Tuesday, July 14, 2015

How to create a contact form in Google Sites

Recently I've been building my webiste with Google Site and explored about how to create a contact form.

How to create a contact form for viewers to leave you messages in Google Sites?
This can be done with Google Form and Google Sheets.

Here are the steps:

1. Log into your Google Drive, click "New", then select Google Form.





2. When you create a Google Form, name it as, eg. "Contact me". A Google Sheet with name "Contact me (Response)" will automatically be created. This Google Sheet is connected with the Google Form to collect the messages from viewers. You can also change the theme of your Google Form.



(You may view tutorials on how to create a Google Form if you need more specific instructions)


3. After you create the Google Form, click "File", select "Embed", then copy the code.
4. Create a page named Contact in your Google Site. Click the little Pencil to edit it. Click "<html>", paste the code, click "Save". Now you can see a contact form in your Google Site.

5. Log into your Google Drive and open the Google Sheet "Contact me (Response)" . Click "Tools" and select "Notification rules", then you can choose when to receive emails for message notifications.

Monday, July 13, 2015

How to embed Voki and GoAnimate videos into Google sites

At the beginning, I copied the code from a voki video and pasted it directly after I clicked the <html> of the page in my google site. However, the voki video won't show. I searched online but didn't find a good solution. I subconsciously changed all the http in the codes into https, and it worked! Now I can see the voki video embeded in my google sites. This method also works for the GoAnimate videos. Hope this will be helpful for others.

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Sticky notes on Win7

Today I unintentionally found Windows 7 has sticky-notes function. It is very convenient to take notes to remind us when we open the computer.

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

Diigo--powerful annotation tool for websites

Diigo is a powerful annotation tool that enables bookmark, highlight, capture, etc. on websites. It is easy to locate and retrieve information we have saved while browsing websites. Diigo can help us save time and stay organized in this overloaded information era.
The group feature of Diigo can facilitate collaboration on projects and sharing information.

Here is a tutorial of Diigo from Lynda.com:



pixlr.com--image editing tool similar to photoshop

Editing images with Photoshop will be a part of my course content next semester. I downloaded and installed Photoshop CS 6, which was introduced in the course shell. I spent quit a bit of time learning all the basic functions of Photoshop to get familiar with it. I find it not that easy for a beginner to learn Photoshop as a completely new tool.  Photoshop CS 6 was published in 2012. Actually Photoshop has published newer versions since 2013, the Photoshop CC. It even took me a while to find the old version, Photoshop CS 6. I'm thinking whether I should change all the content into compatible with the newest version, Photoshop CC.

Today I got to know about pixlr.com from Tian Luo's instructional video. The editing function of Pixlr.com is very similar to photosho. It is an online editing tool and does not require download or sign-up. If it's just for some basic editing, pixlr.com should be OK. However, pixlr.com has very limited functions and can not meet with some advanced needs. For example, there is a quick selection tool in Photoshop, which is very convenient to quickly and accurately select part of the picture, but pixlr.com does not provide this function.

Should I stick with Photoshop CS 6 in the course shell, or use the newest version Photoshop CC, or integrate pixlr.com? I think I'll explore a little more and make a decision on the plan after I talk to my advisor. 

Monday, June 15, 2015

Find Alternatives to Software and Other Tools

I found this website http://alternativeto.net/, which helps us to find alternatives to software.
It's a good resource for us to choose the right tools for teaching and learning.
Here is a description from the website:

RSS Feed Aggregator Options

Today I searched for Google Reader and found it has been discontinued. However, Google provided a link to its alternatives. http://alternativeto.net/software/google-reader/   Clicking on this link, hundreds of RSS Feed Aggregators showed up, with the numbers of likes by people. In the list, Feedly is on the top with 1193 likes, a little over Inoreader with 1032 likes, at this point of time of the day.