Viewing Activity In A Shared Folder

Do you have a shared folder in Google Drive and want to know if anything new has been added?  Using the "Details" button allows you to view all of the activity that has occurred within that folder.  Select the folder, click the details button, and view all of the files that have been added to that folder.

Doodle4Google 2015

Each year Google holds a contest for children in which they can create and submit a Google Doodle that could make it on the front page of their search engine.  They have a site dedicated to lesson activities surrounding the event as well.  Prizes range from a personalized shirt with their Doodle printed on it, all the way up to collage scholarships and educational grants for the student's school.  But in the end, it's all about promoting creativity and highlighting the talents that we see in our schools everyday.  For more details, check out the main Google Doodle page, and read some of the "About" information below.  Happy doodling, and check out the wonderful winning artwork of 11-year old Audrey Zhang!

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What is the "Doodle 4 Google" contest?

Doodle 4 Google is an annual contest open to students in grades K-12. Students are invited to create their own Google doodle for the chance to have it featured on the Google homepage.

Why did you choose the theme "What makes me...me."

There are a million and one facts, interests, and quirks that make everyone unique. For centuries, artists have created paintings, sculptures, self-portraits, and more to offer insights into their personalities and values. Now, we're asking kids to do the same by creating a doodle that shows the world what they're passionate about, what gets them excited, or what they dream about. In other words, we're asking that this year's doodles explain "What makes me...me."

Why is Google doing this contest?

Doodles are meant to surprise and delight people when they visit the Google homepage. Past Doodles have celebrated some of the most brilliant, talented, and passionate people throughout history. Doodle 4 Google offers students K-12 an opportunity to display their own artwork on the Google homepage.

How long has Google been doing this contest?

We've been hosting the Doodle 4 Google contest every year in the U.S. since 2008, so this is our eighth year. This website shows details for the U.S. only contest, but the Doodle 4 Google contest takes place in many other countries throughout the year as well.

Who was the 2014 winner?

Audrey Zhang, an 11-year old from New York, was the Doodle 4 Google 2014 U.S. winner. Check out her Doodle and all of the 2014 U.S. finalists here.

Google Sharing Pt. 4 - Being Safe While Being Public

With the freedom of the internet comes the discussion about what it means to have material public.  It is very important that you and your students understand how to take advantage of open publishing to the web, but also how to do so safely and how to keep your content protected.This is a large topic with constant discussion, so we will simply touch on a few big points and then encourage you to continue the learning and continue the conversation.  There is a digital citizen Twitter chat that occurs twice a month (2nd and 4th Wednesdays at 7:00 PM CST) using the hashtag #digcit - check it out!

Protect What is Yours

When you make your work public, you need to consider whether you want others to be able to download or make a copy of your work.  If you choose the "publish to web" route, people cannot make a direct copy of the file, nor can then download it.  But if you "share a link" to the public, you will want to check the box to not allow individuals to download or make a copy of the file.

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Be Careful What You Publish

This one is simple.  Your personal information should remain just that; personal.  Do not provide a public link or publish any documents that contain personal information about yourself or anyone else.  Students should especially be made aware of this fact, as they are bombarded constantly by social media on which people routinely post personal information.  It is part of the social contract of education that we help kids navigate through this new era of digital citizenship, and we first need to be good models ourselves.

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Part 1 – How To

Part 2 – Public Link Sharing Ideas

Part 3 – Publishing Ideas

Sean Mullins | Instructional Technology Coach

Google Sharing Pt. 3 - Publishing Ideas

There are two important distinctions between publishing and providing a public link to your Google Drive files.

1. 
   

   Publishing can only occur with Google files (docs/sheets/slides).

   
   


2. 
   

   Publishing does not provide access to the original file.  Rather, a webpage is created that displays the content of the original Google file.

   
   

So publishing serves the purpose that naturally arises from the distinctions above; you can provide a public viewing of content from a Google file.  Let’s look at how this can be beneficial in our classrooms!

Publishing certain results from a Google Form

Sometimes you may want to publish some, but not all, of the results from a Google Form.  For example, you gather information from your student's parents about what types of dishes they will bring to a grade level cookout.  It might be valuable to make public the list of dishes that will be brought, but the names of who will bring them are not necessary for people to know.  By publishing only certain tabs from a Google Sheet, or by hiding certain columns in a Sheet, you can be public where it is useful, and private where you need to be.  By the way, you may be collecting names or email addresses in the first place in order to better communicate with individual parents.

This published Google Sheet shows contact information from participants who attended the STEM EdCamp on Oct. 3rd.  Because published files automatically update, no extra work needed to be done by the organizers to display this information.  Participants just chose to fill out a Google Form (important to note that this was their choice, and they were aware beforehand of the posting of this information), and then the results were gathered and shared automatically!  Also note that I hid the Timestamp column in this instance because that information was not necessary for anyone to view.

Better Communication During Events

In a Teacher's Corner post last year, we outlined how IMEA competitions were streamlined by the use of published Google Sheets.  Take a look at that post here, and imagine other ways in which you can make your events more efficient by using this new functionality!

Publish Your “Assignment Notebook”

Building off of the example of Sharing a Public Link to an "assignment notebook" that was talked about in Pt. 2 of this series, you could also publish a version of the same type of Google Doc.  This can then be linked too, or embedded into a website such as SchoolWires.  Now this published file will be completely uneditable, and will automatically update whenever changes are made to the original Google doc.

Another example of this can be seen on the STEM EdCamp page where we created a schedule and links to session notes.

Make Your Presentations Visible to Parents

If you are using Google Slides to create presentations, you can publish those presentations so that they are visible by the public (read: parents).  Here's an example of what I mean.

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Part 1 – How To

Part 2 – Public Link Sharing Ideas

Part 4 – Being Safe While Being Public

Sean Mullins | Instructional Technology Coach

Google Sharing Pt. 2 - Public Link Sharing Ideas

So we can now link the public to any file that we store in Google Drive; wonderful, but what does that mean for your classroom?  Let’s take a look at some examples of this can be useful.

Google Files Can Now be Editable/Comment-able by Parents

You could always send out Google Forms to parents, but now you can provide links to editable Google docs/sheets/slides to them as well! If you wanted, you can allow them to make copies of these Google files as well.

Students Can Share Their Work More Freely

Imagine the scenario where Jane wants to share her creative writing project with her aunt to read.  Perhaps she wants another set of critical eyes to help improve the work, or she is simply proud of her accomplishment and wants her favorite family member to read what she has done.  Now she can provide the aunt with the link and regardless of whether the aunt has a google account, it is visible.  Remember that any work done on the document is still recorded in Revision History, so don’t worry about the aunt doing all the work and Jane taking credit!

Collaborate with Colleagues Outside of the District

Do you have a peer who works district 87, Olympia, Pontiac, or California?  Do you partner with local businesses, bring in speakers from the community, or collaborate with experts in your field from around the world?  Now you can share and collaborate on files with anyone!  Who will you connect and collaborate with?

Assignment Notebooks for Students/Parents

Do you or your team/grade level have a Google Doc or Sheet that you use to bring together assignments for your kids?  It’s a great method for teachers to be able to easily edit the document and add their assignments/daily work, and then have the document be visible to students.  Well, now you can put a link to that file someplace where your parents can access it as well.  Keep them in the loop and extend that assignment notebook to the parents as well!  This this link sharing format, you could allow commenting by your parents (which would be anonymous unless they signed into their personal Google accounts), or, by default, leave this option disabled.

Example

Share PDF’s or Videos with the Community

If you create materials that would be useful for your parents to be able to view (PDF helpsheets, tutorial videos, flipped classroom videos, etc…), you can now link the community to these resources!  Make your classroom videos visible to parents to keep them in the loop!

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Part 1 - How To

Part 3 - Publishing Ideas

Part 4 - Being Safe While Being Public

Sean Mullins | Instructional Technology Coach

New Sharing Options in Drive: Part 1 - How To

Teachers and students now have more freedom with their sharing options when working in Google Drive.  Sharing options now exist that allow files to be shared with the public.  Additionally, certain files can be “published” to the web, turning them into auto-updating websites based on the Google doc/slide/sheet.  Let’s take at how to enable these new features in part 1 of this four part blog post series.

Sharing with the “public”

When sharing a file in Drive, you now have the additional choices seen below.

• 
  

  On - Public on the web.  This option allows anyone on the web to find the document through internet search.  This is NOT recommended or any of our educational applications.

  
  


• 
  

  On - Anyone with the link.  This option allows anyone to view/edit/comment (your choice) if they are provided with the link to the document.  This has a variety of educational applications that will be discussed in part 2 of this blog post.

  
  

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Additionally, it is now important to note a few owner settings that are available.  You can prevent people with editing rights to your file from changing who has access to the file, as well as prevent people with “commenting” or “viewing” rights from downloading, printing, or making a copy of the file.  This is good for you and your students to understand if they want to really lock down their content and only allow others to view it, and nothing else.

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Publishing to the web

With the option above, the owner is giving out a link to the original file that is stored in Google Drive.  With the “Publish to the web” option, you are instead creating a webpage that is dedicated to that Google doc, sheet, or slide.  One distinct advantage of this method is that you can then embed that doc/slide/sheet into another website (like schoolwires, CMS, etc…).  Even better; this published document auto-updates when the original Google file is updated!  More applications for this are discussed in part three of this blog post, but here is a quick example.

1. 
   

   Fill out this form

   
   


2. 
   

   Watch the published Google Sheet of responses update automatically below (Forms are currently experiencing issues, so if this does not display for you, check back later)!

   
   

Follow these simple steps to publish a Google file to the web.

1. 
   

   Click <File>

   
   


2. 
   

   <Publish to the web>

   
   


3. 
   

   Choose <link> or <embed>

   
   


4. 
   

   Click <Publish>

   
   


5. 
   

   You can choose additional options by clicking <Published content and settings>

   
   

This animation will play on a loop.  You can also click on it to start it from the beginning in a new window.

Now that you know how to turn on these features, let’s take a look at how to leverage them for awesome educational experiences for students and increased communication with the community!

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Part 2 - Public Link Sharing Ideas

Part 3 - Publishing Ideas

Part 4 - Being Safe While Being Public

Sean Mullins | District Instructional Technology Coach

Google File Sharing: Who can delete what?

One question that I receive often revolves around the permissions that students/staff have when files are shared with them in Google Drive.  If someone shares a file with you and makes you an editor, can you delete the file?  If I move a folder from Shared With Me into My Drive, what happens if I delete it?  Here are some tips for handling sharing in Google Drive.

Shared With Me

The dreaded Shared With Me space!  Anytime a file or folder is shared with you, it will appear in this space.  Here are something things to know about Shared With Me.

1. Items in this space will not automatically sync down to your computer if you using the Google Drive App for PC.


2. Items can be moved from Shared With Me into any folder in My Drive.  This will cause the files to sync down to your computer.


3. If you move items out of Shared With Me, what you are essentially moving is a link to the item, not the item itself.  These means that if you "remove" or "delete" these items from your My Drive space, you are just removing the link, not the original items.  As you will see below, only the owner of items has the ability to permanently delete.


4. If you have an important item that has been shared with you, my suggestion is to "Star" the item rather than move it into your My Drive space.  Doing so will keep it in Shared With Me, but put a direct link to it in your Starred space.  This way you do not have to search for it in Shared With Me, and you do not have to clutter your personal My Drive space.

Direct from Google

What follows is directly from the Google support pages concerning the sharing of items.  They provide a handy chart that shows what a person can do with an item depending on the permissions they have been given.

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When you share a file or folder with other people, you have the choice to give them viewing and editing access, as well as ownership of the file. While not applicable to folders, you can also give commenting access to files in order to get feedback from the people you're sharing with. You can change this access at any time.

Here’s what people can do in a file or folder as a viewer, commenter, editor, or owner:

	Can view	Can comment	Can edit	Is owner
View files and folders	x	x	x	x
Download or sync files to another device	x	x	x	x
Make a copy of files to save in Google Drive	x	x	x	x
Comment and suggest edits in files		x	x	x
Edit documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and drawings			x	x
Share or unshare files with others			x	x
Add or remove files from a folder			x	x
Upload and delete file versions			x	x
Delete files and folders				x
Transfer ownership of files and folders to others				x

Change what others can do with your file

After you’ve shared a file with others, you can change the type of access specific people or groups can have.

1. Open the file.


2. Click Share in the top-right corner.


3. Click Advanced in the bottom-right corner of the sharing box.


4. Using the dropdown menu next to the user’s name, select the type of access you want them to have.


5. Click Done.

Remove sharing privileges

If you are the owner of a file or folder, you can choose to remove editors’ ability to share files with others in Google Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This allows you to control everyone who is able to view or edit the file or folder.

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If you have any questions about sharing within Google, please get in touch with your building/district instructional coach.

Sean Mullins | District Instructional Coach

Google Keep

I love using the Sticky Notes program on my Windows laptop.  Sometimes my screen would be filled with these reminders and checklists, all color coded using some system that I pretend to understand.

Not too far off from my normal Unit 5 checklist 

This system worked okay, but it did have limitations.

• What if I was not on that specific computer?  My lists don't travel with me.
• What if I wanted a checklist?  Not possible.
• What if I wanted another person to see and co-edit my lists?  Not possible

Enter Google Keep.  All of the limitations presented above are solved with this district integrated organizational tool!  Take a look at the video below to familiarize yourself with how you could use Google Keep to facilitate educational opportunities.

Keep in mind (see what I did there...) that one of the great features of this system is that users can install the Google Keep app on their personal devices (phones/tablets/etc...) to keep track of their notes and reminders.  Students can use this to their advantage when sharing notes and collaborating with their peers!

Sean Mullins | Instructional Technology Coach