Category: Google Docs

Calendars

Today I sent out the email that you needed to redo your calendars… I was feeling bad that people had to do all this extra work, but it is an inevitable part of using technology. Nothing ever works perfectly the first time. Actually, that applies to just about anything in life, right? Then why do we seem to get more frustrated with technology? I think it’s because when technology works, it’s pretty incredible, so we expect it to always be that incredible. The disappointment is thus greater when it doesn’t work.

But while we are on the subject, I thought I would share some other things about calendars that you might find useful:

1. Calendars on your phone.

Do you have a smartphone? Does it sync with your school or personal calendars? This is probably the #2 thing that I use my iPhone for (after texting). Recommendation for iPhone users:

  • Built in Calendar app – go to settings to add an account. If you are using your go.oes.edu account, select “Gmail”, and then type in your email as name@go.oes.edu.

or

  • Use CalenGoo ($6.99 – the most expensive app I own) – it actually looks like Google calendars and works great. It will add all your calendars (the Calendar app won’t) and will sync with iCal. I like it WAY better than Calendar.
2. Set reminders.
  • This is where you can actually make the technology smarter than you because it remembers to do everything on time. When you make a new event, edit details, add a reminder. It can send you an email or pop up on your screen (or on your iPhone) the week, day, hour, minute before your event.
3. Agenda view
  • Instead of viewing by week, you can look at the days in a list. I don’t use this much, but what do you think?
4. Add flair to your events. (This is my personal favorite)

  • Up by settings, click the gear wheel and select labs.
  • Enable “Event Flair” and Save.
  • Select your event and add flair!

 

 

 

 

 

Google Docs: Series

With this post I’ll begin a series on the main apps in Google Docs:

  • docs homepage,
  • documents,
  • spreadsheets,
  • forms, and
  • presentations.

Hopefully this will help you integrate these amazing tools into your classroom in a way that works for you. As always, I love to hear what you (and your students) have discovered, so if you have additions to what I’ve written or other uses/shortcuts/tips, please add comments below!

In this first post, I thought I’d put some quick tips that you may or may not know in navigating the google app world:

1. Logging in. Do you always type in go.oes.edu? Yes, this will get you there, but you can also make an iGoogle page where you have your docs list, calendar, and anything else you’d like. You can customize your gadgets, so that when you open your browser, it’s one click to your calendar or one click to your most recent docs. You can also bookmark the docs homepage, but you probably want to organize your bookmarks using the bookmark manager.

2. New Google Navigation. Did you notice that it is black now?  Me too. Other than that it doesn’t seem very different. Click on the “more” tab and you can find groups, which might be useful, but if you go to “even more” there is a HUGE list. Check out:

    • iGoogle (hint hint)
    • Talk
    • Translate
    • Reader (I use this everyday)
    • Labs (seriously cool stuff like undo sent emails, flair for calendar events, dim events)

3. Zoom. Does all the text in your browser look really small?  Or everything is really big?

    • Zoom in: Command +
    • Zoom out: Command –
Hopefully this series will help you integrate these amazing tools into your classroom in a way that works for you.
As always, I love to hear what you (and your students) have discovered, so if you have additions to what I’ve written or other uses/shortcuts/tips, please add comments below!