My Twenty-Percent Project: Part 3

Oh Google Calendar, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways...

Part 3 in my twenty-percent project involved learning about the finer details of Google Calendar, an app that I honestly can't live without! (To check out previous reflections see Part 1 here & Part 2 here). This was approximately a 3 hour tutorial that I did over the span of a few days since I felt fairly comfortable with the program and wasn't worried about forgetting the finer details as much. I use my Google calendars daily, to the point where they have completely replaced all of my other planners/agenda books for almost two years now.

Some of my favorite aspects of Google Calendar are:

• Integration with my smartphone & tablet. 
• Access to up-to-date information or changes on any of my devices, no matter where I am
• Ability to create multiple calendars under the same account for different purposes, and to turn each one on or off as needed for clarity/visibility
• Color coding for calendars and individual events, to quickly see what the event pertains to
• Share calendars with multiple people so they can view, edit, manage sharing, or all of the above (great for the joint calendar I have with my husband to manage family events)
• Can add guests to an event without sharing your whole calendar with them
• Easy embed capabilities (awesome for class homework calendars, etc)
• Event reminder notifications (on screen, SMS, email)
• Can receive daily emails of that day's agenda in one concise list

There are other great reasons too, but I'll stop there in order to not sound like the tutorial :) I took the test, did well, and realized I'm nothing if not consistant with the score. (It's still driving me crazy that I don't know what questions I miss and why!) 

Next step: Google Docs. That one's going to be intense, but I'm looking forward to it!

My Twenty-Percent Project: Part 2 (Updated)

I am training to be a Ninja... Well, training to be a Gmail ninja at least, but that's besides the point :)

Part two of my twenty-percent project involves diving into the awesomeness that is Gmail. There is sooooo much to learn about gmail besides the basic creating & sending of email! So much so that the tutorial is estimated to take about three hours to complete, not counting the webinar from the Google Apps for Education Professional Development series, which in about an hour long by itself.

I'm not going to lie, this second section is taking much longer to work through than I had anticipated (especially when compared to the relatively short part 1 Introduction section I wrote about). There are eight different chapters to read through and as of now I have only made it through four of them. There's a fair amount of information that I am already familiar with since I use Gmail as my primary email address, but there are a lot of little nuances to each of the parts that I either hadn't used or hadn't even heard about before. I am taking notes along the way so that I'll hopefully remember it all when it comes down to taking the test *fingers crossed*.

I'm still enjoying this adventure and learning new, helpful tips but I'm realizing that I will probably not finish all six of the modules before the semester is over--actually I can almost guarantee that I won't considering that the Docs training is estimated at eight hours by itself(!). I am quite determined to work my way through this though and will keep you posted along the way!  :)

****UPDATE****

I AM a Gmail Ninja :)

I got stubborn after writing my post and decided to plow through as many of the other four chapters as I could stand... only to find out that the last four were significantly shorter than the first--figures! Some of the learning highlights were the group chat option in gchat, color-coding message labels (didn't know you could do that!), and learning what the task function is really capable of (hint: it's great for the list makers out there). Overall, pretty cool stuff! I plan on keeping my notes and showing some of the highlights to the class in a few weeks so we can all benefit from it--but for now I will revel in my ninja status and get myself a well-deserved cookie ;)

My Twenty-Percent Project: Part 1

After much thinking and considering the input from my peers, I decided to focus my Twenty-Percent Project around becoming a Google Apps for Education (GAFE) qualified individual. I was really excited to try it out but also scared of what it would look like and what the test would ask me to do to prove that I am qualified. 

So ready or not I started Module 1 today: Google Apps for Education (Admin). The training module was straight forward and fairly easy to follow--four chapters with different focus points to read/review. My former district had just begun using Google Apps my last year there so I had experience with what it offers and entails. There was general overview information, FAQs, and a fair amount of site administrator specific information. I wish that my GAFE account had admin privileges so I could click around & see what they were talking about, but even without it I was able to learn some pretty cool things that would have been helpful in my old district and will be helpful in the future. For example, my former district was not using the groups function to be best of their ability. Not only are groups able to be used for specific email lists, but even more useful is that you can share sites, docs, videos, and calendars and their permissions to those groups as well! And that these permissions self-update as you add or remove people from that group, without any extra steps. That by itself would have made our lives a lot easier last year!

After completing the training module it was time to take the test. Once you purchase the test and start it, you have 90 minutes to complete 60 multiple choice questions about the module you just completed. I was freaking out a little at first until I realized that you can go back into the training readings to find the answer if you're not sure (*phew!). After figuring that out and relaxing a bit, the test went smoothly and I was done with plenty of time (even with looking up a few answers). Anxiously clicking the "End Test" button I found the results below:

Yay! Go me! :) You have to get 80% or higher to pass, so I was in the clear. The only thing I wish they would change is allow you to see what questions you missed--it drives me crazy when I get something wrong and I don't know why! But all in all, a good first Twenty-Percent Project day. 

One part down, five more to go....

My Twenty-Percent Project: A Brainstorm

Have you ever heard of a "Twenty-Percent Project"? 

(and no, it's not a class assessment that's worth 20% of your grade :) 

I hadn't before this semester started. The idea behind our 20% project is based off of what Google does with and for their employees. Basically you allow people to dedicate 20% of their time to work on personal projects of their choosing, with the hopes & premise that whatever they're working on will benefit the company in some way. Along with that, if people are working on a project of their choosing that they're passionate about they will produce better work and be happier on the job. All sounds awesome to me! And logical and innovative!

Since our class is called Learning & Technology our job is to "learn something new using technology." I can do that :) The problem is limiting it down to something I am passionate about, want to learn, and feel like I can accomplish/produce a product by the end of the semester. Here are a couple of the ideas I'm tossing around for my project:

Image via http://www.collingsguitars.com/

Learning how to play the guitar
I know it's one of the examples that we were given in class, but it's something I've always want to do and haven't really had the time to dedicate to it. I LOVE the sound of an acoustic guitar and my husband even bought me a guitar a couple of years ago for Christmas. I started to teach myself how to play but gave up early on once the pressures at work because too much to keep up with. I'd love to try it again, this time around really focusing on it and actually remembering what fingers to use to make what chord :)


Become Google Apps for Education Qualified Individual

This goal seems more lofty and yet doable at the same time. To become a GAFE qualified individual you have to go through a six-part training course using online modules and then take a certification/qualification test. (Click here for more information). I could see this being challenging and yet really fun & exciting--I love Google Apps and can see a huge benefit to using them in the classroom! But I will openly admit that I am far from knowing enough to be at "qualified" status right not. One of my worries with this one though is not completing the modules or the test before the end of the semester, and being able to produce a "product" demonstrating my knowledge. Even so, I'm beginning to like this idea more and more.

Cooking & Baking
If you ask my family, I am the WORST cook hands down! Though recently I have been working on honing my skills and trying to create edible meals for my hubby and me. I've got a few new dishes down pat but I would love to have the time to research some new dishes, with processes I haven't tried before, and put them to the test. I think this would work better with baking since many of the cupcakes and desserts can be multi-day, multi-step processes that have been too scary and time consuming to try until now. Maybe even have a hand at making homemade ice creams and fro-yos? It all sounds delicious to me and something I would really enjoy doing. And the performance/product would obviously be bringing some goodies in to class for testing/tasting. :)


Ok, so what do you guys think? Any of these stand out as better than the others?  What would you do? Please feel free to comment below with any/all opinions and suggestions!