Ruminations- AEA 267

Do you get text message from others that look like they are in another language? Here are some common abbreviations that can help you decipher what they were trying to say.

18r — Later
rofl — Rolling On Floor Laughing
lol –  Laugh Out Loud
omg — Oh My Goodness/Oh My God
btw — By The Way
thx — Thanks
brb — Be Right Back
<3 — Symbolizes a heart/love
ttyl — Talk To You Later
((hug)) –  Symbolizes a hug
pir — Parent In Room
tiw– Teacher is Watching
idk- I don’t know
dk- don’t know
ik- I know
brb- be right back

And….as a reminder, WRITING IN ALL CAPITALS — Symbolizes yelling- so unless you have a teenager, you probably won’t use the capital thing very often!

This is not a complete list and one can definitely come up with their own texting language.  Leave a comment if you think of others that you have run across or your family uses.

Google Docs (as well as other Google products) are receiving a new look. If you are still using the classic look (and like the classic look), you can stick with it for awhile, but eventually, you won’t have the option to keep it in the classic look. The details of these changes is found at this link:

http://goo.gl/ttOA3

As always if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact one of the Google trainers, Kay Schmalen, Clair Judas, Dave Schaefer or Brian Unruh. Steve Hauser can also help with your password questions.

Have a great day and happy Googling!

Hello everyone,

Today’s entry was written by fellow AEA 267 Google trainer, Clair Judas (cjudas@aea267.k12.ia.us)  He offers some helpful tips on how to use the search operator is:hidden. Enjoy and happy Googling!

Finding Hidden FilesThe Scenario: You’ve been collecting lots of documents, the ‘Home’ directory has become cluttered so you have hidden some of your documents to clean things up. But… now you need some of those and searching through the ‘All Items’ directory can be tedious. There is an easy way to show just the ‘Hidden’ files!• Click on the ‘All items’ directory to show all of your files…• In the search field, type “is:hidden” without the quotes, then press ‘Return’ or ‘Enter’.• All of your hidden files will be listed.

• Open the file you want to use.

• If you want to change some of those files so they show in Home again…

• When you are done, Clear the search by clicking on “Clear search” above the list of found files…

• All of your files will now show in the Google documents list.

• And… when you click on the Home directory, you will be able to see all of your files (with the exception of any you left ‘hidden’).

Today’s Google tip deals with how to organize all those documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings that you have been sharing with others and others have been sharing with you.  If you have been using Google docs, you’ll find that the list grows exponentially and can be a little chaotic if you don’t have a system in place to keep things organized.

I like to use collections to help me organize my files in Google Docs.  Just like the file folders on your computer, you can create collections in Google Docs.  One major difference is that instead of finding a file in only one place or collection you can “tag” or file with multiple names from your collections.  It is easy to create a new collection by just going to the create button on the left hand side and clicking on create and then collection.  From there you can name your collection whatever you would like (up to 122 characters) you can even add a smiling face on it with a

Here are some tips when using Collections

1.  Keep your naming convention simple yet accurate. E.g. AEA 267 Tech Quad is more specific than AEA 267 Technology

2.  When making a new collection make sure that you home button is selected.  If you have another collection selected when you go to make a new collection, the new collection becomes a child of the collection you have selected.

3. Color code your collections. You can color code your collections by clicking on the arrow next to the collection and clicking on change color.

4. You can find out what you have tagged a file with by marking the checkbox next to the file and then clicking on the “eye” icon.  A new “window” will pop up on the right and you can scroll down this window for info about this file, such as who it is shared with, a description and when it was last opened and when it was last modified.  You can also see on this window that in this example it is tagged with two collections, AEA 267 Google Apps and Google Trainers.

5.  You can share collections just like you would files.  When you put a file in the collection, it takes on the sharing and visibility properties of that collection.   You can see if a collection is shared by the type of icon.  A collection that is shared will have an outline of a person within the icon, like this.

Once you have put a file into a collection it would helpful to  not show it in your home list.  To do this, mark a check mark in the box next to the file or files that you have already tagged and are ready to say “Don’t show in home”.  Then click on the more button and scroll down to Don’t Show in Home

Happy Googling!

Google Calendar and Syncing

Please do not sync your Exchange calendar with Google calendars at this time due to issues that syncing may create on an employee’s computer, and/or on our Exchange server.

As you are aware, one of the tools that we use at AEA267 is teams. We have Literacy teams, Science teams, PBIS teams, Autism teams and sector teams. There are many tools that can help these groups share and communicate important dates.  With the roll out of Google Apps at the AEA267, Google Calendar is one of those tools.

While there are tools on the web that can sync your Google calendar with your AEA 267 calendar on the Exchange server, they currently are not recommended nor supported by our technology department. We are currently exploring how we can use such a tool and if we are able to provide a recommendation regarding their use that we are confident in, we will share that information at that point in time.

You can continue to use Google calendar to share and communicate dates with others within the agency as well as outside the agency. For example, Sector 2 has a calendar that is shared with AEA267 employees who are part of sector 2. This calendar lists large group sector meetings as well as those meetings with others in sector 2. We would encourage your to utilize Google calendar in this way, as it is an effective and efficient way to communicate dates with a variety of teams.

Happy Googling!

Did you know that you can upload documents and other files from you computer to Google Docs?  Sometimes you have a file on your computer that you would like to share with others.  You can either send them an email, creating multiple copies of the same file,  or you can upload it to Google Docs and share it with them.

To manually upload a file from your computer to Google Docs

1. In your Documents List, click the Upload button and select Files… from the drop-down menu.
   If you’d like to upload a file directly to a collection, click the collection name in your Documents List before clicking the Upload button. Note: you must have the latest version of Flash installed if you’re working in Internet Explorer.
2. Select the file you’d like to upload to Google Docs. To select multiple files, press Shift or Ctrl and click all the files to upload.

3.  A new dialogue box will appear titled Upload Settings.  The two settings in this box include:

• Convert documents, presentations, spreadsheets and drawings to the corresponding Google Docs format. (Recommended)
• Select this option to convert all of your files from their existing format, into an editable online version in Google Docs. If you don’t select this option, this document will appear as a view-only document in the Google Docs Viewer.
• Convert text from PDF or image files to Google Docs documents.
• Select this option to convert image files into a collaborative online version in Google Docs by using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) technology

4.  By default the newly uploaded document will be private.  Once it is uploaded you can share it just as you would any other Google Doc.

Happy Googling!

Hope everyone is having a great summer! Printed off my boys’ school registration information yesterday, needless to say, they weren’t too excited about that. But, as the summer winds down, and everyone starts to return to (or if you never left) work, you may receive an email saying that someone has shared a GoogleDoc with you. Usually something that looks like this…

If you click on the link provided, (and you are not logged into your Google account), you will get a screen that looks like this…

From this screen you only need to enter your username, the portion of your email address before the “@” symbol, which in my case is kschmalen.  If you try to enter your entire email address (kschmalen@aea267.k12.ia.us) you will get an error message.

Input your password and you should be good to go!  If you are having problems with you password, please contact myself (kschmalen@aea267.k12.ia.us) or Steve Hauser at shauser@aea267.k12.ia or by phone at 319-268-7637.  We would be more than happy to help!

When sharing documents or Google Sites with others within and outside AEA267, it would be great to have a “group” already made up in your contact list that is personal to you.  For example, in my contact list I have a group for the Literacy Team that is made up of AEA267 staff and I also have a group called Instructional Technology Coaches that is made up of AEA267 staff  and educators outside of AEA267.  Having these groups made up in my contact list makes it easier to share those GoogleDocs and Google Sites quickly and easily without worrying about forgetting someone.  Google contacts provides two different types of contacts

• Directory Contacts, which are contacts shared by all users in AEA267 (you cannot edit directory contacts)
• Personal Contacts, which are a user’s contacts not shared with other users (you can edit  personal contacts)

To access your contacts within your AEA267 GoogleApps account, visit this link: http://www.google.com/contacts/

If you would like to include contacts that are outside of AEA267, follow this process:

• Export your contacts from your Email application on your computer
• Import these contacts into My Contacts on GoogleApps
• Make your groups
• Assign contacts to the groups by searching (choosing those AEA267 staff that are part of the AEA267 directory).
• Optional, you can delete those contacts that are duplicates in the directory and in your personal contacts by deleting them from your personal contacts.

If you are using Microsoft Outlook for your Email

1. In Outlook, on the File menu, click Import and Export.
2. Click Export to a file, and then click Next.
3. Click Microsoft Excel, and then click Next.
4. In the folder list, click the Contacts folder, and then click Next.
5. Browse to the folder where you want to save the contacts as an Excel file (.xls).
6. Type a name for the exported file, and then click OK.
7. Click Next.
8. To add or remove fields to determine the way the contact information is saved in the new Excel worksheet, click Map Custom Fields.

If you are using Entourage for you Email

1. In Entourage, on the File menu, click Export.
2. Click Contacts to a list (tab-delimited text)
3. Browse to the folder where you want to save the contacts as a Text File (.txt)
4. Click Save

Once you exported your contacts into a file, you can now import them into your AEA267 Google Contacts.  Log into your AEA267 GoogleApps account and click on the following link: http://www.google.com/contacts/

1. Once in your contacts, in the upper right hand corner, click on Import
2. Click on Choose File
3. Browse to the folder where you have saved the file.
4. Click on open.

To add a contact to a contact group
1.  Click on the icon in the upper left hand corner
2.  Name this new group.

3. Search for the desired contact in the search bar across the top.

4. Check the box next to the contact (if the contact shows up in both My Contacts and AEA267 Directory choose the contact from the AEA267 Directory).

5.  Click on Groups on the right hand window and a drop box with your groups will appear.  From there you can Add to.. or Remove from…

By making these groups, you now will see these groups in your Choose from contacts on GoogleDocs, GoogleSites and other Google tools where you can share and collaborate with others.

Summer time is for swimming, camping, baseball games AND Google Workshops!  Our Google trainers, Clair Judas, Brian Unruh and Kay Schmalen are offering a number of workshops this summer (and into September).  To sign up for one of the workshops, go to our AEA267 Professional Development catalogue and search for Google.  Look for additional offerings in the future. If you have some specific ideas for a workshop, please comment on this post.  Have a great summer!

Transitioning your data from your personal Google account to your AEA267 GoogleApps account is one of the most common issues that users at AEA267 (and other places) are dealing with.  The majority of items are found within a person’s GoogleDocs.  The basic steps involved in moving these items between accounts include:

1. Trash any documents that are truly junk, e.g. you created them as a test document.

2.  Select those items that you solely own and you haven’t shared with anyone else and download to your desktop to upload to your new GoogleApps account.

3.  Select those items that you own and have shared with others.  Decide if you want to export them, upload them and reshare them….or if you want to add your GoogleApps account as a collaborator on this document.  You cannot transfer ownership to your new GoogleApps account.  They must be a part of the same domain.  e.g. they both must be xyyyy@aea267.k12.ia.us.

4.  Select those items that have been shared with you.  Add your AEA267 GoogleApps account and then remove your personal account from this document.

Check out this series of videos that deal with each of these four steps.