Martin Philip, Academic Liaison Librarian, offers tips on using Google Q&A to add interest and interaction to your teaching presentations
Shared from the Lib-Innovation blog.
I've always been a default Microsoft PowerPoint user, however Google's recently added Q&A feature to their Slides product may have persuaded me otherwise.
PowerPoint still seems to be the most ubiquitous piece of presentation software. It's certainly the one programme that I've spent most of my student and professional life using and the one I'm most comfortable creating slides with.
Nowadays, however, there are many presentation programmes to choose from; Google Slides, Apple's Keynote, Prezi, Canva to name a few. They all essentially do the same thing which is to present your topic and/or ideas, using, texts, graphics, photos and video.
Read more of this post at: Lib-Innovation: Using Google Q&A in large teaching sessions
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Google. Show all posts
Friday, 10 February 2017
Tuesday, 15 March 2016
A chance to develop your skills with Google Summer of Code
Google Summer of Code offers you an opportunity to hone your software development skills - and get paid for it. Gavin Atkinson explains more...
Google Summer of Code is an innovative program dedicated to getting university students from around the world involved with open source software development.
Google offer a $5,500 stipend to students in exchange for them working on open source software over the Summer. Running every year since 2005, nearly 11,000 projects have been accepted from students in over 100 countries by over 500 organisations, and several students from the University of York have participated in the past. This year 180 organisations are involved, in such diverse areas as compilers to operating systems, web applications to virtual reality, FPGAs to games, databases to genetic research. There are projects written with Python, Ruby, Java, C, assembly, JavaScript, and everything in between. Whatever your areas of interest, experience and knowledge, there is likely to be a project that fits your skill set. Students submit proposals to participating organisations to work on projects suggested either by themselves or by the organisations, and if selected they are paired up with a mentor from that organisation to help them throughout their twelve week project. Summer of Code is a fantastic way to spend your summer earning money writing and releasing open source code for the benefit of all.
Two organisations in particular participating in Google Summer of Code this year have a special connection with IT Services. Arthur Clune is involved with The Honeynet Project, a security research organisation dedicated to learning the tools, tactics and motives involved in computer and network attacks, and developing open source security tools to improve Internet security, with a focus on honeypots and threat analysis. I am part of The FreeBSD Project, an advanced operating system for modern server, desktop and embedded platforms which can be found powering everything from the PlayStation 4 to huge Juniper routers. It's at the core of Apple's OSX and powers the servers Netflix use to stream movies worldwide.
Even if neither of those projects interest you, do take a look through the full list of organisations, available at:
The closing date for applications is Friday 25 March.
Useful links:
Google Summer of Code is an innovative program dedicated to getting university students from around the world involved with open source software development.
Google offer a $5,500 stipend to students in exchange for them working on open source software over the Summer. Running every year since 2005, nearly 11,000 projects have been accepted from students in over 100 countries by over 500 organisations, and several students from the University of York have participated in the past. This year 180 organisations are involved, in such diverse areas as compilers to operating systems, web applications to virtual reality, FPGAs to games, databases to genetic research. There are projects written with Python, Ruby, Java, C, assembly, JavaScript, and everything in between. Whatever your areas of interest, experience and knowledge, there is likely to be a project that fits your skill set. Students submit proposals to participating organisations to work on projects suggested either by themselves or by the organisations, and if selected they are paired up with a mentor from that organisation to help them throughout their twelve week project. Summer of Code is a fantastic way to spend your summer earning money writing and releasing open source code for the benefit of all.
Two organisations in particular participating in Google Summer of Code this year have a special connection with IT Services. Arthur Clune is involved with The Honeynet Project, a security research organisation dedicated to learning the tools, tactics and motives involved in computer and network attacks, and developing open source security tools to improve Internet security, with a focus on honeypots and threat analysis. I am part of The FreeBSD Project, an advanced operating system for modern server, desktop and embedded platforms which can be found powering everything from the PlayStation 4 to huge Juniper routers. It's at the core of Apple's OSX and powers the servers Netflix use to stream movies worldwide.
Even if neither of those projects interest you, do take a look through the full list of organisations, available at:
The closing date for applications is Friday 25 March.
Useful links:
Monday, 30 June 2014
How I fixed the Library bridge
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| The Camera Guy Detail from Google Street View. Copyright 2014 Google. |
You may have seen that Google recently added Street View photos for both of the University's campuses. As you can't just drive around in a car, they sent someone with a camera on their back to walk around the many paths that weave around our beautiful grounds. You can now explore the campuses without having to get off the sofa and you can even find the guy with the camera if you look hard enough!
This is great for seeing what stuff looks like and, let's be honest, spending hours trying to find if anyone you know got caught on camera. However, Google Maps can do much more. You've probably already used Google to get directions - maybe to work out how to drive to the University - but did you know you can also use it to work out your walking route around campus once you get there? Google's got our roads and paths mapped out, so it can tell you the best way to walk between Central Hall and The Ron Cooke Hub as well as showing you what it will look like when you get there.
This is really useful, especially if you're new to the University, but when I tried out walking directions on Google Maps a few weeks ago, I was surprised to find that Google didn't know about the Library bridge. You could clearly see the bridge on Street View and in the satellite photos, but on the map itself it simply wasn't there. This meant Google's directions were hopeless. You can get between the Library and Market Square in about a minute on foot, but Google sent you off along paths and roads in completely the wrong direction.
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| Report a problem Detail from Google Street View. Copyright 2014 Google. |
There are actually quite a few bits of the campus paths that aren't right on Google Maps, or buildings with the wrong name, but it really is easy and quick to get them fixed and doing so will make Google Maps a great tool to help people find their way around the University. Have a look at the maps of campus and if you see anything wrong or missing, click that Report a problem link!
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| The Library Bridge - now on Google Maps Edited detail from Google Street View. Copyright 2014 Google |
PS: Behind the scenes, there's a great tool called Google Map Maker that lets you make changes to maps by hand. When you click Report a problem, the problems mostly get submitted to this tool and are reviewed and fixed by members of the community. Anyone can get involved, but that's probably the subject of another blog post.
Monday, 23 June 2014
Where do good ideas come from?
Tom Smith stumbles on a good idea...
Many people think ideas happen in a flash, a moment of inspiration, that eureka moment. They also believe that it's often "other people" that have ideas, either a boss or lone genius hunting down those elusive light bulbs.
The funny thing is, that the reality is, ideas can be slow things, taking time to come into being and most often they happen in discussion or collaboration. From what I've seen, the best ideas don't come from senior management, or from a sole genius but from people working together, people actually doing stuff in the real world. Many of these "good ideas" can be almost accidental.
My role at the university has been to both introduce people to the Google Apps suite, both evangelising them and working with people to help them realise their ideas.
Here's a story of an "accidental idea" that I think is good and is a great example of what I call "people actually doing stuff" and collaboration and discussion.
Someone in Facilities in the Library, let's call him Andrew (because that's his name), was talking to someone in the Communications Team, we can call her Jess because that's her name too. They came to me, Tom, and asked, "Can we have a spreadsheet to make the recording of seat availability in the Library easier?"
I didn't know that this information was collected. I showed them how to add drop downs and colours to a Google Spreadsheet. Job done.
I then discovered that someone actually regularly patrols the building and carries an Android tablet. I had the thought that instead of it being a spreadsheet, which was OK but not ideal, it could be an app, better designed for updating on the move. It took me about half an hour to make an app that did that for them, updating the same spreadsheet, using Apps Script. Apps Script is a coding language based on JavaScript built into Google Spreadsheets, Sites and Docs and it's a fantastic tool for people who want to quickly make their ideas happen.
The story doesn't end here. Previously, I'd shared an office with Aimee, who'd discovered that with a little HTML hacking, we could show some Google data on the York website. And so Jess added the seat availability page to our web site as a trial service. An accidental feature of the technology means that this chart is updated every 5 minutes, rather than every few hours like the web site.
And the story goes on. By now, only days after launching a trial service, the Communications Team were already receiving positive feedback from students.
Next, Jess and Steve, seeing that the data could be displayed on the web site, asked if it could also be displayed on the big screens around Harry Fairhust. We found that the original spreadsheet looked a "bit lost" on the big screens, so wrote some code to "push" the data from the main spreadsheet to another sheet formatted with bigger fonts etc (shown below).
function copy_sheet(){
//Simply makes a copy of the main sheet
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet()
var sheet = ss.getSheetByName("Seating availability")
var range = sheet.getDataRange()
var a1 = range.getA1Notation()
var values = range.getValues()
var desination_spreadsheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById('nu7JgRtB5CdHJUVlNaRzUyd_pmUWc')
var destination_sheet = desination_spreadsheet.getSheetByName("Big Screen")
var destination_range = destination_sheet.getRange(a1)
destination_range.setValues( values )
}
The trial Seating Availability service came into being after chance questions and discussions. It took little to no time to put together. It uses Google Spreadsheets, an app, an android tablet, a widget embedded in a web page and our big screens. It involved at least four or five people. We will soon be adding extra areas and improving it based on feedback.
This is already hugely popular for all sorts of reasons - not just the ones you expect; I heard from someone I was working with in Disability Services that students with problems with anxiety love being able to avoid "nearly full" study spaces.
Still wondering where good ideas come from?
Tom Smith leads our Collaborative Tools Project. He also has his own Everythingability blog
If you're interested in finding out more about what you can do with Google Apps, follow the Google Apps European User Group on Twitter when they meet at York on 23 & 24 July at https://twitter.com/GEUG14 or search the hashtag #GEUG14.
Many people think ideas happen in a flash, a moment of inspiration, that eureka moment. They also believe that it's often "other people" that have ideas, either a boss or lone genius hunting down those elusive light bulbs.
The funny thing is, that the reality is, ideas can be slow things, taking time to come into being and most often they happen in discussion or collaboration. From what I've seen, the best ideas don't come from senior management, or from a sole genius but from people working together, people actually doing stuff in the real world. Many of these "good ideas" can be almost accidental.
My role at the university has been to both introduce people to the Google Apps suite, both evangelising them and working with people to help them realise their ideas.
Here's a story of an "accidental idea" that I think is good and is a great example of what I call "people actually doing stuff" and collaboration and discussion.Someone in Facilities in the Library, let's call him Andrew (because that's his name), was talking to someone in the Communications Team, we can call her Jess because that's her name too. They came to me, Tom, and asked, "Can we have a spreadsheet to make the recording of seat availability in the Library easier?"
I didn't know that this information was collected. I showed them how to add drop downs and colours to a Google Spreadsheet. Job done.
I then discovered that someone actually regularly patrols the building and carries an Android tablet. I had the thought that instead of it being a spreadsheet, which was OK but not ideal, it could be an app, better designed for updating on the move. It took me about half an hour to make an app that did that for them, updating the same spreadsheet, using Apps Script. Apps Script is a coding language based on JavaScript built into Google Spreadsheets, Sites and Docs and it's a fantastic tool for people who want to quickly make their ideas happen.The story doesn't end here. Previously, I'd shared an office with Aimee, who'd discovered that with a little HTML hacking, we could show some Google data on the York website. And so Jess added the seat availability page to our web site as a trial service. An accidental feature of the technology means that this chart is updated every 5 minutes, rather than every few hours like the web site.And the story goes on. By now, only days after launching a trial service, the Communications Team were already receiving positive feedback from students.
Next, Jess and Steve, seeing that the data could be displayed on the web site, asked if it could also be displayed on the big screens around Harry Fairhust. We found that the original spreadsheet looked a "bit lost" on the big screens, so wrote some code to "push" the data from the main spreadsheet to another sheet formatted with bigger fonts etc (shown below).
function copy_sheet(){
//Simply makes a copy of the main sheet
var ss = SpreadsheetApp.getActiveSpreadsheet()
var sheet = ss.getSheetByName("Seating availability")
var range = sheet.getDataRange()
var a1 = range.getA1Notation()
var values = range.getValues()
var desination_spreadsheet = SpreadsheetApp.openById('nu7JgRtB5CdHJUVlNaRzUyd_pmUWc')
var destination_sheet = desination_spreadsheet.getSheetByName("Big Screen")
var destination_range = destination_sheet.getRange(a1)
destination_range.setValues( values )
}
This is already hugely popular for all sorts of reasons - not just the ones you expect; I heard from someone I was working with in Disability Services that students with problems with anxiety love being able to avoid "nearly full" study spaces.
Still wondering where good ideas come from?
Tom Smith leads our Collaborative Tools Project. He also has his own Everythingability blog
If you're interested in finding out more about what you can do with Google Apps, follow the Google Apps European User Group on Twitter when they meet at York on 23 & 24 July at https://twitter.com/GEUG14 or search the hashtag #GEUG14.
Tuesday, 3 June 2014
GEUG14 - Google Apps for Education European User Group 2014
Many Higher Education Institutes worldwide have 'gone Google' and now use Google Apps for Education (GAFE). Following the success of GEUG12 and GUUG11, The University of York invites academic and support staff to this year’s European User Group Meeting on 23 and 24 June.
York was one of the first to move to Google for students and staff, and we're keen to pool our knowledge and learn from others. We've hosted smaller groups to share experiences with other institutions, and we're now pleased to be home to this much larger event.
At the time of writing, we have 72 people attending from 29 institutes in England, Scotland, Ireland, Malta, Denmark and Austria. Registration closes on 9 June, so there is still time to increase our numbers. If you are a current customer of Google Apps or are interested in learning more sign-up while you still have the chance.
The day and a half event will feature sessions from different Universities, the Association for Learning Technology (ALT) and Google. They will focus on using Google Apps in learning environments, business procedures and the support side. Topics include cloud computing, Google Analytics, Google Apps Script, Google Drive, bringing on board unhappy staff and more.
Starting the meeting off will be Matthew Collins, a lecturer in Archaeology at the University of York. His keynote speech, Living in the Cloud, will discuss how GAFE can be used in an undergraduate module and explore the advantages and pitfalls of doing so. Matthew is a keen user of GAFE and uses it in his teaching modules as well as to collaborate in projects across the world.
One highlight of the meeting will be the Google Roadmap, which is a closed session on Tuesday 24 June, open to current customers of Google Apps only. Presented by Ross Mahon, Strategic Partnerships Manager at Google, the Roadmap will cover some of the things in store for the Apps suite.
ALT Award winner Gary Wood will be giving a presentation and workshop - Google in Learning & Teaching: A Case Study All About Linguistics - on how he used the Google Apps suite to facilitate authentic learning opportunities and build inclusive communities of learning, leading to him receiving national recognition from Google and ALT. The session will demonstrate the work of All About Linguistics and the workshop on offer will give delegates the opportunity to learn more about the tools used.
For those who have not yet 'gone Google' or are looking to delve further into the world of GAFE there are multiple sessions describing experiences of this transition. Brian Morrissey's session The Big Move describes the University College Dublin staff transition to Google Mail. Mally Mclane from the University of Bristol will use his session Calendar, Guided by the Principles to tell us how the University went from having no calendar to everyone using Google Calendar in 48 hours - and still managed to keep everyone sane.
On the topic of keeping people sane and happy, and dealing with those who aren’t so happy, Joanne Casey from the University of York will give a session on how to bring users on board with GAFE - even the ones who tell you You've ruined my life!
Check out the rest of the programme...
GEUG14 is supported by Google, with exhibits by Ancoris and Paperpile who will be present to discuss their products. Ancoris will be demonstrating Appogee Leave and have Chromebooks on hand for delegates to try. Paperpile, a reference management tool, will be around to answer any questions about their Add-on.
What: GEUG14 - Google Apps for Education European User Group Meeting
When: Monday 23 - Tuesday 24 June 2014
Where: The Ron Cooke Hub, University of York, UK
Website: www.york.ac.uk/geug14
Who: Kimi Smith
Twitter: @GEUG14
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