DFI Day One #1

Thank you

Firstly a big thank you to Dorothy Burt, Nicola Minehan (Bubble Facilitator) and the team for an excellent start to the Digital Fluency Intensive session today.  My head is buzzing with all the things I have learned.  You certainly get an understanding of what it must be like for students in a classroom as you try to comprehend all the information and then try to apply it, then share it.  Today I am living the full Learn, Create, Share experience.
It was lovely to meet the other 'students' in my group as we grappled with the technology and tried to apply our learning in a set time frame.  I am looking forward to getting to know them all more over the next few weeks.  
My hat goes off to Nicola who was extremely patient with us all and calmly talked us through the steps and repeating them when we stumbled.

Key Learning Points from Today - Day 1 Agenda

Getting organised for a fluent work flow

• Personalising settings - adding a photo to Google profile and choosing a theme for GMail
• Tidying Drive Folders - Putting an asterix * puts the folder to the top, this can be used for a temporary folder that you need to use all the time such as the DFI Sandpit folder.  Numbering and colouring them is a great way of easily accessing key folders.
• Use the advanced search when looking for docs in your drive using the drop down arrow on the search area.
• Using Shift Z means you can add a doc to a folder rather than moving it which would interfere with others who have access to the same doc.  You can still make changes to the doc as you normally would.
• Opening a doc while you are in a folder means it automatically saves in that folder and saves you filing it later.  If you have given people permission to the folder then they have access to the doc too and don't have to ask.

Something to remember for Week 9 :)

• Setting up Google Groups is a useful tool for communicating with big groups, everyone is included and nobody misses out on important information
• groups.google.com allows for collaboration with groups and these can be shared as opposed to your contacts group which can not be shared.
• Remember not to invite members, use the Direct Add instead
• Use the Create button to create then name the group and add members
• Information on how to do this is on the last page of the link in the agenda

Using Google Docs 101

• When you cut and paste from a doc on the web use 'shift, control V' as this takes out the underlying code and keeps it clean text
• Use the style heading for titles and sub headings as it keeps the text uniform 
• Use the Insert Table of Contents by highlighting the heading and links will show at the top of the page which means people can go directly to the part they need rather than scroll through it all
• Using Tools - Voice Typing to record what you say into text is a great tool
• Using the Explore Tool to add images ensures they are legal images and already acknowledge the source
• Using the Explore Tool to cite text click on the " marks and it will record as a footnote

Lastly, Tips and Tricks for Google Posters

• We had to make a poster so I have put all the information I learned into a poster form and had the opportunity to create and share what I learned