

At the last Google Summit I also attended a workshop by Kyle.  His resource can be found here:
https://sites.google.com/site/pacehandouts/google-sites.

This includes information on how to create a site as well as examples.

He also mentioned that you can have a template site created that other teachers can use.  He also puts a disclaimer in the footer of each site.

I am copying the links found at https://sites.google.com/site/pacehandouts/google-sites
below:

Big list of teacher examples!

Getting Started with Google Sites

Student ePortfolio examples

Model student portfolio example

Google Sites Guide for Teachers

More on Getting Started with Google Sites

Googlios - ePortfolios with Google Sites

Great Google Sites Resource from Liberty Public Schools

CoolText

ColorZilla

Canva

Taking minutes using Google Docs and Approval Workflows (Autocrat & FormMule)

This was based on a session by Henry Thiele at the Great Plains Google Summit.  His information was found here: https://goo.gl/rGGFBn and titled "Google Apps for School Admins". Here are the takeaways:

Minutes from Meetings: You should run meeting for an entire year from a single google doc. This document would contain a table of contents at the top that lists the dates of the meetings.
The team is now managing agenda. You aren't. Prep agenda. Email collaborators and have them update it. Send a week ahead. Make sure to send copy to yourself. Can grab text out of table of contents and email it out to the group. That includes the links.

Example:

July 1

Last meeting tasks (put table) put in heading two

Old Business

New Business

Tasks

[Return to Top] link at the end of each meeting.

FERPA concern? No -  See http://deunters.blogspot.com/2016/07/killing-fud-and-dispelling-myths-around_28.html for more details.

Emails: You be only one paragraph with list of links to information. Need to think about this since my emails are usually pretty long! Good idea for newsletters that go out.  This way if something changes, you just change the information in the link.  Add new information at the top.

Building Approval Workflows taken from https://goo.gl/mjGuA1  This was example of a teacher who wanted to put in Absence Request using a form, it would automatically get sent to the supervisor, with prefilled field, and the supervisor could approve or reject.

Steps and Resources

Resources and examples will be added during the demonstration

Step 1:

Create your Google Form for requests and associated spreadsheet (first name, last name, email address, supervisor email, date requested off) Absence Request Form

Step 2:

Create your approval form and associated spreadsheet

Step 3:

Get pre-populated URL from Approval Form

Step 4:

Use Autocrat (Documents) or FormMule (email) to send out pre-populated approval form link

Step 5:

Use Autocrat (Documents) or FormMule (email) to send out confirmation of approval

More about the two add-ons:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOOb7YxVNKI

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Imd6MxTqRAd_Ac2CNJSCRLamhGe888TRWFd22vj-8hQ/edit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnLy9N2MIMY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KhxmvoBUC68

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VMrlC3T2-uQ

Google Photos upload taking up all bandwidth

Does your internet stop when you start uploading Google Photos? When I googled the problem, all they said was there was nothing to do about it.  I googled some more and realized that I could go to the router and change the Bandwidth settings.  The router number is usually accessed through http://192.168.1.1. This is for a Netgear router.  The username is usually admin, with a blank password or the password of "password".  Go to the advanced tab, and find the QoS setup.  Adjust the Bandwidth (uplink bandwidth maximum).  I read that they suggested 75% of the typical upload speed.  I have an upload of 1GB, so set my uplink bandwidth to 750 Kbps.  Worked perfectly.  Hope this can help someone!

"Killing the FUD and Dispelling the Myths around GAFE"

http://technocation.blogspot.com

The first thing that administrators want to know is "how safe is the information out on the cloud" and
then they tell you "you can't put anything FERPA related out there."

I attended Henry Thiele's presentation a couple years ago on dispelling those myths.  I thought I would post a couple links here for future reference:
http://www.gafeadmin.com/blog/killingthefudanddispellingthemythsaroundgafe
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1CmyVh5N2agPXs20zGnXu509kr6ycL8bvzW5TZ0Vcbng/htmlpresent?hl=en

According to him, you can put anything on the Google docs, and it is safer than having it on our local servers.

I also talked with someone from the Lincoln Public Schools with the same view, and they shared this link:  http://home.lps.org/training/2012/08/22/student-data-privacy-in-google-apps/

Google's Reply:
http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2015/12/the-facts-about-student-data-privacy-in.html

20 Time Project (Google Summit)

Attended the keynote for Great Plains Google Summit.

Takeaways from the keynote speaker, Kevin Brookhouser, author of "The 20time Project":
www.20time.org. We want students to solve those wicked problems, and think outside of the box. One game he mentioned that helps students do this is "Limbo" - a game where boy crosses river and has to think out of box.  He talked about having student brainstorm about bad ideas http://www.20time.org/the-bad-idea-factory/

He talked about Daniel Pink's book "Drive"
http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation

And the three ways to motivate are:

• Autonomy - urge to direct our own lives
• Mastery - desire to get better aand better at something that matters
• Purpose - the yearning to do what we do in the service in something larger than ourselves

Play is learning

Has students come up with what they are going to do.  Has them create a proposal - audience, needs, deliverables, product, reality check, conclusion.  Has them blog each week of what they are doing, where they are going.

A couple other good books and Youtubes: Stop Stealing Dreams: Seth Godin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXpbONjV1Jc

• What is school for? 
• Go do something interesting!

Adam Grant's book - Originals

Google Chrome - Tips and Tricks (Google Summit)

This was based on Friday's Sessions at that I attended at the Great Plains Google Summit.

Chad Kafka was a presenter of a session Achievement Unlocked: Chrome Productivity. There were several takeaways:

1. You can publish a Google Doc and it looks like a website when you share it.  The link above was done that way.
2. The best way to use two separate Google accounts is to sign into Chrome as two separate persons.  Everything you do once you are signed into a Google Chrome account is saved in that account.  This way your personal Gmail account and anything related to your personal use are kept separate.
3. Signed in other places? Check by clicking on "Details" at the bottom of your Gmail page.
4. You can pin tabs, but trying to figure out if I should do that or have bookmarks.  I guess you would pin tabs for tabs that you use all of the time?  Will have to think about that.
5. One thing I haven't used much is Bookmarks, and really saw today how they could be useful. You can even just have the icon as one of your bookmarks by right clicking and deleted the name of the bookmark.  I also set up a Union College folder for all of my frequently used Union College links. He used folders to keep a list of frequently used Google Files. Learn more about the Bookmark Manager.  **Students could create folders for keeping track of all of their work for a certain class**
6. You can easily create a Bookmark by clicking on the lock next to the URL and dragging it to the Bookmark bar or folder. 
7. The college could create a Managed Bookmarks to have a list of websites that the college would want to have accessible, such as HR, maybe our intranet sites, etc.
8. Several extensions were mentioned.  I have added them to my Must Have Apps and Websites.
9. He also shared a list of extensions that they allow at their school.
10. There were several things I knew about, but would be good to tell people who are new to using Chrome, such as incognito windows, pulling a tab away, copying bookmarks to another user, etc.  

I then went to Chad's second session Adding On with Add-ons. I am going to add them to my list of Must Have Apps and Websites.  Some of the ones I'm sure I will use are as follows:

1. FormMule - takes data collected by a form or sheet and sets up a mail merge.  When a form gets filled out, it automatically emails someone.
2. EasyBib - easy way for students to create bibliographies in Google docs.
3. g(Math) - to enter graphs or complex math in Google docs or sheets.
4. Choice Eliminator - gives a list of options, and after a certain number of people have chosen an option, that option goes away. Ideas include times for parent-teacher conferences or the donation of shared classroom school supplies. 
5. docAppender -  Use a Google Form to select which Doc(s) to append from a list, multiple-choice, or checkbox Form question -- pre-populated with Doc titles from a folder in Drive.
6. CheckItOut would be nice to use if we have items for teachers to check in and out.
7. Zapier is a way that a form can be used to create a calendar invite.  Need to look into this one!

Yesterday was a session on using Google Forms to created an approval process.  I think that adding docAppender to this would make a good way if we had 10 people to approve something.  Also, the bookstore could use the FormMule to email them after a form has been filled out.

Ctrl-K to open up the hyperlink editor.

Grammarly app - super grammar check for anything you do online.