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by Brenda Senger '14, Communications Assistant

Many social media sites make it easy to share every last detail of your personal life with the entire world, but haven't you ever wanted to share one passion, idea, or common interest with a specific group of people? The customizability of Google+'s Circles and Communities make that possible.

Google+ Circles allow users to categorize friends, co-workers, and family into separate circles. Users can either post publicly or post to a specific group of people. This is a great function because it provides the option of maintaining a professional presence among co-workers and a social presence with friends. An education-based example of this might be organizing contacts (students) into different classes or sections.

Google+ Communities are broken down into two categories, public and private. Public communities range from Coffee to Fly Fishing. You can join a community with other Google+ users who are interested in that same topics. (Like, eLearning, perhaps?) You can also create your own private community using an invite-only process. For example, private communities could be used for a niche research interest or in-class activity.

Whether you are posting to the world or a selective group of users, Google+ gives members an individualized experience and I think it creates a safer, more effective way share varying kinds of content.

Check out Google+ Circles, and Google+ Communities for more detailed information.

by Silke Moeller, eLearning Assistant

Google Forms is a useful tool to help you plan events, send a survey, give students a quiz, or collect other information. You can receive notifications when particpants submit data. Here are two ways to set up notifications (one is easy, the other more advanced!).

Simple notification setup

• Open the spreadsheet (result) view of the form and select Tools>Notification rules...


• Here you can setup the way you would like to be notified. Notify me at ...@umn.edu when... ✔ a user submits a form and Notify me with ... ✔ Email - daily digest




• Watch this video for detailed step by step instruction


• Note: You will be the only receiver of this notification, shared form user don't get the notification. In case you would like to distribute the notification, see the advanced setup "FormEmailer" information below.

Advanced notification setup
Install steps:

• Open your Spreadsheet/Form. (It should already have at least the basic structure of your data, i.e. the 1st row filled with the data headers. In case of a Form it's done automatically when you create the form).


• Click menu Insert > Script.


• A internal popup window should open, click the search box and type: formemailer


• A list with some scripts should appear, locate the "FormEmailer" script, developed by hgabreu and click its install button.


• A authorization popup shows up and you need to click Authorize to proceed.


• A browser popup window shows up, it should close itself automatically. And back to the main window, you can close the Script Gallery internal popup window by clicking Ok.

• An additional menu option, "FormEmailer," appears in your spreadsheet.


• Click FormEmail in menu and install script.


• An additional worksheet will be created in your spreadsheet with information about "FormEmailer" .


• Click FormEmailer>Settings to configure the recipients and the email you would like to distribute.


• For detailed settings and more information, go to the FormEmailer website or watch this demo video how to install, configure and use "FormEmailer".

By Brenda Senger '14, Communications Assistant

With thousands of organizational apps and websites eager to gain customer loyalty, it can feel overwhelming when choosing just one application. Many tools initially seem appealing and it is only after hours of organizing and compiling all of the upcoming events, deadlines, and commitments that an app crashes and nothing was saved. At that moment, technology seems confusing and frustrating, and a pen and paper never seemed so ideal.

Not every organizational application will cause users this trama. In fact, some could change the way your world works. Evernote may just be that tool. It think it is a great way to simplify and store information or share ideas and projects with others. It syncs data to all devices, and best of all, it is free. Evernote is available for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, Blackberry, and Android.

Ways to use Evernote:

• Share documents from any device with colleagues, family, or friends.
• Snap photos of handwritten class notes or whiteboards. Save them as notes and Evernote recognizes words within photos.
• Use it to study with Evernote Peek, turning notes into virtual quizzes with your tablet or iPad.
• Scan and organize photos.
• Create itineraries and lesson plans.
• Keep an electronic address book, linking individuals with social networking sites such as LinkedIn or Facebook.
• Use in classes, meetings, or personally to organize that busy schedule.

After last week's post, Jonathan suggested this tool, Send to Dropbox, as an additional reason why/how to use Dropbox.

I know many of us are guilty of emailing ourselves our content (paper drafts, powerpoints, notes, etc!). Send to Dropbox draws on our desire to email ourselves our files. Instead of large files appearing in your inbox, your files will be sent to your Dropbox and stored in a folder called, Attachments.

P.S. Send to Dropbox is free. You have nothing to lose.

There are countless ways to back-up your data these days, and many cloud-computing tools to use to access that data on your mobile device, your tablet, or your desktop computer. Dropbox is hoping that its newest campaign, the Great Dropbox Space Race, will encourage you to utilize their services—and to have a little fun while you're at it! The gist of the Space Race is that you earn points AND memory for you and the U of MN by signing up and sharing the information with your peers and students. Here is a selection of the specifics, by way of the Dropbox blog:

You must register for Space Race with an eligible school email address (if you have an existing Dropbox account you can still join)! If you've signed up for Dropbox with a non-school email, no problem! You can verify your school account on the Space Race page.
Your school gets 1 point for each person who registers for Space Race and installs Dropbox on their computer (if they haven't already). Your school gets 2 more points for each person that goes through the Get Started guide (including you!)
Just by signing up, you get 3 GB for two years.
You'll have 8 weeks to get as many people as you can from your school signed up for Space Race!

The Google Apps Suite never ceases to amaze me. Just when I think I've figured out all the capabilities of Google Sites or Google Drive, I learn how to develop and repurpose application scripts and the power of both of these tools doubles, no, triples. I know that I'm a bona fide nerd when this kind of thing excites me.

Today, I am loving a Google product that is far simpler, but has a lot of potential for professional and academic uses - Google+ Hangouts. Hangouts combines the power of Gmail, Google+, and Chat into a video-chatting, conferencing tool. It is conceptually very similar to UMConnect, but the interface is what you would expect from Google (clean, streamlined, intuitive).

Just last week, I used Hangouts from Cooke 220 to have a virtual meeting with Jonathan in Cooke 204. We were able to troubleshoot a complex computer issue without leaving our desks. Hangouts could also be used for a doctoral defense, for a meeting with telecommuters, or to broadcast a guest speaker to the public.

Here is a video about Hangouts that will likely inspire you to use this tool in YOUR everyday life.

In this edition of ATK, I want to provide with you the links to the first eight tips of the Fall 2011 semester. We've covered everything from adding an event to the Cooke 110 calendar to how to update your faculty/staff biography. I urge you to take a moment and read (or read again!) a post that you may have missed. And, if you have any suggestions for next week's edition of this blog, please send me an email at stair@umn.edu.

Entries from ATK to date

Earlier this fall, I wrote a post detailing how to check out equipment and schedule rooms using Google Calendar. Today, we continue to up the ante on our Google Calendar usage by introducing two new resource calendars to the mix, Internal and External Kinesiology Events.

The Internal Events Calendar is linked on the KINtranet and is your hub for committee and all-school meetings, as well other internal events. On the flip side, the External Events Calendar is linked from out our public-facing website and contains information about our public events—from the Speaker Series to Tucker Tables to the Crockpot Cooke-off!

Adding your internal or external event to the appropriate calendar follows the same steps as scheduling a room or reserving equipment, just search for "Kinesiology" and you will find both calendars. You can reserve a room AND add your event to the KIN calendars in one easy step.

If you need assistance in creating an event via Google Calendar, please give me a shout. Until then, schedule away!

You can update and maintain your faculty/staff biography using PeopleTool. After you login with your x500, you can add specialty areas, add a link to your CV, and manage your office hours.

You can also add publications and presentations. Make sure you click save (located at the top and bottom of the page) to confirm your changes.

To make changes to the top "Detail" information, follow the link to OneStop, where you can update your name, address, and demographic information.

The KIN intranet has been updated with information about how to use Google Calendar to schedule rooms and check out equipment.

We've also created a screencast that demos how to check out a piece of equipment (in this case the Nikon D90 Camera). The steps are the same for scheduling a conference room or lab, just search for Cooke or URecCtr depending on where you want to schedule your event.