Well I have taken this particular saying and adjusted it for our current tech camp activity: It takes time to save time.
That's how I felt about all of the ad-ons, apps, and extensions that I looked through this week. The purpose, as I see it, of all of these great tools is to save time, make things easier, more streamlined, and smooth. While my final results seem to concur with this purpose, the process of getting there is time-consuming and slow.
My patience was tried and tested as I looked through the many different ways Google is trying to save me time! As it is with so much technology, there is a lot of muck out there to dig through. It's kind of a go through the storm to see the rainbow situation. But if you persevere and really take time to look through it all, to the victor goes the spoils.
I've listed some of my "spoils" below:
Lucidpress App - I need to play around with it some more, but so far I am happy. I have a mac, an iPad, an iPhone, and Chromebook and yet my heart lies in PC land. So, I have downloaded the mac version of Microsoft Word, asked to get the updated Microsoft Office on my school computer, and basically act like a toddler refusing broccoli when people ask me to create documents in Google Docs. Lucidpress helps ease my transition to Google a bit by acting just like Microsoft Publisher with the added benefit of sharing an online link. I haven't created anything yet, but I am looking forward to playing around with it.
Gmail Checker - You know those people who have like 1,456 unread emails in their inbox??? Well, they basically drive me crazy!! :) I admit it, I am compulsive about checking my email. Adding the Google Mail Checker extension to my Chromebook seemed like a no-brainer. It lists the number of unread emails I currently have, and takes me directly there when I can't keep myself away any longer! One word: LOVE
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| Seriously, this is like my kryptonite |
Gliffy - Honestly, I played around with titling today's post as Nifty Gliffy but the rhyme just wasn't quite there! :) I am already a fan of Gliffy, a diagram creating add-on for Google Docs. I think my feelings about google docs have been made very clear throughout this post, and Gliffy helps ease my pain (insert poignant thoughts of Field of Dreams here). I created a rough, emphasis on the rough, example of how Gliffy works. Basically you create a diagram in the add-on and then it inserts into your Google Doc as an image. Here is an example of something it can do.
So that's that, taking time to save time. It's totally worth it!
Stacey, You are rocking my nerd camp world right now! Is it bad that I want to watch that entire movie now after watching that clip, and that I want to adopt your tag-line, it takes time to save time!?
ReplyDeleteThanks for the Gliffy tip. The re-realigned AP History rubrics make it clear that comparison AND contrast will be an important skill for students and is a lot harder than it seems (they typically wither compare or contrast but doing both with a series of events or primary sources often is really hard). The diagrams are also really helpful for the ARCC Biology classes.
ReplyDeleteLove reading your posts! (Have I already said that?) You are always spot-on! Gliffy will be VERY useful. Thanks for finding that one! I think as a department we should start a document with a list of add-ons, extensions and whatever else there is and a short description of each that we think are good. I'll get that going - that could save us some of the time?!?
ReplyDeleteI totally agree that these "time-saving" tools take sooo much time to learn! I spent HOURS on this assignment and then I'd read the reviews about what other people thought and I'd think to myself "Well, maybe this isn't so great." It seems like add-ons especially were really "glitchy", so I'm glad to hear that you like Gliffy.
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