Aside from a small stint in the mental health field, I have spent most of my entire life in education. This blog is going to portray some of my experiences throughout this journey and hopefully give you entertainment as well as education as to some of the things I have experienced.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
BP4_Google Docs
Web 2.0 offers so much more in terms of collaboration and communication than it's predecessor Web 1.0. With the vast amount of new technologies out there, the one that I have fallen in love with is Google Docs.
Up until I had been enrolled in Full Sail's Education Media Design & Technology (EMDT) program, I had very little use for collaboration with more than one other person. My typical collaborative technique was emailing a file back and forth making changes as needed. While this *worked* for me, I can now see where it is by far barbaric compared to what can be done with Google Docs.
Starting in the first month of the EMDT program, our group started using Google Docs for collaborating and sharing documents. I had known that Google Docs was designed with collaboration in mind, but I did not know exactly what that entailed until all five of our group members started working on one single document simultaneously. My head was spinning as we all entered information into the document and I could actually see my teammates typing (and making corrections) in real time without the need to refresh the browser. It was at that time, that I had a whole new respect for Google Docs.
While Google Docs does not offer all of the features of a full-blown word processing or spreadsheet application, it does perform what most people are do use--basic word processing.
From the video above, you can see that Google is constantly revamping its Google Docs and is a serious contender to the rival Microsoft Office. I am looking forward to more advancements from Google and it's Web 2.0 tools.
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That is one thing about Google, they don't stand still. They are very good at tweaking what they have as well as coming up with new innovations. -Pat
ReplyDeleteThe best part about Google and its quest for world domination is that they are doing it without the need to gouge the end-user's pocketbook. Almost everything they offer is totally free to use for the individual. This business-plan is driving the competition absolutely nuts which is also another win for the end-user.
ReplyDeleteDennis,
ReplyDeleteI was pleasantly surprised by the all of the components of Google docs. Before the EMDT program I knew about the word processing feature but I had no idea there were spreadsheet, drawing, and other tools.
Yesterday I received an e-mail from a secretary trying to coordinate inservice training. She had a survey attached to the e-mail but the options for responding were to print the survey and mail it or to reply to the e-mail. Either way, the secretary will have to input all the responses into a document when she receives them. All I could think was, she should have used a Google form. It would have saved her so much time. I will definitely be telling her about Google docs.
I am a huge fan of Google docs and anticipate using them frequently in and outside of my classroom.
Karen
Dennis,
ReplyDeleteI'm glad I checked out the video you posted about the updates to Google Docs. Nice to see they added a more robust "track changes" function.