Month: September 2008

Never lose a document again: how Google Docs can change the way you and your department work!

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Doug Belshaw

Instead of attaching documents to emails, why don’t we attach email addresses to documents? That way, everyone sees each update of a document (e.g. a scheme of work) and there is a central repository for departmental or school files.

Watch this video:

This text will be replaced

var so = new SWFObject(“http://www.edublogs.tv/flvplayer.swf”,”mpl”,”450″,”355″,”8″);so.addParam(“allowscriptaccess”,”always”);so.addParam(“allowfullscreen”,”true”);so.addVariable(“height”,”355″);so.addVariable(“width”,”450″);so.addVariable(“file”,”http://www.edublogs.tv/uploads/sqadikkuwb38vs5w.flv”);so.addVariable(“searchbar”,”false”);so.write(“player”);

Google Docs is part of a wider suite known as Google Apps. There’s a version of this called Google Apps Team Edition that allows only those within an institution or business to collaborate on documents. You can access Ridgewood’s login page here. Only those with an @ridgewoodschool.co.uk email account can access this (which includes pupils, so be careful who you share documents with!)

Step 1

Step 2

Login to the Ridgewood Google Apps dashboard using the username/password set up in Step 1. You might want to bookmark this login page for ease-of-access next time!

Step 3

In the dashboard area you have several options, the rest of which you can explore at your leisure. For the moment we’re interested in Docs, so click on that!

Step 4

The Docs overview area is fairly straightforward. Documents which have been shared with you are accessible to the bottom-right. You can click on the toolbar to create a new document/spreadsheet/presentation/form/folder, upload existing documents (in Word .doc format, etc.), and share these with others:

Step 5

Once you have created or uploaded a document, click on the blue Share button to the top-right of your screen in the editing window. Then click on Share with others:

Step 6

You can view the ‘revision history’ of the document by going to Tools/Revision history in the editing window. This shows every change that has been made to the document. You can revert to any previous incarnation of a document if necessary!

Step 7

Play! Explore what Google Docs can do. Once you exhausted that, have a look at the rest of the offerings within the Google Apps suite – Sites (easy departmental websites), Calendar (plan course/departmental/school events), Start Page (customised ‘home page’) and Chat (real-time text chat like MSN Messenger)

Doug’s first world tour!

Posted on September 26, 2008 by Doug Belshaw

I was looking at the little ClustrMap in the sidebar of this blog and it amused me that you couldn’t really see any land mass for all the red dots. Those dots indicate locations of visitors: the larger the dots, the more vistors from that part of the world.

If you click on the smaller map, a larger version of it pops up on the ClustrMaps website. Doing this, it got me thinking thatif each one of those dots indicated someone willing to put me up for a night or two, I could actually get my way around the world fairly easily!

Around 650 people currently subscribe to the RSS feed of dougbelshaw.com. Google Analytics reports about 6,500 unique visits per month. For my first world tour I’d like to play it safe and mainly visit English speaking countries. So, erm, who’s going to put me up next summer? :-p

Blue Skies Thinking vs. Grey Skies Thinking

Posted on September 25, 2008 by Doug Belshaw

I attended a meeting today. It began as it meant to go on: it was assumed and then stated explicitly that we all wanted to be home ASAP and that there was some stuff that needed to be done so we’d better get on and do it to meet our obligations and get it out of the way. It’s what I would term a ‘Grey Skies Meeting’.

We’ve all been to Grey Skies Meetings. They’re the ones where:

Something needs to be done but no-one wants to do it.
Problems are raised.
There is a strict hierarchy and everyone ‘knows their place’.
Saying anything that entails lengthy discussion is frowned upon and there is immense peer pressure not to do so.
Internal politics are at the forefront, the actual purpose of the organization is put on the backburner.
Quick solutions that tick boxes are welcomed.

I came away from the meeting somewhat downhearted. There were a few in that meeting who genuinely wanted things to move forwards in the same way that I did. But, for some of the reasons given above, they only expressed these ideas and thoughts before and after the meeting had taken place.

I want to work in a Blue Skies environment that has meetings whereby:

Opportunities are identified.
The reason for the organization’s existence guides the process and progress of the meeting.
People feel confident at putting forward ideas and concepts that aren’t necessarily full-formed, but point in the right direction.
A meritocracy operates: people’s contributions are judged by their usefulness rather than the position that the contributor holds or the length of time they’ve spent within the organization.
Smaller plans feed into a bigger plan.
The talents of the whole of the individual are used rather than their utility being defined by their position within the organization.

This isn’t a blog post about my school. It isn’t really about education per se. It’s about how our society operates and defines people. I want to be where there’s a blue sky. In fact, just saying that has made me remember ELO’s feelgood anthem Mr Blue Sky, which has cheered me up no end… :-p

Want to improve your meetings? Take a look at lifehacker.com/tag/meetings!