Google Calendar Appointment Slots - Perfect for Office Hours and Advising Appointment Sign-ups

Google Calendar's Appointment Slots makes it easy to create an online appointment sign-up sheet. Simply select days/times on your calendar you want to make available on your sign-up sheet and click Appointment Slots. Fill in details such as the length of each individual slot to create your own public appointment calendar. Email or post the link to your calendar appointment page and students can start booking appointments by clicking on available appointment.

For step-by-step instructions, see Google Help  Don't use Google Calendar? You might want to give the Moodle Scheduler activity a try.  

Talking Google at the 2019 Faculty Technology Institute

While the 2019 Faculty Technology Institute went a bit lighter on Google topics, we still snuck in a
few classes covering some of our most frequently asked questions. Below is a general summary of Google at the 2019 FTI, as well as links to some helpful and related resources.

We regularly offer What's New with G Suite? as a way of keeping on top of the ongoing and evolving G Suite platform. The session opened with a general review of what it means to be a G Suite campus and where to find more information about updates and outages. This was followed by an overview of features that have appeared over the past year, including smart compose, scheduled send, and the end of Google Drive Desktop (hello Drive File Stream!).

An upcoming change to G Suite that warranted it's own (mini)session was Google's answer to Slack, the new-and-improved Hangouts Chat. Offering an open, collaborative, and persistent communication option for teams, Hangouts Chat will eventually replace the current iteration of Google Hangouts. For more information, check out our previous blog post, which covers the changes and improvements in more detail.

Does an empty inbox at the end of the day sound like a dream come true? It doesn't have to be. In our Zero Inbox in Gmail session, we covered a few general tips on how you can get there. These included utilizing a proper to-do list application, leveraging Gmail's robust search function, and using filters and labels to auto-sort incoming mail.

With unlimited storage available in Google Drive, it's easy to let organization fall to the wayside. Similar to Zero Inbox, the Organize Your Google Drive class dug into many of the existing tools and features in Google Drive to help maximize organization and productivity. With so many options available, we've found that rather than merely telling users how to use it, it is often more helpful to help users understand what they can do and where to go for more information.

As always, users in the L&C community can always reach out to us with questions regarding G Suite features and functionality. Send your inquiries to itservice[at]lclark.edu and we will get back to you as soon as we can.

Three General Tips for Digital Storytelling

Digital storytelling projects have become increasingly common in higher education. On our campus, video essays, StoryMaps projects, immersive 360 video stories, and even short Adobe Spark videos. We've dropped in for several in-class instructional workshops on the subject, and while the content of these sessions can vary by subject matter and medium, three overarching tips have remained central to our message.

Have a clear, concise summary of your project

You should be able to describe your video project in one sentence, similar to an elevator pitch. This sentence does not need to be included in your presentation, but it's good to articulate it for yourself. It can help provide focus and clarity as you proceed through the various steps of outlining, storyboarding, and adding media. On that note...

Always ask "Why?" when adding content

Once you have your main idea, you can then make decisions on how to present your project. Trying to determine which image to use? How much text? Video or not? Return to your main idea and ask yourself "how would this media help support this idea? Does this clarify my message or convolute it? Of course, you can't answer that question if you don't...

Get Feedback

As the creator of our project, we (should) know our message. The downside to being the creator, however, is because we understand what we're trying to do or say, we have blind spots to where the message is not as clear.  Your project should be able to stand on its own without you having to explain or clarify it, and you won't be able to test that without getting feedback—ideally from those who are not familiar with the subject matter.

Since we are not masters of the medium, here are some additional tips you might find helpful:

• Getting Started with Digital Storytelling - Digital Education at U of Oxford
• 10 Tips for Compelling Digital Storytelling - journalism.co.uk
• 8 Steps to Great Digital Storytelling - edtechteacher.org
• Marketing Magic: 10 Tips For Improving Your Storytelling Craft - Forbes

Changes on the Horizon for Google Hangouts

Google Hangouts

If you're tuned into news regarding all things G Suite, you may have heard Google Hangouts will be discontinued in the near future. This message is somewhat misleading. More specifically, Google Hangouts will become "Classic" hangouts as they transition to the newer iteration Hangouts Chat designed for organizations using the enterprise G Suite (as opposed to the public gmail.com). This new iteration will appear first to Enterprise clients, which includes G Suite for Education, before eventually replacing Classic Hangouts at some point in the future.

If you have used Google Hangouts in the past, you currently have the ability to download and install Hangouts Chat for Windows desktop, and Android, iOS. It is not yest available as a desktop install for Mac, but may still be used through your Gmail homepage. Keep in mind, also, it is only available for your lclark.edu account and not for your personal gmail.com account.

Hangouts Chat will bring increased functionality, including features like dedicated virtual rooms, threaded conversations, and progress tracking (similar to Slack). More importantly, these features will be integrated with the existing Google Suite and designed to work seamlessly alongside apps like Gmail and Google Docs. We'll keep an eye on updates and provide additional information as it becomes available.

Updates to EdTech Training Offerings and Resources

Curricular EdTech Workshops page

Interested scheduling a digital skills workshop for your class? Educational Technology has compiled a list of curricular EdTech workshops we have offered in the past. Whether you are interested in one of those listed, or have a nother subject in mind, use our contact form to give us the details. We will do our best to work with you to design a workshop that meets your class needs!

We have also added a shortlink for our Moodle Resources page at go.lclark.edu/moodlehelp. This page covers issues most commonly encountered by Moodle users in the L&C community. A general Moodle help resource is also available onine at docs.moodle.org. If you haven't checked them out before, we also have resource pages for general IT topics as well as a dedicated page for G-Suite-related topics.

Google Ending Support for Google Drive Desktop May 12th, 2018

Google will officially shut down Google Drive Desktop on May 12, 2018 and has offered two replacement options: Google Backup & Sync and Google Drive File Stream. 

IT recommends that users who wish to continue to have desktop access to their lclark Google Drive use Google Drive File Stream. Google Backup & Sync is the recommended option for personal (gmail.com) Google accounts.

Google Drive File Stream is a flexible sync tool designed for G Suite for Education users. Similar to using a network share drive, it makes your Google Drive available through mounting your drive, giving you access to your entire drive while you're connected to the internet. If you're concerned about not having internet access, you have the option to make specific folders available offline. To do that, once installed, you would navigate to the folder on your computer, right-click the file or folder you wish to make available offline, and select Drive File Stream > Available Offline.

Uninstall instructions are available here for Google Drive Desktop. Google provides help documentation for Google Drive File Stream, but feel free to reach out to the IT Service Desk if you have additional questions.