I am so excited for this post - in part because it cannot come at a more opportune time than this! There are several projects and committees that I am a part of with other librarian colleagues cross-campus. Because we are not physically in the same city, we rely heavily on chat and e-mail for communication. Sometimes it becomes difficult, but we're making strides to continue finding new ways to better collaborate with each other.
I have had the opportunity to work with a fantastic group of librarians to co-lead an APA revision committee. Without getting too detailed in the "why" of the committee (it's a bit of a long story, and one I'm happy to share if you ask), just know that there were many many painstakingly long hours/days/weeks/months that we poured over our campus documents - tweaking them to be more user friendly and in line with APA 6th edition style. We also launched a brand spanking new APA Research Guide that I am super duper bodaciously proud of. There is still one more legal resources are that we're tweaking, but it's complete and will be launched to the information literacy courses next week.
I saw all of this background info to give you a picture of how online collaborative tools could have helped us along this process. My co-leader and I did get creative with screenshot links sent via chat by way of Jing (I just love Jing!), but when working on the paper documents, it would have been interesting to see how well Google Docs could have worked - or even drop box for that matter.
I have, however, had the opportunity to suggest Google Docs to a newly formed Research Society (The sexy librarian research society to be exact) that a select few librarians from various campuses in my organization are a part of. We're hoping to use Google Docs for suggestions and revisions of publication material, and potentially Zotero for group article source collaboration.
So now that you have some background of where I'm coming from...I'll get right to the specifics of the tools being discussed for this week's Thing 13 as part of the 23 Things for Professional Development program.
Google Docs
I have been an avid Google Docs user for quite some time. Oftentimes, a flashdrive just takes to long to locate or pop into a computer, and Google Docs allows me to keep my documents handy on any computer, at any time, and it also syncs to my droid phone! My husband has collaborated on a resume document with me too and it worked extremely well! I was able to see, real time, his edits, making it a much faster process than e-mailing the same document back and forth umpteen gazillion times.
Some people are leery of cloud computing and privacy - and that's a valid argument. I just like the convenience of having my documents readily available. And not all documents are uploaded or created in Google Docs... but I do keep my information literacy course material handy, as well as a few other work documents.
The following video does a great job of showing the basics of getting started with Google Docs:
Dropbox
I have used dropbox off and on for a while now too. Recently, it has been super useful when transferring documents between work and home. It's a simple drag and drop to dropbox, it syncs with ease, and when I get home...my document appears like magic!
One aspect of dropbox that I haven't tried is the sharing feature of folders for collaboration purposes. I have however noticed the individual file link that has come in handy a few times.... but for the most part, I have used dropbox as a personal tool.
Wikis
The last portion of Thing 13 talks about wikis. I must say...I'm not a huge fan of wikis. I find them to be somewhat clunky, and the hierarchy of how the information is inputted doesn't make sense to me. I would much rather use Google Sites as a website and archive for documents and information. Google Sites also has a wiki template that works well. I have however edited an existing wiki with ease... but I have nearly pulled my hair out when trying to create one from scratch. I'd rather code a website (lol).
In conclusion, if you can't tell... I am a huge fan of Google Docs, and it will most likely continue to be my number 1 go-to source for collaboration purposes.
Stay tuned for Thing 14 ...
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
#CPD23 Thing 8: Google Calendar
I will first tell you a little bit about my history with Gcal - my first Google calendar entry happened on February 19, 2008. This was right around the time that I finally let go of my very first e-mail account made with yahoo. Part of what I like about online calendars is the ability to go back in time, reliving the memories from the calendar entries. You can see an example of this in the image screenshot shown from the weekend of my very first ALA conference in Chicago. I had mapped out all of the sessions I wanted to attend and was able to sync them to my phone (a blackberry at the time). My husband is the same way, and likes reminiscing when looking back at his yahoo calendar (I have just recently convinced him to make the switch to Google - partly because he is now a droid user.). His Yale years hold many good memories, and he has been hesitant to make the switch in fear of losing those date entries. But, he finally got fed up with yahoo and has been learning all about the tools that Google provides.
For me, Google calendar (really, all things Google) has enabled me to have a fully synced life. With my droid revolution, I'm able to sync my google calendar, tasks, e-mail, docs, reader, and google plus accounts with ease. Further uses include:
*Public calendar options for embedding
When I built the website for the North Madison County Public Library system, I chose Google calendar as the event calendar for the site. The coding was easily customizable and patrons were able to "subscribe" to the event calendar by adding the public calendar to their personal account. Additionally, the color coding options that Google provided made it easy to view events for certain departments at a glance.
*Public calendar options for subscribingAfter my husband switched over to Google, I was able to help him make his calendar public, in order to share it with me. The public link was then added to my own calendar account, with the option to hide the calendar from view when not in use. We have a unique situation where we are very much coming and going at opposite times As such, it has been nice to view his calendar to see when he's tied up with something I shouldn't disturb.
I have also found that Wunderground.com provides an ical option for weather locations. I love this feature since it gives more detailed weather descriptions than the built in weather option Google gives you.
*OutlookI haven't been successful in finding a streamlined process for integrating Google calendar with Outlook, but I have a pretty good workaround. I have my work e-mail forwarded to my Gmail account and am using filters to place these forwarded e-mails in a work folder. After doing this, any outlook meeting request sent to my work e-mail is automatically added to both outlook and Google calendar. I have also added all of my individual calendars to outlook through the internet calendar option. It gets a little cluttered, but seems to be the option that is working best for me for now.
*New FeaturesIn an effort to continue with the collaboration options that Google provides through many of its tools, Gcal has now integrated appointment slots. I'm in the process of building a website for my husband. As a music teacher, has has wanted a system that would allow students to sign up for lesson times with ease. Using Google calendar will enable him to set appointment times, students will then be able to grab those appointments, and it will automatically update his personal calendar. The only downside is that the students will need to have a google account, but shouldn't everyone have a google account?!
The possibilities really are endless with Google calendar and I would love to hear how others are utilizing this great tool!
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes: Or, Google is Making Me Pull My Hair Out!
Do I sound like I'm contradicting myself yet? Maybe so...but it's all because Google keeps changing up stuff, and today, it's really driving me batty!
I wrote back in May about Google being sort of "big brother"-ish with personalized searches. You can read my thoughts on why I see this as a problem (portraying Google as the devil), and you can also read about an instance where Google search tools really worked for me (portraying Google as an angel).
Then, just yesterday, I wrote about Google as a company, trying to compete with big contenders such as Facebook and Apple (others were mentioned in the article referenced in my post).
But today is a whole new story. Recently, Google has been making quite a few facelift changes, all right around the time of the Google Plus roll out. The changes seemed to work (except for my integrated g-mail extension not playing nice with the new calendar), but today brought with it the revelation of a few changes that I am not too thrilled about.
For my information literacy course that I teach, there is an entire week of brainstorming topics with concept maps (partially Google-ified) and an entire week of web searching (heavily Google-ified).
The tools that I point out to students each quarter include:
* Google Books
* Google Scholar
* Google News
* Advanced Search Options
* Any Time Date Ranges
* Timeline
* Related Searches
* Realtime
And my beloved Google Wonder Wheel. Students LOVE (I mean... L.O.V.E.) this tool! It's one thing to take them to the Credo Reference Concept Map, but it's an entirely different matter to take them to a tool that allows them to learn something new within a system they are already used to using.
So, you can imagine my reaction when I learned that the Google Wonder Wheel is gone! Yep...that's right - gone . vamoose . nadda [enter very sad face and utter dissatisfaction here].
When we Google now, all we get are the options to the right:
* Google Books
* Google Scholar
* Google News
And in the More Search Tools area,
* Related Searches
* Timeline
* Reading Level (not sure this is useful for my needs)
And folks... that's it! No more Google Wonder Wheel... no more Realtime... It's
really quite sad, and it seems like really useful tools are being cut without any warning!
So, with thanks to Search Engine Land, this seems to be the progression that Google has taken:
I would also like to know how the Google changes are affecting you and your work, so don't be shy...
I wrote back in May about Google being sort of "big brother"-ish with personalized searches. You can read my thoughts on why I see this as a problem (portraying Google as the devil), and you can also read about an instance where Google search tools really worked for me (portraying Google as an angel).
Then, just yesterday, I wrote about Google as a company, trying to compete with big contenders such as Facebook and Apple (others were mentioned in the article referenced in my post).
But today is a whole new story. Recently, Google has been making quite a few facelift changes, all right around the time of the Google Plus roll out. The changes seemed to work (except for my integrated g-mail extension not playing nice with the new calendar), but today brought with it the revelation of a few changes that I am not too thrilled about.
For my information literacy course that I teach, there is an entire week of brainstorming topics with concept maps (partially Google-ified) and an entire week of web searching (heavily Google-ified).The tools that I point out to students each quarter include:
* Google Books
* Google Scholar
* Google News
* Advanced Search Options
* Any Time Date Ranges
* Timeline
* Related Searches
* Realtime
And my beloved Google Wonder Wheel. Students LOVE (I mean... L.O.V.E.) this tool! It's one thing to take them to the Credo Reference Concept Map, but it's an entirely different matter to take them to a tool that allows them to learn something new within a system they are already used to using.
So, you can imagine my reaction when I learned that the Google Wonder Wheel is gone! Yep...that's right - gone . vamoose . nadda [enter very sad face and utter dissatisfaction here].
When we Google now, all we get are the options to the right:
* Google Books
* Google Scholar
* Google News
And in the More Search Tools area,
* Related Searches
* Timeline
* Reading Level (not sure this is useful for my needs)
And folks... that's it! No more Google Wonder Wheel... no more Realtime... It's
really quite sad, and it seems like really useful tools are being cut without any warning!So, with thanks to Search Engine Land, this seems to be the progression that Google has taken:
- Google Begins Multi-Month User Experience Update
I love this quote that states, "I imagine most people think that whatever links are listed there are the only options available." This is so very true for my students. They just don't have the skills yet that tell them to dig a little deeper! So is Google really creating a user-friendly interface for the mass population of internet users? - Google Realtime Search Goes Missing
This is one that I really enjoyed using for showing primary source material. - As Deal with Twitter Expires, Google Realtime Search Goes Offline
This is the update to the above posting. I like that they are trying to reinvent this option to include multiple content avenues outside of Twitter. This could be a good thing in the long run, but it's coming at a really crappy time. - Official: The Google Wonder Wheel is Gone
And finally, the post that makes me the most sad. I really can't say it enough - I am truly going to miss this concept mapping tool...and I'm not sure what alternative I will use.
I would also like to know how the Google changes are affecting you and your work, so don't be shy...
Google Rules the World
I ran across an article earlier today titled Google’s Six-Front War, written by guest contributor Semil Shah of TechCrunch. The article focuses on 6 main components of the Google company, and the war within to "rule" the technology and information front.
For quite some time I have been a solid fan of Google...from Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Calendar to search options, and my Droid phone, Google has been a steady part of my everyday life in terms of communication, productivity, and basic research. On the flip side of this coin, I am also an avid apple consumer. For roughly 14 years now, I have owned and worked solely on a Mac, except for when at work, and I can honestly say, I will never ever personally own a PC computer. Mac's work for me and from experience, they are stable machines (I had one for 10 straight years and it continued to work even through to the point of upgrading). I'm getting a bit sidetracked, but I say all of this because many people have asked me why I didn't purchase an iPhone. The reality is that my life heavily revolves around Google, and for syncing purposes, the Droid was an obvious choice.
Enough about my personal preferences though... here are a few highlights from the article that I find particularly interesting:
Facebook
Throughout much of the article, Facebook is brought into play as a competitor of Google. There is talk of Facebook potentially creating or being interested in a social browser and a mobile device. I know Facebook is huge, but can it *really* compete with Google in terms of a mobile device? Maybe so... and we're living in interesting times to see this war of the top dogs play out.
The Google Search
This is how Google made a name for itself, but this article proposes that even the search aspect of Google is being challenged. I haven't taken it that far in my head yet, but to some degree, maybe Mr. Shah is right. People are gathering information in very different ways these days. They are gaining their information/news/weather/events from social media avenues, and there is a possibility that the Google Search that once was is waning. Mr. Shah puts it this way: "On desktops and laptops, people will continue to use a variety of browsers, though they end up spending a lot of time on Facebook, which scares Google because of the trend of people moving slowly from search to discovery." I love that phrase - search to discovery. The phrase is at the heart of what is being taught in my information literacy course. Students need to know how to properly search for credible information, but there is definitely a discovery component that comes into play during our evaluation week. With information coming at us at exponential speeds and volumes, what we are discovering must be evaluated for credibility and authority.
So, for now, I still believe Google is the forerunner (at least for me) in terms of digital information and information seeking behaviors...but will it continue to rule the world? Interesting stuff!
For quite some time I have been a solid fan of Google...from Gmail, Google Reader, and Google Calendar to search options, and my Droid phone, Google has been a steady part of my everyday life in terms of communication, productivity, and basic research. On the flip side of this coin, I am also an avid apple consumer. For roughly 14 years now, I have owned and worked solely on a Mac, except for when at work, and I can honestly say, I will never ever personally own a PC computer. Mac's work for me and from experience, they are stable machines (I had one for 10 straight years and it continued to work even through to the point of upgrading). I'm getting a bit sidetracked, but I say all of this because many people have asked me why I didn't purchase an iPhone. The reality is that my life heavily revolves around Google, and for syncing purposes, the Droid was an obvious choice.
Enough about my personal preferences though... here are a few highlights from the article that I find particularly interesting:
Throughout much of the article, Facebook is brought into play as a competitor of Google. There is talk of Facebook potentially creating or being interested in a social browser and a mobile device. I know Facebook is huge, but can it *really* compete with Google in terms of a mobile device? Maybe so... and we're living in interesting times to see this war of the top dogs play out.
The Google Search
This is how Google made a name for itself, but this article proposes that even the search aspect of Google is being challenged. I haven't taken it that far in my head yet, but to some degree, maybe Mr. Shah is right. People are gathering information in very different ways these days. They are gaining their information/news/weather/events from social media avenues, and there is a possibility that the Google Search that once was is waning. Mr. Shah puts it this way: "On desktops and laptops, people will continue to use a variety of browsers, though they end up spending a lot of time on Facebook, which scares Google because of the trend of people moving slowly from search to discovery." I love that phrase - search to discovery. The phrase is at the heart of what is being taught in my information literacy course. Students need to know how to properly search for credible information, but there is definitely a discovery component that comes into play during our evaluation week. With information coming at us at exponential speeds and volumes, what we are discovering must be evaluated for credibility and authority.
So, for now, I still believe Google is the forerunner (at least for me) in terms of digital information and information seeking behaviors...but will it continue to rule the world? Interesting stuff!
Google - An Angel or the Devil?
The Devil...
In the information literacy classes that I teach, there is a full week of nothing but Google searching. Students learn how to:
This is all well and good, but a recent class left me baffled. I was demonstrating several sample searches on the overhead projector. Many students were walking through the steps with me. Right in the middle of explaining the search results, I hear: "But wait... I don't have the same link you have."
I make it a point to stop and go back just a few steps to see if maybe the student missed a step. In doing so, she assured me that the same clicks were made. I then chose to walk over to her computer and see for myself... and low and behold, she was right! She didn't have the same results. "Huh..." I said. "This could just be a fluke. Let's try another search and see what results we get."
So, as a class, we formulate another search. Same thing. By now, I'm getting a bit annoyed. Everyone should be able to have the same search results displayed if the search is done the exact-same-way-every-time. But that just wasn't happening.
We continued to move on during class, but I was still quite bothered by the situation. So, by the time I returned to my desk, I was on a massive information hunt for anything that would explain to me what was happening. Ironically enough, (I really couldn't have planned it any better) I had a link that I saw in a stream of twitter feeds from a friend and colleague of mine titled: "If you haven't seen this Ted talk on internet filtering and personalization, you HAVE to!" I'm not sure how it caught my eye...but it was so timely that I was a bit freaked.
Take a look:
I'm still miffed, and not sure really what to do about it.... but then there are the times that I really really love Google.
An Angel
In the news, There has been limited coverage of the Morganza Spillway catastrophe in the major news stream media. This is a topic that hits home (literally) with me since my home town is the good 'ole Morgan City (yes there really is a town that's west and south of New Orleans!). The news that you are hearing discusses Morgan City (since that's the end of the line for the Mississippi), but it has had limited coverage.
Google to the Rescue!
Using a few of the tricks that I teach my students, I have been able to locate the local news from the Atchafalaya Basin area. These articles have been much more beneficial than the mainstream news stations like Fox and CNN. I was able to find the most recent news articles like this one, this one, and even realtime twitter updates. Thanks to Google, it has truly allowed me to feel as if I am right there watching the impending doom happen. I still have family and friends in the area...so it's been very important for me to be able to keep up with what's happening.
Additionally, Facebook has been a fantastic use of primary source information. Friends that still live in the area have taken pictures, and Morgan City even has a Facebook page. So yet again, I have felt as if I'm right at home.
So with all of this being said, Google can definitely be a great source for information, but I don't like the fact that they are personalizing the information that is being found. Any thoughts?
In the information literacy classes that I teach, there is a full week of nothing but Google searching. Students learn how to:
- Narrow to a specific site domain using the advanced search feature
- Use the news, timeline, and realtime tools
- Formulate searches that get away from long sentence searching by utilizing keywords with " ", +, and -
This is all well and good, but a recent class left me baffled. I was demonstrating several sample searches on the overhead projector. Many students were walking through the steps with me. Right in the middle of explaining the search results, I hear: "But wait... I don't have the same link you have."
I make it a point to stop and go back just a few steps to see if maybe the student missed a step. In doing so, she assured me that the same clicks were made. I then chose to walk over to her computer and see for myself... and low and behold, she was right! She didn't have the same results. "Huh..." I said. "This could just be a fluke. Let's try another search and see what results we get."
So, as a class, we formulate another search. Same thing. By now, I'm getting a bit annoyed. Everyone should be able to have the same search results displayed if the search is done the exact-same-way-every-time. But that just wasn't happening.
We continued to move on during class, but I was still quite bothered by the situation. So, by the time I returned to my desk, I was on a massive information hunt for anything that would explain to me what was happening. Ironically enough, (I really couldn't have planned it any better) I had a link that I saw in a stream of twitter feeds from a friend and colleague of mine titled: "If you haven't seen this Ted talk on internet filtering and personalization, you HAVE to!" I'm not sure how it caught my eye...but it was so timely that I was a bit freaked.
Take a look:
I'm still miffed, and not sure really what to do about it.... but then there are the times that I really really love Google.
An Angel
Google to the Rescue!
Using a few of the tricks that I teach my students, I have been able to locate the local news from the Atchafalaya Basin area. These articles have been much more beneficial than the mainstream news stations like Fox and CNN. I was able to find the most recent news articles like this one, this one, and even realtime twitter updates. Thanks to Google, it has truly allowed me to feel as if I am right there watching the impending doom happen. I still have family and friends in the area...so it's been very important for me to be able to keep up with what's happening.
Additionally, Facebook has been a fantastic use of primary source information. Friends that still live in the area have taken pictures, and Morgan City even has a Facebook page. So yet again, I have felt as if I'm right at home.
So with all of this being said, Google can definitely be a great source for information, but I don't like the fact that they are personalizing the information that is being found. Any thoughts?
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