Week 12 and Week 13
4/22 and 4/29: Google tools
This class will span 2 weeks. In the first week, we went up to Gmail. Week 2 will cover Drive, Photos and Gemini (and any other Google tools you wish to look at).
Quick LInks
https://sdccd-edu.zoom.us/j/9191959460?pwd=OXh0RE9ZTVZTWElTMUQ0ZzAxQzExdz09.
Passcode: emeritus
Google and Four Tools
Google is a powerful search tool that has branched out into many areas of productivity and entertainment. We will be looking at Google as a whole, and some of the Google apps and services offered.
After a brief introduction, we will be looking at 4 Google Tools:
· Gmail
· Drive
· Photos
· Gemini
A Brief History of Google
Started in 1995 by 2 Stanford students as an attempt to bridge links to pages on the World Wide Web. Initially called Backrub, it became Google (after Googol, the number one followed by 100 zeros). It was incorporated on September 4, 1998, and had its initial public offering on August 19, 2004.
Their code of conduct is “Don’t be evil”, which is included in the 2004 prospectus. In 2015, prompted by a desire to make Google “cleaner and more accountable”, Google was restructured, and Alphabet Inc became the parent company of Google and other Google subsidiaries. The corporate location of Alphabet is Googleplex, located in Mountain View California.
Today, in addition to the traditional uses that we have grown used to, Google is focusing on advancing artificial intelligence, developing self-driving technology through Waymo, and pushing into quantum computing. These efforts show Google's commitment to being at the forefront of technological innovation and shaping the future of how we interact with technology.
The many types of Google Tools and Apps
Google has an almost Googol number of tools and apps (OK, just kidding). But they do have a lot of them. Here are some of the Google apps and services available:
• Web tools (such as Chrome, Google Search, Google Assistant)
• Productivity (such as Maps, Waze, Google Earth, Google Wallet, Google Calendar, Google Drive, Translate, Find my device,)
• Media (such as YouTube, Android TV, Google Play, Google Photos, Google podcasts, Google Arts and Culture, Google Expeditions)
• Communications (Gmail, Duo, Voice, Google meet, Google chat, Google sites)
• Other:
- AI (Google AI, as well using AI in docs, sheets, and photos)(ai.google)
- Lab (Experiment with new uses of AI within Google)(labs. Google)
- Devices & support (Android Auto, Android OS, Chromecast, Chromebook, Pixel, Pixelbook)
Your Google Account
Your Google account is identified by an email account ending in gmail.com. (You may have an institutional Google account linked to a school, but these accounts are limited in what you can do. ) You can have several Google accounts. Each account links you to the various Google products and services, and each account provides you with 15 GB of storage. You can access your google account by going to: google.com and signing in. If you do not have an account, you will be prompted to create one.
On the google.com home page, you will see:
· Tapping Gmail takes you to your Gmail account.
· Tapping Images takes you to image search. (You will also see a search box in the middle of the page for general searches).
· Tapping on beaker will take you to Google labs where you can play with some of the new features
· Tapping on the picture provides you with all of the Google accounts currently on this browser. You can click “Manage my account” to make changes and modifications to the account in areas like personal information, privacy, security, payments and more.
· Tapping on the 9 squares will take you to all of the Google services.
· Go to Google Workspace for more apps to use with Google services
Gmail (mail.Google.com)
A powerful email service, offering the ability to send and receive emails, block spam, create an address book and perform other basic tasks. Other unique services of Gmail include:
• Spam filtering: Google uses advanced technologies to keep spam out of your inbox. Most of it is sent to a separate spam folder and deleted after 30 days.
• Conversation view: A conversation occurs when you send emails back and forth with another person or group of people. Gmail will automatically group these emails together by default, although you can change that in settings.
• Filtering and labeling: You can filter emails by sender, subject header or more. You would then assign a particular behavior (delete, move to, mark as important) to this string of emails. You can also provide labels, which will then allow you to organize topics (such as “trips 2022”).
• Options like snooze, add to tasks, archive and more
Tasks:
1. Personalize fonts, behaviors, images and more: settings>all settings>general
a. Set default text
b. Conversation view: On or off? Experiment
c. Desktop notifications: On or off?
d. Stars: Set preferences
e. Picture: Change profile picture
f. Signature: Create a signature
g. Vacation responder: How to set it up
2. View inboxes: Add more by going to settings>see all settings>inbox>categories
3. Accounts and inputs: Settings>see all settings>accounts and import
a. Make sure you have a password recovery option
b. Check your storage
4. Forwarding (forward email from this account to another): settings>more settings>forwarding and POP/IMAP>Add forwarding address
5. Create a label: Do you have mail which can be clumped into a category? Try applying a label. Click on the email, select the label icon, select one of the existing labels or create a new one. Choose nest if you want this label to be part of an existing label (“Nest label under”)
6. Create a filter: Do you receive too many emails from a company? Why not just delete them before getting them? In this case, you will be “filtering” your email. Here is how to do this:
a. Click on the box before the email you want to filter
b. Click on the 3 dots and choose: Filter messages like this
c. You can fill in any additional boxes if you like, or just accept what they have suggested and select “create filter”. Choose what you want (delete it), apply to matching conversations and “create filter”.
Google Drive (drive.google.com)
Your Google account provides you with some excellent productivity tools. These can be access through any web browser or app, providing a way to create and view on many devices. Google Drive is the cloud storage part of Google, and is where you can save documents, photos and more. Within Google drive are a number of productivity tools including Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms, Sites and more. You can access all of these from the desktop version of Google Drive (drive.google.com). For your mobile devices, you will have to install the apps for each of these tools.
Sharing files on Google Drive: You can share files with others, allowing them to just view the files, or even allowing them to edit (in real time).
To demonstrate this, I created a file on Google Docs. I called it “Practice document for Google Class”. To share it with everyone, I selected “share” and then clicked on the “restricted” tab. Then, change from restricted to “anyone with the link” and select “done”.
Now, the file is saved so that anyone can access or edit. When you hover over share, you can see that it is public on the web and anyone can open (or edit).
When you go to open it, you may see a “sign in” button. You do NOT have to sign into a Google account to edit.
This document above was created for our class this week. Clicking on this link will take you to the document. Do not sign into your Google account. Instead, just click on the document itself and tell us what you did over the weekend. We will view your answers as a class so keep that in mind!
Creating a form
We are teaching Communicating with Technology this summer. We only have five weeks, so we want to make sure that it includes what you want. We will use Google Forms to create this. Here is how I created this form:
1. Go to drive.google.com and select “new” and Google forms
2. Named the form “Class Survey”. I clicked on “form description” and replaced it with: Summer 2024 poll
3. Clicked on 1st box “untitled question” and replaced it with: Do you think you will take this class in the summer? (Dates July 8 to August 10). I offered 3 choices: Yes, No, Maybe
4. Click on the + sign on the right of the question to continue with another question. You can choose multiple choice (like the 1st question) or check box (like this one). The check box enables you to select multiple choices.
5. The next question involved just thinking of a list of topics and including them using checkboxes.
6. I added a comments field using a paragraph option for any additional notes.
7. When done, select “Send”. Choose the second icon (the attach icon) and click copy. You can then “paste” this into an email, document or more. Here is the link to the survey.
Google Photos (photos.google.com)
Google offers 15 GB of storage for your account. You can enable all devices to automatically upload pictures to Google cloud, or you may choose to only enable some. You can also choose to just upload those which you want on the cloud.
Tasks to try
Modify settings: Go to photos.google.com , and click on settings to modify your account.
· How will you save the pictures on your device? Storage saver or Original quality
· Share photos with a partner,
· View suggestions
· group similar faces and identify yourself
· More: Memories, sharing, location, print history, draft reminders, etc.
Explore: See what you have in your photo library
· Search by person or pet
· To name someone, click on their picture. In the screen that pops up, select “Add a name” and put in their name. You can then search by name for that person.
· Scroll down under creations. What has been done by Google??? (AI is hard at work!)
Utilities: Create something: How can you create something on your own? Go to “utilities”
· Select something like “create animation”.
· Click on “search your photos and albums” and select someone
· Choose between 2 and 50 pictures and select “create”
· Another way is to open photos and select a number of them. Then click on the + sign and choose one of the options available.
Create a new album: Select “Albums”
· Click on Create Album
· Add a title and either “Select people and pets” or Select photos. (People and pets will find them out of your photos, while select will show all photos)
· Note if you select People and pets, new and existing photos will automatically be added to the album
· Select photos and then click on “confirm” in the upper right of screen. If you have selected “People and pets”, you will see a lot more pictures than you thought you had!
· To edit the album, click on the 3 dots and select “edit album”. (Note the other options, such as slideshow, download all, set album cover and delete album).
· Finally, you can share, add more photos or even purchase a photo book from Google!
Create a photo book (or anything using photos): Select “Print Store”
· Select product (book, canvas, print)
· Select photos
· Set up and purchase
Google Gemini (gemini.google.com)
Google has a new AI. At first glance, Google Gemini is a family of AI models, like ChatGPT.
As review from the lesson on AI, Gemini is a Large Language Model (LLM), which was created using natural language processing (NLP). It is neural network-based, meaning that it connects all data (supervised and unsupervised).
Google Gemini was trained from the ground up to be multimodal, meaning that it can generalize and seamlessly understand and operate across and combine different types of information including text, code, audio, image and video. After training, it was fine-tuned with additional data to refine the effectiveness.
The method used to train Gemini was a technique known as transformers. Unlike regular AI models that process information sequentially (reading a sentence word by word), transformers can analyze the information all together (understanding the sentence at a glance).
ChatGPT also uses transformed-based language models. However, ChatGPT was primarily trained on text and code, making it good for facts, code generation and creative writing. Gemini has access to a wider range of information including up-to-date data through Google Search. This may offer a better experience with up to date topics.
Gemini is a generative AI. It can provide text generation (summaries, explanations, even poems or scripts), it can be adapted based on the questions and information it accesses, and it can take that understanding to create new and original output. Unlike ChatGPT which uses DALL-E (an art AI), it can provide interesting prompts that you can then use in an AI art generator.
As multimodal, Gemini can take an image and describe it in text. To do this, you would attach an image into the chatbox and ask “What is going on in this picture?” It will then describe the image and respond to further prompts asking for more complex information.
It might be able to explain a new concept which is shown in an image. In this instance, I used a photo from a recent Brain Fitness class and asked it to explain what the image was saying about sleep.
There are currently two versions available to consumers:
Gemini: This is the free version, found by going to gemini.google.com
Gemini Advanced: This version is part of the Google One AI Premium plan that includes Gemini in Gmail, Docs and more, 2 TB of storage and other benefits. It cost $19.99 a month after a 2 month trial.
Gemini can be used in the browser (gemini.google.com). It can also be downloaded on an app (the Gemini app) which will then make it your mobile assistant. Similar to ChatGPT and Pi, you can carry on a conversation with Gemini either by using the app on your phone (clicking on the microphone, or you can say “Hey Google” if the Google app is your default Android assist app. Here is more information on the Google support page.
Summary
Try these different possibilities using your Google account. And don’t forget about the other services offered by Google, such as Chat, Translate, Voice, Password manager, Sites and more. Make the most of your Google account!