SkyDrive and Office Web Apps for Student Research Project Management

July 17th, I made a presentation at the American Association of Physics Teacher (AAPT) 2013 Summer Meeting, the title of the presentation is “SkyDrive and Office Web Apps for Student Research Project Management“.

The AAPT is a national organization of high school and college physics teachers. It hosts summer and winter meetings annually, and the summer meeting is usually larger, lasts almost a week and attracts national and international attendants.

The meetings serve various functions, one of which is to provide a platform for physics teachers to share their best practices. My presentation fell into the Best Practices in Educational Technology session.

There were a total of 11 presentations in the session, some demonstrated how they use social media to form a physics student community, some showcased their inventions of wireless open source lab data acquisition system.

My presentation concentrates on how I use SkyDrive and Office Web Apps to manage student projects and foster project management skills for students.

I often work on more than 10 student projects simultaneously, some as short as a few weeks, some as long as 2 years. As an educator, I believe that for students the learning experiences of a project should not be limited to just getting something done; in addition, it should help students acquire some project management skills.

A few years ago, I started using Google Doc service as a one-place-for-all solution to help students keep their projects organized. A student team needs to create and share a folder with all partners and me, anything related to the project, such as final report, task list and etc, are kept in the folder so that anybody involved in the project can access the materials anytime anywhere.

I then switched to Microsoft SkyDrive and Office Web Apps. The Office Web Apps provide similar functions as Google Doc service, one can edit document, spreadsheet and presentation with either of the two services. But Microsoft also has desktop version of Office for power users. Additionally, Office Web Apps include OneNote, which I now use to keep the following project items in one place

• Task list
• Weekly meeting notes
• Budget
• Project goal
• Brain storming

I initially created and maintain the items. Several weeks into the project, I asked my students to work on some of them, then I review their edits; the sync function of SkyDrive keeps the desktop version of the files always updated, I don’t have to go online to view them.

My goal is toward the end of the project, students form the habit to keep project related materials organized and documented. Hopefully they will keep doing the same thing in their future project.

My PowerPoint presentation is attached with some edits to make it suitable for web presentation.

One updated and much welcome feature of OneNote 2013

 

I am always a big fan of OneNote, and use it extensively for work. When I started using OneNote 2010 and the SkyDrive cloud service, I noticed that there is a great limit of where I can place my OneNote file.

 

In my hard drive, I usually created a hierarchy of folders to organize my files, and I usually end up with several levels folders above the root level. My local OneNote files are also organized in the same manner.

 

But OneNote 2010 and SkyDrive only allow one level of folder above the root level for the online OneNote files. If I am working on five projects, and need to have 5 online OneNote files to keep them organized, I have to create 5 folders at the root level.

 

Now with OneNote 2013, it has been changed. I can store my online OneNote files at any level in SkyDrive. Now I can stay well organized. (I wish I organize my desk and office as I do with my computer.)

 

Using SkyDrive to prevent accidentally deleting a file on local hard drive

 

I just discovered this great feature of SkyDrive. When I delete a file from the SkyDrive on my local hard drive, it goes to the recycle bin; but when I empty the recycle bin, it’s gone. I know, there is some utilities people can use to get the file back, but they are not well known and require certain computer skills to use.

 

With SkyDrive, when the deleted file goes to the recycle bin on the local computer, the online copy goes to the SkyDrive Recycle Bin; even after the local Recycle bin is emptied, the copy in the SkyDrive Recycle Bin is still there. If I change my mind and want the file back, I just need to log in to my SkyDrive with any web browser, and click into the Recycle bin, as seen below (it’s at the lower left corner in the browser window), then restore the file from there. It’s first restored online, then the SkyDrive Desktop App will sync it back to my local computer shortly.

 

It seems that the SkyDrive Recycle bin only keep files for one month, so if I need to change my mind, I have to change relatively quickly.

 

Using Microsoft Excel Survey for quick polling

 

At the end of this May, I needed to create a quick survey for my school. It was a short survey of just 6 questions to poll students’ opinions of a new program my schools plans to offer. I know that SuveyMonkey.com provides great service in this regard, and I actually took a few surveys from this company in the past, but the hassle of having to sign up an account to use this service turns me off. I need something quick, so I turned to Microsoft Excel Survey. It was one of the Microsoft Office Web Apps, part of the SkyDrive service.

 

Excel Survey provides the following 7 types of questions for a quick survey.

1. Text
2. Paragraph text
3. Number
4. Date
5. Time
6. Yes/No
7. Choice.

For a complicated survey, the 7 types may not be sufficient, but they were good enough for me.

 

Creating a survey with this service is quite intuitive, a screenshot of how it works is attached below. Do you notice the signature green color of Excel? It did not take much time for me to create, test and deploy the survey. The Excel Survey collects feedback in an Excel file in my SkyDrive cloud storage, which is automatically synchronized to my local hard drive though the SkyDrive Desktop App. When I need to check the survey results, I can open it as a local file.

 

2 weeks after the deployment of the survey, we collected 130+ responses. That’s not bad, considering the fact that kids are busy with somethings else in summer.

 

Excel Survey is a simple tool that can get things done. But I do hope it can add some bells and whistles, such as a few more types of questions and customizable survey appearance.

 

 

Sync issue between Office 2013 and the SkyDrive Desktop App

 

I have been using the SkyDrive Desktop App under Windows 7 for quite a while, and like it very much. It syncs everything in a pre-configured folder in my hard drive to the SkyDrive cloud storage. I use it to backup all my work-related files, it works flawlessly.

 

I started using Office Pro Plus 2013 last week. One of the major change of the new version is that it has a tighter integration with SkyDrive cloud; for users who log into their SkyDrive in Office 2013, it can directly save files to the cloud. I believe this feature is the cause of the sync issues I experienced in the last couple of days.

 

What happened is this, I have some existing Excel spreadsheet files, they are in the pre-configure folder and are previously synced by the App without any problem. After I edited them using Office 2013, the SkyDrive Desktop App reported that they cannot be synced with the cloud, and asked me to open them in Office 2013 for details. Office said the local copy and the cloud copy were modified separately, I have to decide which copy to keep.

 

After this issue happened to every single Excel file I worked on, I did some search online and discovered that when both the SkyDrive Desktop App and Office 2013 coexist in a computer, there is an option in the App one can check to let Office 2013 save directly to the cloud, as seen below. So when a file is edited, it’s first saved to the cloud. It is supposed to sync as well. This time, the cloud has the latest copy, the App should just download it to replace the local copy; but somehow, something went wrong.

 

I ended up unchecking the option. Now business returns usual, Office 2013 saves locally, then the App takes care of syncing. No issues at all.

 

Hope somebody can find this info useful.

 

Using Office Web App for group meeting scheduling

 

I know that there are special software or web services to facilitate scheduling group meetings. I have used one or two before, they all save a lot of hassle of identifying at what time everybody is available.

 

But when it comes to schedule a meeting for a small group of people, say 4 to 9, the convenience is eroded because one needs to set up the software or the web service first, which can take some time.

 

One of my colleague used an Excel sheet instead to facilitate meeting scheduling, it works pretty well in a small environment. What he does is to create a table of date and time in an Excel sheet, and circulate it through email to all attendants. When receiving the file, one is supposed to put down the initial of his/her name in the cell of corresponding date and time, when he/she is NOT available, and send the file back to my colleague. The key here is to mark down the UNAVAILABLE date and time. When my colleague receives all files back, he then overlap (copy and past) all of the files together, if there are still some cells not marked by anyone, that’s a good time available for all for the meeting.

 

For example, as shown below, if Barack Obama wants to schedule a party with Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, he can send the Excel file by email to them with his unavailable time marked down. After receiving the file, Putin marks down his unavailable time, and send it back to Barack; Kim does the same. When Barack opens all returned files, he immediately identifies that there is no good time this week for them to sit down together.

 

Now you see why international politics is tough, they cannot find a time to have some fun together.

 

You probably already notice that it is convenient for everybody else, but quite a bit hassle for Barack to collect and contrast all files returned to him, especially when the number of partygoers grows.

 

Now that Office Web App is available, Barack does not have to circulate the Excel sheet any longer. He just needs to put it online, share it with Putin and Kim. They can all mark on the same file.

 

Just hope this simplified process can promote dialogue among the three guys, and world peace. At least, it works well in my small department.

 

挪瓦高中(三) Novi High School (3)

 

挪瓦高中的教学楼，有几个角度看过去还不错。

 

When viewed at certain angles, some of the Novi High School buildings look pretty nice.

 

 

这两张拍摄位置差不多，时间上前后有十来分钟。还是蓝天白云好看。

The following two were shot pretty much at the same spot, but tens minutes apart. The one with sky backdrop looks nicer.

 

 

 

特写 close-up

 

这张比较一般，拍得不好。

 

夕照之下 under sunset

 

牙 tooth

 

2013年2月9日，农历年三十，女儿掉了第一颗牙。

 

February 9th, 2013, the new years eve in Chinese lunar calendar, my daughter lost her first tooth.

 

挪瓦高中(二) Novi High School (2)

 

挪瓦高中位置不错，挨着一个街边公园，有一些雕塑和公共活动设施；还挨着挪瓦镇的图书馆和镇公所；最主要的是挨着警局。这里发生校园枪案的几率大概会小很多。

 

Novi high school is located at a very nice spot, right next to a corner park, which has some statues and public service facilities; it is also next to Novi library, town center, and most importantly, Novi police department. The likelihood of campus gun crime gotta be very low.

 

街边公园里的一众石块；背景中的建筑就是挪瓦高中。

Some rocks in the corner park; the buildings in the backdrop is Novi high school.

 

下面两张拍得不理想。当时日月更替，其实已经很暗了；拍暗一点，突出月亮就好了。

The next two pictures are not the best. The sun and the moon exchanged their roles then, it was pretty dark. The pictures should have been shot a bit darker to let the moon stand out.

 

挪瓦高中图集 Album of Novi High School

挪瓦高中的图片都集中放在这里，点击可看大图。

第一次使用微软的云服务，总体还不错，但远远不够完美。

The high-resolution pictures of the Novi High School are gathered in the following album.

This is my first time using Microsoft’s SkyDrive sharing function. Overall speaking, it’s pretty good, but far from being perfect.