Mendi Benigni

Holy smokes it’s about time!   You can now share entire folders in Google Docs.  This is great news because so often faculty want to share large numbers of files with their students.  In the past you had to upload or create a file then share it with your class.  If you have 8 people in your class then no big deal.  However, if you have 60 people in your class this takes a really long time.  And this had to be repeated each time you uploaded/created a new file!  Now all you have to do is create a folder and share it and from then on everything you put in the folder will have the same rights you assigned the folder.  This is going to make life SO much easier!

Also new, and in the same vein as folder sharing, is the ability to upload multiple files at one time.  This will also facilitate the sharing of large numbers of files (docs, excel, powerpoint, images and pdf)

Happy sharing!

Tags: New Stuff by benignim
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I have no idea how long some of these things have been in Google Docs but I just discovered them today so I thought I’d pass them on to you.  There has actually be a bunch of features added but these are the things I think may be of the most use (at least to me

• Translate document
  You can now translate an entire document into over 40 languages. Learn more
• Drawings and diagrams
  Create your own drawings and diagrams in Google Docs and use them in your text documents, spreadsheets and presentations. As with the rest of Google Docs, your drawings are auto-saved and you can edit them collaboratively. To get started, open a document and select Insert > Drawing. Learn more
  
• Find and replace toolbar for text documents
  The “Find and replace” feature in the text document Edit menu has gotten a makeover and an upgrade. Now it’s a slick toolbar that sports case matching, whole word matching as well as regular expression-style matching. Learn more
  
• Plus the ever awesome Forms feature but that’s for a later post (mmwa ha ha)

Tags: English, New Stuff, Philosophy, education, tlt by benignim
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Seth Anderson just turned me on to this great link from Penn State.  This page gives you all the formulas you would need to make a great and effective gradebook using Excel. Some of the examples it covers are:

• Summing Up Scores
• Calculating a Numeric Percentage
• Convert Numeric Percentage to Letter Grades
• Weighting Assignments by Points
• Weighting Assignments by Percentage
• Dropping Lowest Score
• Dropping the Lowest Two (or More) Scores
• Keeping the Highest Score
• Keeping the Highest Two (or More) Scores
• Maintaining a Running Grade

Tags: English, New Stuff, Philosophy, education, tlt by benignim
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I just added some new tutorials that may be helpful to you and your students.  Check them out at http://benignim.pbworks.com/Tutorials

• Learn about RSS feeds, what they are and how to use them.
• Learn how to create a blog on the new CofC blog server.

Tags: New Stuff, tlt by benignim
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I know this has probably been around for a bit but I just noticed it today (thanks to Wesley Fryer’s Moving at the Speed of Creativity).  Now Google has easy to use, form-based templates that can be used with Docs, Spreadsheets or Presentations.  Finally you can get a decent looking online presentation.  These not only add a bit of punch to otherwise boring documents but can be very useful for teachers when teaching math or business or a variety of number-based concepts.

They are easy to get to but not very noticable.  Just log into Google Docs as you normally would.  Then from the top of the page you can either choose to search for a template by category or to browse the templates available.  Once you find what you’re after, just click “Use this Template.”

Tags: New Stuff by benignim
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