Learning the Ropes on Google Calendar

These are some resources we will share in our session today.

UMD has recently started a subscription with Lynda.com (go to lynda.umn.edu and log in with your x.500 and password). There are some amazing resources there on just about everything technical.

 Once you log in, search "Google Calendar" and you will find a fabulously organized tutorial on different aspects of the Calendar called "Google Calendar Essential Training with Jess Stratton."  You can select the specific issue you want more information on. Everything is included from how to get started using the Calendar to creating and responding to invitation, to sharing calendars, to going mobile.

Also, Helen made this fun video demonstrating how to make an appointment with a colleague on Google Calendar:
http://youtu.be/-yG0cIx4M4w

As with all of our just-in-time topics, remember to approach the Calendar - whether or not to use it, how you want to use it, with whom you'd like to share, etc. - with utmost intentionality.  It's your tool; use it to bring ease into your daily work life, not to create further stress.

Organizing Google Drive

Organizing Google Drive

Just-in-Time Session February 10, 2015

Here are the basics for creating, working with, and sharing a Google Document: "Overview of Google Drive Basics" by Helen Mongan-Rallis.

Once you have created and worked with some Google Docs (as well as receiving them from students and colleagues), you may find that your Google Drive is looking a little confusing and/or messy.  Here is a helpful tutorial video on three different ways to organize files on Google Drive.

This video (“Organizing Your Google Drive”) begins with a different approach - searching first, rather than necessarily using folders.

For general questions, here is Google's own help page for Google Drive.

Lastly, we will demonstrate some examples of using Google Docs and the Drive for collaboration, particularly in the classroom.

Again, we encourage you to bring intentionality to your use of technology. What do you want to get from your use of the Google Drive? Let's find the easiest and fastest way to accomplish this.

Flipped Classroom Community of Practice Series started this week

In response to the interest across campus in using a flipped classroom approach to teaching, we put out calls for faculty who would like to participate in a flipped classroom community of practice (FCCoP) cohort series of sessions. Within a few days of sending out the call our cohort was fully enrolled (27 members) with a waiting list! This week was our first of 6 sessions.  Participants introduced themselves, shared any experiences they have had to date in using a flipped classroom approach, and suggested topics they would like to address in future sessions.

We have created a closed Moodle site to serve as a learning space where our FCCoP group can ask questions of each other, share work in progress, and access resources. To accompany the site we also created a shared Flipped Classroom Google Doc where the group can post resources. Unlike the closed Moodle site, this Google document is open to anyone at UMD to access, both to learn about and to contribute resources on flipped classrooms. So please check it out and share resources that you have found helpful!

Automatically archiving emails once you have replied to them

At our Just-in-time session last week there was a question about how to automatically archive an email once you have replied to it. Here are the steps to show you how to do this:

1. Go to your gmail settings (you get there by selecting "settings" from the cog wheel that appears on the right hand side of your gmail inbox):
   
2. Under the "general" tab in your gmail settings, scroll down to the section on "Send and Archive." Select the option to "Show Send and Archive button in reply."
   
   
3. When you reply to an email, the blue "Send +" button will be at the bottom of the reply text box. Once you have typed your response, instead of clicking the "send" button, you can choose the "Send+" and the email to which you replied will automatically be archived in your gmail archive. This removes it from your inbox, but keeps it (in your archive) so that you can access it later should you need to refer to it. You can find it by searching for it by keyword in the email, subject line or by the email address of the sender.
   (Note: if you don't want to archive the message, then just click on "Send" rather than "Send+")
   
   

[Helen posted this blog post on her personal Tech Tips for Teachers blog, but she re-posted it here as this addresses a specific question raised in our Just-in-Time session]