Posted on No Comments on Using Google Docs to Facilitate Team Projects

Using Google Docs to Facilitate Team Projects

MJulien Marienr. Julien Marion presented a webinar on Using Google Docs to Facilitate Team Projects on Tuesday, March 31.  Mr. Marion, in addition to serving as the Assistant Director of Admission at Houston and Owner of Move and Dance Fitness Center, is an Adjunct Instructor for Belhaven.

Julien has used Google Docs to make the Team Projects a more positive experience for his students and shared in this webinar some of the exciting possibilities available.  He used a highly participative model of presenting and actually invited several of the attendees to join him in editing a document and a presentation (similar to Power Point) live during the webinar.  Comments in the chat area were Wow! and Cool!  Julien did a great job answering questions and showing several tips and tricks which he has picked up along the way.  The evaluations from the end of the webinar all agreed that they took away value worth the time in participating and almost all rated the experience as Exceptional or Superior.  The only complaint was that the session wasn’t long enough, leading to the real possibility of a follow-up webinar on this topic in the future.

There is a link to the webinar under “Faculty Resources” within this Blog (see top of page).  I’m confident you will find this is an hour well spent.

Posted on No Comments on BU Webinar: Using Google Docs to Facilitate Team Projects

BU Webinar: Using Google Docs to Facilitate Team Projects

Belhaven University Adult Studies will present a Webinar on Using Google Docs to Facilitate Team Projects on March 31 at 11:30 CST (12:30 EST)

Learning outcomes, Participants will:

  • Have a better understanding of how Google Docs work for personal and professional use.
  • Be able to create a Google Doc/Sheet/Presentation and “share” it with others for shared editing or comments.
  • Be able to implement Google Docs to facilitate Team Projects

Presenter:

Julien MarienMr. Julien Marion, Assistant Director of Admission, and an   Adjunct Business Professor at Belhaven University Houston

Julien Marion earned both his bachelor and his Master degree with Belhaven University. He obtained a BA in International Studies and Master of Business Administration.

Julien has been happily married to Mallorie Lewis for 6 years and they have 3 beautiful kids under the age of 5; Liam, Adrianna and Oliver.

Julien and Mallorie are also the founders and owners of Move Dance and Fitness Center, a Christian Dance and Fitness Center in the Katy/Richmond area, where they get people moving by teaching dance, fitness, and leadership through Christian principles.

Webinar

Space is limited to the first 50 to register.  Participants will need an active internet connection and speakers to participate.  Those interested can register at this link:

REGISTER

Posted on No Comments on Instructional Deck

Instructional Deck

I am planning of developing an Instructional “Deck” of Pages which can be used as a resource for teaching.  I’m planning using the format below for the Deck and will be adding a variety of subjects such as:

Brain Mapping, Mobile Exercises, Best Practices in PPT Design, Google Sites, Role Play, Game Based Learning, Plaigarism Detection, Blended Learning, Blogging, ZIGZAG Exercise, Case Study Analysis, SWOT Analysis, Brainstorming, Killer Presentation Tips, Blooms Taxonomy, Creating Quick Tutorials.  If you can think of other topics, please email me at rupchurch@blehaven.edu.  If you would like to build one or more of these pages, let me know and I’ll get you the template (from Google Draw).

Posted on No Comments on Infographics as Team Projects?

Infographics as Team Projects?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am seeing more and more use of infographics in the education arena.  They actually remind me of poster presentations I’ve seen at various conferences.  What I like about them is the way they pull information together and organize it for clarity.  At this link (The Best Simple Tools to Create Infographics for Your Class)  you can find an article about several programs which can be used to create an infographic.  I’ve included a sample infographic below which I found at Google Images.  The point of this, I think, is that it would be a creative project for a Project Team assignment with some interesting discussion being generated in data collection, design, and presentation as well as the classroom presentation/explanation/defense.

Posted on No Comments on Using Google Docs for Team Project Collaboration

Using Google Docs for Team Project Collaboration

Most of us have at least heard about Google Docs but may have been too busy to explore this application or consider what it might offer to us or our students.  A colleague, Julien Marion, and I discussed this last week while we were having lunch.  I had used Google Docs only in a superficial way up to this point, but after our discussion I began to explore this application more fully.  I discovered an amazing tool which not only allows real-time collaboration on papers and spreadsheets, but also tracks revisions so that Instructors can see who has made contributions.  I’ve included a short video below which I found on YouTube.  There are hundreds more on the same topic (i.e. “Using Google Docs for Collaboration”).  I really encourage you to watch this short video and perhaps even show it in your class and encourage your project teams to give it a try.   You could even reserve the computer lab and set up a real-time experiment with your class. If you decide to give this a try, I would be interested to hear how your experiment turned out, as well as how to make using Google Docs even more effective.  There are likely many more ways you can think of to use this application; again, I would be interested in hearing your thoughts and ideas, email me at: rupchurch@belhaven.edu



Posted on No Comments on Using Evernote in the Classroom

Using Evernote in the Classroom

I just read the article posted in the Chronicle of Higher Education with the title: Using Evernote in the Classroom.  For those of you who may not know, Evernote is a computer program WITH mobile applications for Android and Apple whose primary function is to store information in a way that easy to retrieve.  It syncs information across all devices so that what you save to Evernote from your computer is also available on your mobile device or the other way around.  It has a free version which I have yet to exhaust and a premium (paid) version with even more functions.

The article describes ways to use Evernote to support your teaching and would make a great repository for your class notes and materials.  the information can be tagged for even easier recall and shared.  There is also a link to an Evernote Notebook which is full of ideas on how to effectively use this program.  In that notebook there are a variety of other articles such as:  “5 Tips to Use Evernote for Academic Achievement,” “7 Smart Ways to Use Evernote for Research,” “How academics use Evernote to make life easier.”

This program has been around for quite a while and only gets better with more functions.  One of the functions I especially like is the “webclipper” which provides an icon at the top of my browser so that if I find an article I like, I can click on that icon and it “clips” a copy and stores it in my Evernote notebook.

Read through the article and the links and give it a try.  Its free and I have found it a great tool.