Comments Now Available To All

When I set up this blog, I forgot to make it so that anybody on the www could comment. I've changed the settings now, so please do comment! If you haven't commented on a blog before, here's how you do it on this blog. At the end of the blog post there is a comments link which you need to click.


or it may look like this

Then you are taken to the comments window. Follow the image below as I go through the steps. Step 1: if you'd like to be notified of follow up comments--particularly useful if you've asked a question ;-), check the 'e-mail follow up comments to' and ensure that your correct e-mail address is there. Your address will not be posted with your comment. Step 2: Once you've typed in your comment, you need to choose an identity. If you do not have a Google/Blogger account, you'll probably choose 'Name/URL'. What you type in for your name really depends on how you want to be recognized on-line. I usually give my full name, a lot of people just give their first name, and still others use a 'handle'. Step 3: click on 'Publish Your Comment'. You're done!

Google Really Is Telepathic

At the VSS talk I mentioned that Google is always updating and making changes to their on-line applications. I suggested that all you had to do was wish for a change and it soon would appear.

Presentation Speaker Notes
When we were working on our presentation last week, on more than one occasion I remarked to Jodie that I wished that we could have a place to put notes about each of our slides to aid us in the presentation. I believe PowerPoint has this feature and I came across it in Zoho presentation software. Well, today I was using Google Docs and the 'New Features' tab was lit up so I thought I'd check it out--ta da! There are now speakers notes in the Presentation application in Google Docs.


Work Offline with Google Docs
Google had started to initiate a feature in Google Docs a few weeks ago whereby you can view and edit your documents offline--handy if you need to work on an important document and you have no connection. Again, we were hoping to be able to do that with our VSS presentation slides, in case the internet connection was shaky, but the option was not available on Wednesday--now it is. Cool.

All the New Features
You can check out the features I've mentioned above, plus others here. And remember, when you sign up for your Google account use your powers for good because it seems that, well, Google really is telepathic ;-)

Google Brainstorm

During the conference session the audience brain stormed ways that Google Docs could be used by teachers. Here's what they said:

Docs:

- writers' workshop--have lesson (F-T-F) posted and students can see, post their own

- collaborative writing / group projects

- staff agenda

- sharing lesson plans

- team teaching

- school newsletters

- hockey pools

- transferability of files

Google Docs in Plain English

We've embedded the Common Craft Video Google Docs in Plain English here. In YouTube you can choose to embed and not include related videos at the end. This is useful as sometimes those videos have undesirable content and you have no control over them. In YouTube next to the 'Embed Video' option click on 'Customize'. Then select 'Don't include related videos'. In the customize section you can also choose the colour of the video 'skin'.

Our Google Notebook for 'Get Your Google Glow On'.

If you click here you will go to our Notebook where we have posted all of our links from our VSS Spring conference talk with short notes about each one.

Blogged with the Flock Browser