Thank you to everyone who participated in our Work from Home Challenge. Congratulations to our winner, Monique! For those that missed it, these modules remain available for your use. Checkout the challenges below and track your progress by completing the short questionnaire at the end of each challenge.
Let's kick off the Work from Home Google Challenge by introducing Google Drive, or Drive for short. Drive is part of your VCU G Suite account that provides virtually unlimited online storage space. We'll explore various parts Drive as a foundation for future weeks.
Google drive basics - drivework better together [View Image]
Drive File Stream is a new way to access all of your Google Drive files directly from your Mac or PC, without using up all your disk space. Unlike traditional file sync tools, Drive File Stream doesn’t require you to download your files first in order to access them from your computer. Instead, when you need to view or edit a file, it automatically streams from the cloud, on-demand. With Drive File Stream, your team will spend less time waiting for files to sync, no time worrying about disk space, and more time being productive. With Drive File Stream, you can:
To install and begin using Drive File Stream, contact your departmental IT Support team.
Once you complete reviewing the materials from the first week of the Google Collaboration Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 1 Google Drive Questionnaire
Let's start by getting introduced to Docs - an online replacement for Microsoft Word.
Google Docs icon [View Image]
Word processing for teams
Work in a single document with teammates or people outside your company. See edits as others type, communicate through built-in chat and ask questions through including comments.
Import your documents to make them instantly editable, including Microsoft® Word and PDF files. Export your work in .docx, .pdf, .odt, .rtf, .txt or .html format.
Track changes made to your documents and undo anything you choose. Previous versions are kept indefinitely and they don't count toward your storage.
Once you complete reviewing the materials from the second week of the Google Collaboration Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 2 Google Docs Questionnaire
One of the core promises of Google Docs is to help you and your team go from collecting ideas to achieving your goals as quickly and easily as possible. That’s why Google Docs launched Explore in Docs, Sheets and Slides — with machine intelligence built right in — to help your team create amazing presentations, spreadsheets and documents in a fraction of the time it used to take.
Try out two new time-saving features designed to speed up and simplify the way you work, so you can focus on bringing your team’s ideas to life.
Once Action Items have been assigned, it’s easy for team members to identify documents, spreadsheets and presentations that need their attention. The next time they visit Docs, Sheets, Slides (or Drive) from their laptops or mobile apps, they’ll see a badge on any files with Action Items assigned to them, plus any unresolved suggestions that others have made to their files.Image depicting how action items are displayed in Google Drive [View Image]
Assignment: Ask someone to assign an Action Item to you and complete that action item by navigating My Drive to find that Action Item.
Once you complete reviewing the materials from the third week of the Google Collaboration Challenge take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 3 Google Questionnaire
VCU provides a Gmail account to all students and employees. With Gmail you can:
Creating and sending emails is as easy as selecting Compose within Gmail. You can then specify the recipients and the subject, and begin typing the content. Once done, select Send to send the email. You can view sent mail by selecting the Sent Mail section in Gmail.
Assignment: Create an email and send it to yourself or someone else.
Gif depicting an animation of the number of days in a month [View Image]
With Google Calendar, you can quickly schedule meetings and events, and get reminders about upcoming activities, so you always know what’s next. This week we'll show you how to setup your Google Calendar to keep track of classes, meetings, and events as well as configure Calendar to let others know when you are available.
Let's start by getting familiar with Google Calendar. In this tutorial, we'll explore Calendar basics including creating meetings, reminders, and invitations as well as customizing the look and function of Calendar.
First, we'll need to make sure the Calendar is configured to securely share your Free/Busy information while keeping your event details private.
To get started, head to forms.google.com and select Blank. This will provide you with an empty canvas that you can begin to fill with questions. Note that you have many templates that you can choose from.
Google Forms is a useful feature that allows you to manage event registrations, create a quick opinion poll, and much more. With Google Forms, you can create and analyze surveys right in your mobile or web browser—no special software required. You get instant results as they come in. And, you can summarize survey results at a glance with charts and graphs.
When responses are submitted, you will be sent an email notifying you that someone has completed your Form. You also have the ability with Google Forms to organize responses into a Google Sheet. This is especially useful when analyzing responses.
Assignment:
Following the instructions in the tutorial, create a Google Form survey asking for a name and five multiple choice questions and have a friend take the survey.
Have their name and responses sent to a Google Sheet.
Once you complete reviewing the materials from the sixth week of the Google Collaboration Challenge, take a few minutes to answer these questions: Week 6 Google Forms Questionnaire. For more Forms help, join us for a hands-on training session. Visit https://go.vcu.edu/gogoogle to register.