Triggers + Doctopus = An almost success.

Problem: My students are in the drafting process of a major paper, and they have a deadline tonight at 11:59 p.m.

I created the assignment via Doctopus, an +Andrew Stillman script.

Because this is a hard deadline (as opposed to the final deadline, when I'll accept late "submissions"), I'm using the Embargo function to change students' permissions to View Only (effectively preventing a student on working on the paper after the deadline).

The problem, of course, is that I don't want to be up at 11:59 p.m. to run the Embargo function from the menu.

What I tried: Google Script triggers

From the Doctopus assignment spreadsheet, click on Tools - Script editor...

Click on Resources from the script editor page, and click on Current project's triggers

Click on Add a new trigger

For the box under Run, choose embargo

Under Events, choose Time-driven

In my use case, I wanted to close access at midnight, so I chose Specific date and time in the next box, and specified the time in the format indicated.

Click Save.

That's it. At the specified date and time, the trigger will run the embargo function, and I can stay in bed.

However... (if you want to skip the technical details, scroll down to Workaround)

The problem:

I tested this on another assignment, and it runs with one hitch.

After embargo() runs via trigger, the Doctopus menu shows "Embargo for grading:" only, stripping the "Set editors for view only".

At first I thought the problem was only cosmetic, as refreshing the spreadsheet will show the option to Unembargo. I ran it, thought it was a success, and then checked a student's document.

Nope. They only had view privileges.

What seems to get lost somewhere in the process is the ScriptProperty variable groupPrivileges (the role you give students in Step 1: allow edit, allow view only, or allow comment only) gets lost, hence the menu.

So running unembargo doesn't actually do anything. It did actually kick out an error message, but I didn't catch it. I don't know if I tried to check the Execution transcript too much after the fact, but I couldn't find it there either.

I don't have the time to figure out where and why the variable loses its value (I should be grading right now...), but thankfully, I found a simple workaround.

Workaround:

Use the Doctopus menu to return to Step 1: Set up sharing basics and save those settings as originally set.

Run Embargo and Unembargo one more time, manually, and it will restore students' editing privileges correctly.

(Of course, if you set Doctopus to send notification emails, this could get annoying for the students. Hint: Change this setting in Step 3.)

Looking ahead:

Where I originally wanted to use a time-based trigger was on the Flubaroo Script ( +Dave Abouav , +edCode.org )

(Imagine keeping a practice test live, allowing students to take it whenever they want, and emailing the results back to them immediately onFormSubmit, similar to the MCQ script)

Unfortunately, that email function requires user input before sending emails, which would break the automated process.

A messy fix could be creating an almost-identical function to the existing function, except hard coding the user input variables in there. This, though, stinks for scalability reasons and probably other reasons that coders would know about.

If someone doesn't figure it out by the summer, I guess I have one project lined up.

But I'm an English teacher, and I really need to get back to grading.

Location-based Narratives

Assignment: Research your neighborhood and pair that research with a short, personal narrative, imitating Alex Kotlowitz's style in There Are No Children Here.

The research and narrative will then be posted to a custom map using Google Maps Engine Lite.

Recap: Because of the unpredictability of our end-of-year schedule, I was forced to shorten this assignment. The original assignment involved a little more research, and I would have likely extended the word count and quality of their narratives.

However, the assignment proved to be a success in terms of educating students about their neighborhoods (I was surprised to see the number of kids who didn't know anything about where they lived), and in seeing how many of Kotlowitz's chapters were set up. Thematically, the students were able to add their own voices to the Chicago narrative dominating the media.

They told stories of violence, blight, and destruction, but they also told tales of friendship, love, and trust.

Creating a custom map is a straightforward process. You work in layers (you can see my 6th period "layer" in the picture), and are limited to 100 (I think?) locations in the non-commercial version.

However, Maps Engine (essentially a refresh of the custom maps Google has offered for years) does not allow rich text formatting, HTML, and embedding in the balloons that pop up when clicking on a placemark.

I would love to be able to embed videos or Google documents directly in the map... or at the very least, format text. I resorted to having students post a public Google Doc share link.

I'm hoping to explore more uses of this tool next year, including overlaying images and studying their neighborhood in a little more depth.

Let me know what you think, or if you have other ideas...

#Google #GoogleMaps #GoogleMapsEngine #education #Kotlowitz #Chicago #ThereAreNoChildrenHere #GoogleDrive #narratives #story

Backing up the Cloud

Rather than an introductory post, I'll jump right in with a tip/tool, which will likely dominate the majority of my posts (at least initially).

If you're like me, almost all of your work is in the Cloud. And while I regularly back up my computers, I've neglected to do so with my files on Google Drive.

 © 2006-2013 Pink Sherbet Photography

This is problematic for me as I use a school-specific Google Apps Drive account. If, for whatever reason, I were to lose access to that account, I'd lose access to several years' worth of work.

As such, I've starred the steps below that pertain to my (and my department's) situation. Feel free to ignore those otherwise.

Solution: http://mover.io

Mover allows you to transfer files from one cloud service to another. It's easy.

What you need:
Two cloud accounts (in my case, Google Drive and Dropbox)

1. Create a mover.io account

* 2. Use your personal gmail/email account for the account

* 3. From gmail, sign into your Apps account (see https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/1721977?hl=en for help on that)

4. From mover.io, click on Add New Source and click Google Drive

* 5. You'll be prompted to choose your Google account. Choose your apps account, not your personal. Label it accordingly.

6. Click on Add New Destination, and link up your Dropbox account (or whatever service you're backing up to)

7. If you're transferring files solely for backup purposes, click on the Archive checkbox in the middle. It will zip EVERYTHING you have, preserving folder structure

8. Then click on Transfer Now. It'll take awhile if you're transferring a large number of files, so make sure you're on a good connection.

9. Mover will send you an email when everything is ready, along with a log file of any errors.

Note: This was originally posted on a soon-to-be-defunct Google+ page. More on that later.


#googledrive   #moverio   #education   #cloud  #backup  
+Mover