Document Camera Use

Posted on May 19, 2012 by admin

Recently I have gotten an iPevo document camera. What I really like about it is that it is a nice little document camera that is inexpensive ($69) and highly portable, fits in my purse.

I found that if I plug in the camera via USB I am able to use the iPevo as my webcam instead of the built in iSight camera.  This gave me more flexibility to get pictures of project elements from a birds eye view angle.  I am also able to detach the camera and reach over to take pictures of items from any angle I want.

In Google Docs I can go to the Insert menu and choose to insert by snapshot.
Right click on the video displayed and choose settings. From the Adobe Flash Player settings click on the last tab with the round icon of a webcam.  Choose your document camera from the drop down list instead of the built in webcam.
Note: You may have to restart your browser if your document camera was not plugged in before you opened the browser.

This same trick works with YouTube.

Go to http://YouTube.com and sign in with your Google Account.
Click on Upload at the top of the page

While the main option is to upload from your computer, there is another option to upload from webcam.

There is a drop down list in the upper left of the video to switch from iSight camera to the document camera.  In my case I chose the iPevo document camera.

The advantage to recording to YouTube directly from webcam (or document camera) is to quickly get information on the internet that can benefit students.  Use the webcam to create a talking head video where you are giving directions, concepts, and other information you want to share with students.  Use the document camera to show working out problems on paper.  Questions students frequently have can be loaded to YouTube, and embedded into your website, creating a resource for students.

 

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Google Insert Image by Snapshot

Posted on May 19, 2012 by admin

A new feature of Google Docs I’ve been utilizing this week is the ability to insert an image by snapshot.   When editing a text document under the insert menu, insert image.  Instead of choosing to upload an image on your computer you can choose the next option to “Take a snapshot.”  This will engage your webcam and take a picture to insert into the document.

At first I was wondering why I would want to do that, but I am at a week long training this week where we are building projects.  My team has a collaborative Google Doc to document our thoughts and progress through the project.  As we are building the projects we have been using the isight camera on the computer to take pictures of the project building.

It occurred to me that this would be a great tool for students to use when completing a project. Encourage students to keep a document where they record all of their thoughts, what they are doing, successes, failures, reflections, etc…  As a teacher I will be able to see how they completed their project and not just try to decode it through the end product.  Students will be able to look back over their work and reflect on their learning.  The pictures greatly enhance the journaling.

 Link to our project notes this week

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Try student presentations like this

Posted on May 7, 2012 by admin


I had lunch today with someone from the local city college and we were thinking of ways that college professors might be more productive with Google. Here is one of our ideas:

Create Google Presentation templates (like PowerPoint) and allow students to create their presentations on the teachers starters. This allows the teacher to already have access and to give students feedback and direction before they give their presentation. It also allows for the elimination of flash drives and challenges to getting the presentation started.

  • Try creating a Google Site for the presentations and have the templates already embedded in the site.  Come presentation time the professor can pull up the site and be ready to present without fuss.
  • Embedded presentations can be created before the students have edited, allowing for the professor to set it all up at once time and not worry about it again until presentations. As students edit, the embedded slide shows will be automatically updated.
  • Can make the presentations able to edit by anyone with a link or require a sign in.  If assigning specific students collect their emails via a Google Form and just copy and paste email addresses into the share options.
  • Since all students have access to the site of student presentations, classmates will be able to view and learn from presentations even after the presentations are given.

 

Steps

  1. If you do not already have a gmail account, create one.  Suggestion to create one just for teaching.
  2. Go to http://docs.google.com
  3. Click Create->Presentation or next to the create button is an upload icon.  Upload a PowerPoint and make sure the convert button is selected.
  4. Click on the blue share button in the upper right hand corner.
  5. Make the Presentation publicly viewable (suggested) or viewable by anyone with the link by clicking on the word CHANGE next to the first option of the presentation being private.  Note the drop down list to allow anyone with the link to edit, if email addresses of editors are not available choose this option.
    Hit Save.
  6. At the bottom add the email addresses of anyone who is allowed to edit.
  7. If using a Google Site, when in editing mode simply go to the insert menu and insert Presentations.
  8. If using another site will need to publish the presentations and get the embed code.  Under the File menu is an option to publish.  Once published the embed code is provided.  Copy and paste into the source code of website.

Click here for a sample Google Site with pre-embedded student projects.

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Cookies and Marshmallow Fondant

Posted on May 2, 2012 by admin

Okay this is not edtech, but I seem to talk about it a lot. In my former life I made wedding cakes and would make my fondant out of marshmallows.  I get my recipe’s off of www.cakecentral.com

To make Marshmallow Fondant (MMF)
In a glass bowl I put a 16 ounce bag of mini marshmallows and 2 tbsp of water.
Microwave 40 seconds
Stir
Microwave 40 seconds
Stir
Microwave 40 seconds (Note, it matters! Do this in 3 40 second installments)
add food coloring now if you want it all one color
Add 2 pound bag of powdered sugar
Stir with a metal spoon scraping the sides and bottom.
Stir as much as you can and then crisco up your hands and kneed the glob.
Note: depending on the weather you may end up with a lot of powdered sugar at the bottom or have to add more powdered sugar.  Do not force it all in or your fondant will be dried out.
Lightly corn starch a surface and continue to kneed the fondant until it is smooth and not sticky.  If there are chunks of sugar in your fondant put fondant in a plastic ziplock overnight and that usually gets rid of most of it.  Also just a little water and a paintbrush dissolves them right up.

Here is the link to the no fail sugar cookies recipe.

If making sugar cookies, cut your cookies and MMF with the same cookie cutter.  Typically I would do all my MMF cut outs the day before.  Be quick, the second the cookies come out of the oven slap the MMF cut outs on top of the cookies. They are perfectly frosted and taste AMAZING!

 

 

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Create a Document from an Email

Posted on April 26, 2012 by admin

How many times have you gotten an email that you will want to keep a record of, to create a project out of, or want better collaboration communication with?  Usually I copy and paste the email into a Google doc, but gmail will actually do this for you!

When you have your email open and you are reading an email from someone, notice the MORE button at the top of the page.  There you will find an option to “Create a document.”

Do not forget to click on the SHARE button in the upper right hand corner of your new document that you just created.  

Probably you want to share this with the person or group of people who were originally on the email.  This allows for comments to be inserted and more information added without a long email chain back and forth.

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Whipping out QR Codes for conference evaluation

Posted on March 23, 2012 by admin

CVCUE Conference

I am in charge of the CVCUE Spring 2012 conference committee. So many things to manage. In the past when we did evaluations we had participants fill out a form on paper (I know, you’re thinking what is this “paper” that you speak of). This required someone to manually type up the evaluations (students I had in detention worked nicely for this). The problem with this is many fold. It takes time to type up evals, some handwriting is illegible and for data purposes it can be tricky to compile all the information about each session when they are filled out differently.

Trick #1 Use a Google Form for Conference Evaluations.  Let the participants do their own typing.

Trick #2 Use QR codes to link to the session evaluations. I like to use http://goo.gl to create a short URL and a QR code at the same time.

Trick #3 Use &entry_5=session name appended to the end of the evaluation URL to pre fill in the session number, session title and presenter name.

Trick #5 Use Google Chrome. I like the chrome store add on called shorten me.

Trick #6 I use a Google spreadsheet to organize the sessions provided.  I have a column for session number, a column for session name, a column for speaker first name and a column for speaker last name.
I then make a column for session URL and write the formula =”
and then paste the form URL
=”https://docs.google.com/a/cvcue.org/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGdHUGEwNXMySDFxSDlGRXdUZ3JRMmc6MA
Then I want to append to the end the pre filled in information so ultimately it would look like this
https://docs.google.com/a/cvcue.org/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGdHUGEwNXMySDFxSDlGRXdUZ3JRMmc6MA&entry_6=2&entry_7=Session Title&entry_8=Mr+Person

But my formula looks like this
=”https://docs.google.com/a/cvcue.org/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGdHUGEwNXMySDFxSDlGRXdUZ3JRMmc6MA&entry_6=”&A13&”&entry_7=”&C13&”&entry_8=”&I13&”+”&J13
Where A13 is the session number
C13 is the session title
i13 is the presenter first name
j13 is the presenter last name.

I then drag down the formula and have a customized URL for EACH session.

Trick #7 I open a new window in Google Chrome and copy and paste the custom URL into the toolbar (I have the spreadsheet and new window side by side). I can then use my Google Chrome extension and the short URL is automatically copied to the clipboard. Copy this into a column in your spreadsheet.

Trick #8 I then go back to the chrome extention and right click on the QR code and copy the image URL.  I paste that into a different column in the spreadsheet.

Trick #9 In another column on the spreadsheet I type the formula =Image(N13,1)
where N13 in this case is where you would find the URL of the QR code.
This automatically creates the QR code in the spreadsheet.

Now I have for each session a short URL and a QR code with minimal effort.

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Google Makes Me Talk to Myself

Posted on March 21, 2012 by admin

I am doing some academic writing on a Google doc and realized that I was making a significant amount of comments within the document.  (Insert->Comment). The comments were pondering how I might develop that thought, or move the writing to another section, or refer back to an author. Who am I saying these comments to? Well, myself of course. Then I realized… I am talking to myself!!!  I am so in the habit of collaborating that I find that even when I am working with myself I need to collaborate with myself and I make myself notes and then build off those notes. Crazy to brainstorm with yourself… probably, but it does work.

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Table of Contents for your Google Collections

Posted on March 21, 2012 by admin


If you are interested in knowing how to create a table of contents for your Google docs here is a tutorial file I made: goo.gl/k4MJ3

The table of contents is a great way to reference your key parts of a document, but what about a folder (called collection) for your Google Docs?

I create a collection that I share with others to collaborate, but how do I organize those documents within the collection?

One solution is to create a document and name it “Collection Directory” or something like that.  In the Google document you would list all of the files that are in the collection along with a description.

Open each document in the collection and get the document URL. Go back to the Collection Directory, highlight the title of the document, click the link icon and link to that document.

This way when a collaborator goes to look at the collection they have a document that will help them know what order they should view the documents in as well as a description of each.

From now on I will create a document directory in each collection that has more than say 3 items. I will then open the document directory each time I go to a collection (folder) and use the descriptions and order of importance listed to help me be a better consumer of my own files.


Click on image to view full size.

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Google Voice for Deaf Students

Posted on March 20, 2012 by admin

I was doing some brainstorming with some teachers of deaf students. I was having my college students use Google Voice as a quick and dirty podcasting method (I’ll save that for another blog).  Obviously this will not work for deaf students, it is an auditory tool.

But can Google Voice be a tool for teaching deaf students? We think so, here are some ideas:

  • Do not give out your phone number, give parents your Google Voice number. The ability to create groups and have calls go straight to voicemail or to easily set do not disturb makes it easier to separate your personal and teaching life. (okay that tip is for all teachers).
  • Call and leave yourself voicemails, Google Voice transcribes your voicemail. You can embed the audio file but also copy and paste the transcribed text so if students are hard of hearing they can benefit from your podcast as well.
  • Encourage deaf students to sign up for Google Voice (with parent permission of course). Then you can leave them voicemail feedback and they will get the transcription of what you said.
  • Why not let students use their cell phones in class, at the very least you’ll be the coolest teacher on campus. Allow deaf students to text to your Google Voice number to ask questions. You can reply via text or email to help facilitate communication.
  • If you have students working all over the room and their back is to you it might be challenging to get the attention of a deaf student. You can text from your Google Voice account to the student to help get them information.
  • Students can text the teacher questions. If it is a challenge to verbally articulate the question, using Google Voice to text might be the answer.
  • Google Voice does not require a phone so texting can work through the computer.
    While you could just use email if you’re using a computer, a child can use computer and the text goes to teacher who may not be at their  computer. Able to instantly ask and answer questions.
  • I am sure there are more ideas how Google Voice can benefit deaf students, post a comment and share your ideas.
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Jump to a slide in Google Presentation

Posted on March 18, 2012 by admin

A funny thing happened on the way to the….  Actually, the funny thing that happened was I was trying to embed a Google Presentation into a Google Site that was not on the same account.

I had the presentation open in Google Chrome.
I had the Google Site open in Firefox.

I copied the URL of the presentation in Google Chrome.
In the Google Site I went to the insert menu and I wanted to insert a presentation.
Instead of choosing a presentation from the list I pasted the URL of the presentation at the bottom of the insert screen.

I noticed the url had #slide=id.p9 at the end of it.

When I hit save it had the presentation embedded but it was showing  the 4th slide in the presentation. (If you rearrange the slides the numbering gets mixed up).

I attempted to replicate this in WordPress but it only seems to work in the Google Site. So if you are embedding into a Google Site, you might be able to copy and paste the URL from the presentation from the page you want to start on. You will need to copy and paste that URL at the bottom instead of just choosing the presentation from the list, but it just might work.

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