Thursday, June 21, 2012

Colour cells in a table in Google Sites

I found this trick out by accident today 'How to colour a cell in a table in Google Sites and Spreadsheet.' It will not work in Google Docs.
  • Click in one cell and drag to the right to highlight all the cells you want to colour 

  • Click on the Text Background Colour button
  • Select a colour





  • The cells will now be coloured 


Colouring Cells in Google Docs
If you want to colour cells in Google Docs, right click on the cell and choose Table Properties 










Click on Cell Background colour and choose a colour
Click OK
You can click and drag a number of cells at one time

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Live updates

Another useful aspect of Google Drive is the 'Live Updates'.



Click on 'More'






Click on 'Activity'




You will be able to view in 'real time' documents as they are being updated.




Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Google Drive Hint #1

In the old version of Google Docs, you saw all your files in the main window and the default setting would show all the docs that had been changed at the top of the list.
If you  have changed over to Google Drive you might be wondering where all your docs have gone!





My Drive
This is where all the files are that you have made
Shared with me
This is where all the files are that have been shared with you (but you can move them to 'My Drive' by selecting the file in the check box and clicking on 'Add to my Drive')
Starred
Stores the files that you have starred
Recent
Finds everything you recently opened or edited

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Google Docs and Webcam

A fun addition to Google Docs is the 'Webcam' Picture. You can insert 'webcam' stills.

  • Go to Insert Image 
  • Click on Take a snapshot
  • Click on Allow
  • Click on Take a Photo
  • Click on Take Snapshot
  • Click on Select
  • Resize and move around

How could students use this feature?
  • take photos of themselves
  • take photos of artwork or models they have produced
  • take photos of a group of students

Monday, June 11, 2012

Reference Tool

This is an extremely useful tool for students, especially for those who get easily distracted when researching on Google.

This is best used when you need to
  1. look for websites
  2. look for pictures
  3. reference a website
While you are in a Google Doc go to Tools - Research. Type in a search term and the results will appear.
Click on the arrows to see the graphics, drag and drop the picture you want to use onto the page.
When you 'hover' your mouse over a web link, 3 buttons will appear.


Click on 'Preview' to see a preview of the website. This is useful because at a glance you can see what the website looks like i.e. lots or very little text, few or too many graphics. This will help influence student's decisions on whether to look at the website or not.
The 'Insert link'  will insert your search term hyperlinked to the website you are looking at.
The 'Cite' will insert a footnote with a full citation for the website.