Module 3

Ah, the best laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft agley..... I had great visions of working my way stolidly through a few more modules in this Easter break. Technology has let me down - PC does not seem to show all the options when composing blog posts, I cannot find fellow bloggers list any more on the Myclasses course page to comment on their ideas, and when I switch to compose on my laptop, I lose access to the course entirely as I can't even log in!!!!    

Anyhow...Google docs was a revelation. It looks invaluable for quick and simple collaborative work. To work on documents in real time, having control over what you see, eliminating any confusion about updates and versions with all the documents having one 'home', a single place for editing and saving should prove a godsend. Email uploading and downloading issues will be a thing of the past, with the ease of access to one's documents from any internet connection. Added features of docs include presentations and spreadsheets I understand, but I've not trialled them yet. Another feature which may be use for some teachers is the capability to track visits, to check on who has accessed the documents. A tour of the templates feature left me somewhat dazed - there are thousands of them, in many languages, of limited use for students other than perhaps some business plans, resumes and questionnaires which could be adapted for educational use. I'm not sure that these cannot be accessed just as readily via Google main site.

I shared a document with a co-worker and was able to make and track alterations . I see this being especially useful for collaborative work between teachers in designing their programmes, and in the preparation of documents for publication. As one of several support editors to the indefatigable Editor of our College's annual publication,I can envisage Google docs and in particular its ability to compare text files, will prove a real boon. Students could make much use of docs in collaborative compositions and group presentations, whereas currently it is a physical difficulty all cramming around one computer. I find docs is more reliable than sending emails from home to work  - but with one major drawback. Whilst it was designed as a text utillity, Google docs has a low upload limit which may impact on some presentations. Perhaps this will be increased in later versions. 



Comments on other blogs:

Congratulations, Brett

You've mastered the docs spreadsheet feature. I hadn't considered the possible usefulness of docs for revision and notes sharing during school holidays - means more work for the teachers too if you include them in the loop. So what's new?

You're motoring ahead.
Cheers
Cath