I Heart Google! - My 4th Most FAVORITE Google Product! (Google Maps)

Readers,

This week is dedicated to GOOGLE! It is "I Heart Google" week! Each day, I will feature a video focused on one of my favorite Google products! :) 

Today is focused on my THIRD MOST FAVORITE product! - Google Maps!

I use Google Maps to...

1 - Show students a historical monument or a building in the United States.

2 - Determine the amount of time it will take to walk between one building and other  when traveling with undergraduate students.

3 - Help students understand the importance of privacy and digital literacy when they are out the public arena.

What an amazing product! I love Google Maps!!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

I Heart Google! - My 3rd Most FAVORITE Google Product! (YouTube)

Readers,

This week is dedicated to GOOGLE! It is "I Heart Google" week! Each day, I will feature a video focused on one of my favorite Google products! :) 

Today is focused on my THIRD MOST FAVORITE product! - YouTube!

I use Youtube to...

1 - Make "how to" videos for students.

2 - Upload videos for the millennial professor blog.

3 - Create screencasts

What an amazing product! I love YouTube!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

I Heart Google! - My 2nd FAVORITE Google Product! (Google Hangouts)

Readers,

This week is dedicated to GOOGLE! It is "I Heart Google" week! Each day, I will feature a video focused on one of my favorite Google products! :) 

Today is focused on my SECOND MOST FAVORITE product! - Google Hangouts!

I use Google Hangouts to...

1 - Conduct committee meetings and meetings for the Texas Social Media Research Institute.

2 - Chat with family members.

3 - Conduct research.

4 - Converse with students.

What an amazing product! I love Google Hangouts!

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

I Heart Google! - My FAVORITE Google Product! (Google Docs)

Readers,

This week is dedicated to GOOGLE! It is "I Heart Google" week! Each day, I will feature a video focused on one of my favorite Google products! :) 

Today is focused on my NUMBER ONE product! - Google Docs!

I use Google Docs to...


1- Conduct research.
2 - Provide students with comments while grading papers.
3 - Chat with students.
4 - Plan family events (Google Forms and Google Documents).
5 - Disperse surveys.
6 - Write notes while attending conferences.

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Tech Tip Week! - Printing Power Point Slides/Green Printing - Sponsored By: CommTechProf/Millennial Professor

Readers,

Good morning!

Here is the first Tech Tip of the Week! This tech tip is from The Ohio State University and it is titled, "Format Your Power Point Slides in PDF so Students Can Use Them"

I always save my power point sides in PDF format (six on one page) OR I use Google Presentations. Through Google Presentations, the students can save or print the file in almost any file format.

Here is the video that I created about printing from a Google Presentation a few semesters ago.

Sincerely,

J. Edwards

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Become a fan of Millennial Professor on Facebook - http://goo.gl/gnN41

Ads in Gmail and your personal data - Gmail Help

Readers,


As an avid Gmail user, I am disappointed that we will have color ads in our Gmail accounts now. It's funny, but if you do not read the Google blog or examine other blogs (like Lifehacker), you will not know what is happening to your account. :) Here's a recent article from Lifehacker focused on Gmail ads, "Ads in Gmail and your personal data - Gmail Help". 

What do you think about this new "change"? Happy? Sad? This change actually makes me wonder about the fate of Google Documents? Will they stay or will they go?


Sincerely,

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Google Docs to the rescue | Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Readers,

As most of you know, I am an avid user of Google Documents. I try to learn as much as I possibly can about this wonderful online software package. A university in my area, Texas Wesleyan University, has a great blog titled, "Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning". One of their recent entries (as part of their series titled 12 days of CETL: Tips for the Holiday Season) focused on Google Docs to the Rescue. 


In her post, this professor (Dr. C) tells her readers how she uses Google Docs for organizational purposes (i.e. - writing book chapter manuscripts, working within their office, etc.). In addition to her experience with Google Documents, she also created a Google Doc (go figure) consisting of various links and resources for educators who are interests in using the resource in their classrooms.

Visit "Google Docs Resources" here - LINK

Google Docs to the rescue | Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Google vs. Blackboard - Is It a Reality?

Readers,

My husband and I are huge Google fans. In fact, I integrate Google into my blackboard course ANY POSSIBLE way that I can! Through my non-existent "power point slides"... they are all Google Presentations now... to my online assignments through Google Forms, I do not even have to log on to Blackboard (which can sometimes be a cumbersome process) to check students' progress on an assignment.

Lately, my husband has been asking... "So, why doesn't Google complete with Blackboard"? Apparently, a lot of people have been pondering the same question. Here's an article that I discovered today, "Google: Groupon? Not Blackboard?"

In the article, the author states, "Google should buy Blackboard and take the following actions:

• Move gBlackboard as quickly as the market will bear to an all cloud-based, multi-tenancy delivery system. This will drastically reduce implementation costs, allowing the price of the software to drop quickly.

• Deeply integrate gBlackboard with Google Apps for Education, gDrive (Google Storage), and the content available on YouTube/EDU.

• Follow a plan to bring the licensing fee for public institutions to gBlackboard down to zero.

These actions may prove to be great moves for the increasing amount of cash-strapped higher education institutions who are actively seeking cost-cutting measures to help them stay afloat.

Google - If you hear us, we need an intervention!

Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Blackboard Users: EMBEDDING is your BEST FRIEND!

Readers,

Since blackboard is my BEST friend, this summer I started embedding EVERYTHING. Surveys, rubrics, etc. I teach two courses online and two upper-level courses and it is not an easy process to change (or update a power point/document). Uploading is a cumbersome process and it requires users to:


1. Plug in the external drive.
2. Find the file.
3. Correct the file.
4. Log on to blackboard.
5. Find the course.
6. Find the document I need to replace.
7. Delete the document I need to replace.
8. Find my new document on the external drive (the corrected file).
9. Upload the corrected file.
10. Change the username.
*I have to go through these steps EVERY semester!


Now, with my favorite program of all time (Google Documents). I can create a document, embed the document, and add a link (for users who have a firewall).


Here are the steps that I follow:
1. Create the presentation.
2. Share the presentation (upper-right hand corner).
3. Embed the presentation on blackboard.


If I EVER need to update the document, I simply log on to my Google Docs account and correct the document without EVER logging on blackboard! Voila!


Here is a sample Google Presentation for my Intercultural Communication course:

Here is a sample Google Presentation for my Online Communication course:

There are numerous opportunities for Google Presentations! Any additional ideas?


Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

My REAL Experience: Training 90 Undergraduate Students How to Use Google Docs!

Readers,


Good morning! Yesterday was the SECOND day of classes (MWF) and I trained over 90 students to use Google Documents. A colleague and I received a "Real-Word Experiences Applied to Learning" institution grant for our upper-level communication courses and our learning outcomes include collaborative research for undergraduate students. The students will conduct research on diversity and communication to write a paper and to present the results at the Tarleton State University - Communication Studies Department's "Diversity and Communication - Research Symposium" (which will also include papers and panels from faculty and staff)! 


Not surprisingly (if you know me), we decided to use Google Documents for each of the student research groups. At the beginning of the workshop, the training was chaotic. Some students have a Google Documents account and other students do not have an account. This means that I had to help the students create an account for Google Documents. Many of the students actually used their university e-mail to create their Google account.


Before class, I created fifteen research documents (one document per group) and I added each of the students to the research groups at the end of the class period.


Then, I exposed the students to several "neat" aspects of the new Google Documents software. Here are items the students really liked:


a. Each of you can type on the document simultaneously! In fact, you can see each other's comments by their colored cursor.


b. You can CHAT with your group members while you type your sections of the document.


c. You can double-check the document to verify that your group members edited the document at a certain time.


d. If you EVER need to view a prior version of the document, you can! In fact, you can revert to a prior version.


e. You can send e-mail to your group members through the document!


f. The new version has MARGINS and COMMENTS you can create in the side bar (instead of comments directly on the document).


g. The document saves your data AUTOMATICALLY!


Overall, the students were REALLY impressed with this cloud computing software and I cannot wait to see them edit their document! :)


One unrelated comment - My training sessions were in the morning and my colleague's class (and training sessions) was held in the afternoon. So, I stood up for almost four hours! :) If you conduct a similar training, please make sure you wear comfortable shoes!


Millennial Professor - Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

I Admit It, I am a Binge Grader..

Millennial Professor Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.

Readers,

This summer, I am teaching the second half of my online course and I am a few days behind in grading. Okay, maybe I assigned a little too much in my online course, but I did not want to make this online course any less rigorous than my face-to-face course.

Binge Grading Explained
As a result, I have a lot of assignments to grade. Between the Google Doc assignments and the blackboard assignments, my days are consumed with grading. Not only do I grade one assignment, but I tend to grade SEVERAL assignments at one time (BINGE GRADING). I do not like grading assignments at office when the door is open. Here are my favorite spots for grading student assignments AND writing scholarly papers:

Five of My Favorite Binge Grading Spots!
1. Starbucks or Hastings
2. Riding in the Car
3. Marriott Hotels (free breakfast and free coffee/tea at anytime)
4. My Backyard
5. The Home Office I share with my husband.

My favorite time to grade papers is REALLY early in the morning (6 am to 9 am) at my desk in my home office or in a Marriott hotel room from 9 pm to 2 am.

Grading Papers with a SIZEABLE Amount of Feedback...
When I grade my students' assignments, I strive to give them a wealth of feedback.
If they spent time writing a paper, I am going to read the paper and contribute at least 20 to 30 comments per paper.

Ironically, yesterday I discovered an article titled "Students Mostly Satisfied, But Welcome Faculty Feedback on Papers". This article focuses on my undergraduate experiences, where I received letter or numerical grades on my paper but I did not know how I earned the grade. There were red marks on the front page, but I am not sure if the professor read past the first couple of pages. Not surprisingly, I am one of those people who strives to read EVERY SINGLE page that a student submits. This is a very time consuming task, but I really want to READ what the students write in their papers!

Google Documents Spoils Me...The Feedback Monster!
I adopt new technologies like Google Docs to provide instant feedback on their process (even before the paper is due). I configure the document to send me updates via e-mail whenever the document is modified. Several students contributed comments on an informal survey on Google Docs that I dispersed in the spring.

Are YOU a BINGE GRADER? If so, contribute your FAVORITE grading spots!

Dr. Jennifer T. Edwards
Millennial Professor

Summer Courses with a Splash of Google Docs

Readers,

This has been a very interesting summer so far. I am teaching two courses online (Fundamentals of Human Communication & Organizational Communication) and it has been a great experience so far. Teaching two courses vis blackboard is very time consuming, but I started using Google Docs for every student assignment.

One of the courses is working on a small group-based assignment on organizations and communication technology and the other course is working on speech outlines (an individual assignment).

It was a hard transition at first, but I value having the ability to see the students' progress on the assignments and to make comments on their document. In addition, a few weeks ago(after I created the initial assignments), Google updated their documents program to include a ruled margin and the ability of editors to make comments on the side of the document.

Recently, I started using an iPad to view students' work. This is GREAT, but I cannot edit or make comments on students' work. I ALWAYS have comments (usually 15+ per paper) on students' work. I hope Google and Apple work something out soon.

More reflection to follow. Have you used Google Documents in your classroom or in your library training sessions? How do you use it?

J. Edwards


Millennial Professor

Jennifer T. Edwards, Ed.D.