Google Level 2 Certification

What to do in Lockdown? 

 Take on some study and have a go at the Google Educator Level 2 exam. 

Through the Google Teaching Centre, I have looked at the different apps and google tools that are included in the exam. On reflection, I need to do some further study on google sheets (I really only know the basics), Google Earth (haven't really used this) and Google Scholar.

So study time it is ....

Google Sheets

What is a Pivot Table and how does it work? 
A Pivot Table is one of the basic data analysis tools in Google Sheets. Pivot Tables can quickly answer many important business questions. One of the reasons we build Pivot Tables is to pass information. We would like to support our story with data that is easy to understand, easy to see.  Although Pivot Tables are only tables and thus missing real visuals, they can still be considered as a mean of Visual Storytelling. 

A Pivot Table is used to summarise, sort, reorganise, group, count, total or average data stored in a table. It allows us to transform columns into rows and rows into columns. It allows grouping by any field (column), and using advanced calculations on them..

To insert a pivot table you need to highlight the data you want to include from the sheet and click data. From this tab you will see pivot table.

Conditional Formatting

Google Sheets offers a lot of advanced capabilities that help extract meaning from a pile of data. One of them, simple and at the same time powerful, is conditional formatting. It helps turn bland rows and columns of black text on white backgrounds into a coloured and visually appealing dataset. This saves time, and also makes the data more readable and meaningful.

There are a lot of sites that explain how to use it but I found this one helpful.

Google Earth

Ten Ways to use Google Earth in the Classroom

From the above I learnt about Lit Trips/Tours. Google Lit Trips is dedicated to helping teachers use Google Earth tours in literature lessons. In a literature trip students explore the places that are significant in a story and or the places that are significant in an author’s life. There is even a Lit Trip on there from Dorothy.

Google Earth uses KMZ files.

Google Scholar

Advanced Searches - can limit results to researchers or include specific publications ("all the words" "with exact phrase")

Once an article/citation is found you can save it to your own personal library using 'save' link below the result.

Scholar autonatically generates citation formats. Can copy in MA, APA or Chicago Formats.

To copy citation of a text, click on the quotation mark under the text.

Not all articles are publicly viewable.

Google Explore

Citations - APA, Chicago and MLA can be done directly from the tool.

Google Search

Free to use or share and edit is 'not' a usage rights option.

So with the study done, some mock questions tried, I registered and took the exam.

Good news is that it was a pass.