Week Report & Reflection #7

Alright, in this week’s class we are working with Google Docs. Having a little bit of experience with this tool and  already critiquing it in our Great Tools discussion forum gave me a slight head start, however since that time I have grown even more infatuated with the tool. Google Docs is a smaller portion of a larger Google Drive, which includes Google Docs, Google Slides, and Google Sheets. Google Docs main concept starts off very similar to a Microsoft Word. The page layout and things you can do on the main page are common with Word. Which is a nice familiar place to start but then Google Docs keeps improving. To begin it is stored on the cloud so it is almost always available to you, even when you don’t have your original laptop that you started the document on. Secondly, it is accessed by more than one individual and can be used to collaborate with a group who are working to complete a common goal. Google Docs saves the process of sending information through email back and forth to each other which creates several different documents. 

Gillies, K. (CC) 2015.

It solves this problem by storing the information in one place, and allows multiple users to edit, submit, and collaborate towards the completion of any task. 

Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRqUE6IHTEA 

With Google Docs I can share the document online with someone who is going to help me edit and we can work on it together saving time, and effort in the very important final process of any good paper.  When two people are collaborating on a paper, or working on a project, something like Google Docs is incredible. The more people included in the work, the more amazing this tool becomes. 

Three ways that I could see people benefiting from Google docs being implemented in the classroom, could be from greater interaction between not just students alone, but teachers, students, parents, or principals. Google Docs could simulate an online classroom when large groups are all logged in together. A second way that Google Drive could be used in the classroom would be through using Google Sheets, to produce instant feedback on grades, keeping students and parents up to date. The third and final way Google Drive could be implemented into the classroom would be to create presentations using this fantastic tool. 

In my RSS feed this week I came across Raleigh Werberger’s blog in Edutopia, where he spoke briefly about Google Docs, and his attempt to use them in his high school. He spoke about its share-ability, and the power of the post it note giving more credibility to using Google Docs in the classroom. 

As I’ve mentioned a couple of times in previous blogs, adding these new tools to my PLE is becoming more and more difficult. This one is by far the most difficult. I feel that my PLE could revolve around Google Docs, as it can be used to create, collaborate, share, organize, and connect. Although I have always felt as though I have been a digital citizen when creating presentations, and completing projects, having to do so strictly online I feel as though my digital citizenship is finally becoming a two way street. Previously I have taken so much information from Google, and created a paper or created a project that would be handed in, or presented in a seminar.  Leaving my work online creates more information for other people to see which enhances my digital citizenship.  Leaving this positive digital footprint and increasing information instead of continuously taking information is new to me.  What I have gained this week, is the idea that being a digital citizen is a two way street. Not just acquiring, and manipulating, but also sharing.