Doctopus & Goobric - Making Your Google Docs Life Easier

Problem: 
Google Drive and all of the tools contained within it (Docs, Slides, Sheets, and Drawings) are extremely powerful document creation and collaboration resources.  However, when you are using them with 165 students management of these files can quickly become an organizational nightmare.  Anyone who has had to dig through the email avalanche created by six periods of middle school students sharing their essays can completely understand this dilemma.

Solution:
Doctopus and Goobric.  Yes, you read those words correctly.  Doctopus and Goobric are a Google script and Chrome extension with funny names that can make your Google Docs teaching life much easier.  The Docopus script allows you to create one spreadsheet for an assignment that once complete contains a row for each student with the following information

• Name, Email Address, and Period 
• Link to the studnet's version of the assignment
• Information about when the assignment was last editing
• Columns for grade and feedback that can emailed directly back to the students

When you set up the assignment spreadsheet using Doctopus you can determine who has editing or viewing rights and even embargo the assignment for grading (each student no longer has editing rights) all with just a few clicks.  Once the project is complete you can even transfer ownership of document to individual students.  Doctopus works whether you're setting up individual or group projects.  The Chrome extension, Goobric simply allows you to attach a rubric to the document that can be used for grading with rubric-based feedback provided to the students.

Getting Started:

Getting up and running with Doctopus and Goobric is quite easy.  Here is all you need to do.

1. Watch These Tutorials - Doctopus and Goobric by @jayatwood
• Or come to Tech PD next Tuesday (10/29) if you are a PFAA/Leading Edge teacher.  If other academies are interested we can set up a Doctopus/Goobric workshop up at your site in the next few weeks.
2. Student Information Spreadsheet - Create an assignment spreadsheet that contains the following information for your students - First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Period. 
• While you could hand type this, the quicker method is to set up a Google Form and have your students complete it.  Then you will have all of the data for any future projects. Joshua Senge in Leading Edge did this and then shared it with his grade level colleagues for them to use too.
3. Document Template - Create a Docs/Sheets/Slides template for your assignment.
• It doesn't have to ahve anything on it, but you will need a document the Doctopus script can clone for each student.
4. Run the Script - Find Doctopus in the Script Gallery, run it and wait for the magic to happen.

Spend some time and give these two tools a whirl.  You will be happy that you did.  If you need any additional support feel free to join us at the next PFAA/Leading Edge Tuesday workshop on October 29th or let me know and I would be happy to set up a 1:1 appointment.

Joe

Putting Mail Merge to Work in Google Docs

Yesterday Jared and I spent some time figuring out how to use Mail Merge with Gmail and Google Spreadsheets to send out automated emails and we thought we would pass this information along.  These tools are a great way for teachers to easily collect and provide feedback to individual students via email.  The steps are fairly easy:

1. Create a Google Form/Spreadsheet with your data.
2. Draft an email with fields that match your spreadsheet.
3. Install the Edited with Mail Merger script in your Spreadsheet
4. Send the emails to all of your students in three clicks.

Above is a YouTube video walking you through these steps.  Finally, we have to give a shout-out to Alice Keeler, an edtech guru in the Central Valley, who inspired the idea and showed us how to do it through a post on her blog.

Joe & Jared

Google Drive Offline

Have you ever had a situation where you really needed to access your Google Drive folder but you didn't have Internet access?  Well, have no fear you have two different options for accessing your Google Drive files offline.  If you are like me and have both Google Docs files, as well as other types of files (Microsoft Office, PDF, images, and video) in your Google Drive folder then you will probably want to set up both of these methods.

• Docs Offline - Let's say you're in the middle of editing a Google Doc and suddenly you lose your network connection or you find yourself at a conference with crummy wifi taking notes you would like to share with other teachers.  If this is the case then you need to enable Docs Offline.  Once you have this set up, you will be able to easily create and edit Google Docs with or without an Internet connection.  However, there are few things to consider (insert giant asterisk)
1. This needs to be set up ahead of time - so go set it up now!
2. This also needs to be set up on each computer you plan on using and since your documents are saved locally when you lose Internet access it is not a good idea to set this up on a computer that is shared by many users, such as computer lab computers. 
3. This only works when you are using the Chrome web-browser or a Chromebook, so ixnay afarisay.
4. While you can create and edit Docs you will only be able to view Sheets (spreadsheets) and will not be able to view or edit to Slides (presentations).  However, Google is working on this.
• Drive Folder Sync - Docs Offline is critical for accessing and editing Google Docs without Internet.  However, if you are more concerned about accessing non-Google files when you are offline you might consider setting up Drive Folder Sync.  This Mac and Windows application syncs all of the files in your Google Drive folder to one folder on your computer.  As a result, should you find yourself offline you can easily access any Microsoft Office or PDF files you have saved in your Google Drive folder.  Similar to Docs Offline there are a few caveats
1. Google files still need a web-browser to be edited, so Drive Folder Sync alone will not allow you to edit these.  
2. Similar to Docs Offline, your files are stored locally.  As a result, this would not be something you want installed on a shared computer, such as one in a computer lab.  This is best used on a computer that has been assigned to you.
3. Drive Folder Sync requires the installation of software, so if you are interested in installing this on your employee desktop computer put in a NCS Web Help Desk ticket.  Those of you with laptops would be able to do this on your own.

I have been using both of these tools for the past few months on my teacher and personal computer and they have honestly been a lifesaver.  One of the best parts about the Drive Folder Sync is that I find it so much easier to organize my folders on the computer and have them sync up to Google Drive rather than trying to organize them in the browser window.  I can easily drag and drop files into their appropriate places in the Google Drive folder just like any other folder on my computer.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Joe

gClass Folders - Automated Sharing

Google Docs are great, but one of the biggest headaches is the mess that can easily be created when students start sharing files with you.  Quickly your Drive folder can become so disorganized you can only find items by searching for them with keywords.  One method many of us use to remedy this problem is to create folders for groups or individual students where students can drop their work.  However, setting up these folder can be very tedious.

Last night I had the opportunity to check out an EducationOnAir session from Bjorn Behrendt, an education technology coordinator in Vermont.  Bjorn has developed a quick and easy process to create folders in Google Drive for all of his students from one spreadsheet in just a few minutes.  His method, which he calls gClassFolders results in three types of folders being created:

• Class View - Files that are view able by everyone in the class, but students cannot edit (ex: syllabus, project descriptions, rubrics).
• Class Edit - Files that are editable by everyone in the class (ex: group projects, collective notes, brainstorming pages).
• Student Dropbox - A folder that is shared only between you and an individual student.  This can be used as a place for students to turn in assignments.   

I tested it out this morning and the process works brilliantly! Creating your own collection of gClassFolders is simple.  Bjorn has directions on his site, but here is a more detailed set.

1. Create a new spreadsheet using this template.
2. Add all of you student and class information (or copy and paste it from a PowerSchool report).  You can ignore the Teacher column.
3. Click on gClassFolders in the menu bar just to the right of Help
4. Choose Step3-Create Folder and Shares.  (You can ignore Step1 and Step2 is only necessary if your students are not in alphabetical order by last name.)
5. The gClassFolders script will run and during the process a red box will appear on your screen.  Click Ok.
6. Once the box has disappeared run the script again, your folders will be created, and you will see a collection similar to the ones in the picture above in your Google Drive.

Now you might be wondering, what about new students?  After you run gClassFolders you will need to add new students manually.  However, periodically creating folders for or two new students and adding them to the Class Edit and View folders just takes a minutes.  

This link will take you to Bjorn's EducationOnAir session if you would like to check it out yourself.  Let me know if you have any questions.

Joe