What ideas do you have for how you could use this personally, professionally, or in your classroom with your students? Can you think of any possible problems? What are the advantages to working in the "cloud"? What are the disadvantages?
Response:
Since my students are younger I don't really think that I will be able to use this with them, however I do feel that I may use this a lot when doing work for my job. As I see it.....this sure beats carrying a jump-drive around on my neck all day. Besides I always worry about loosing the darn thing and having someone pick it up....that would not be good. As I see this, it is basically a "home" out there on the web where you can place all kinds of documents, and never have to worry about misplacing it or losing it. It is always there and waiting for you at any computer you wish to access it from. Well that sounds good to me. Just have to get used to using it now.
Only possible problem that I could foresee is maybe sending info to someone and then that person decides that they want to share it with the rest of the world. Then you may have a problem.
Another problem that I encountered when uploading my weekly note was, when it did upload the format changed and I do not like it as much as my regular note that I save on my jump-drive. There are definatly more features to regular Word on your desktop, and this I LOVE.
As for organization the Google Docs does look pretty easy to maintain, but I must say that my little jump-drive is pretty neat too. I know where everything is and in what folder. The organization most likely depends on the individual.
This is a wonderful tool when you want to share documents with other teachers in your building or district. This would be wonderful instead of getting the emails with attachments.
Overall I like the concept, and I will probably tinker with it and see which works best for me (Google Docs or my trusty jump-drive). Which will it be?????
My Google Docs folder is A MESS! I'm much better organized on my desktop computer and my flash drive.
ReplyDeleteYou're right, that Google Docs doesn't have as many features as Word, but that can actually be a GOOD thing. The learning curve isn't as steep, and students (and teachers!) can do just as well with fewer options to choose from.