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This is a comprehensive blog entry introduction to the potential of Google Docs as a collaborative tool for students. These potential uses are also valuable in work places or other group work. The value of this resource is the well-written way Wetzel articulates the advantages of Google Docs for collaborative practice. His argument is that such a system, aside from being free, is valuable to go beyond the e-mail sharing culture to a full real-time collaborative environment. Wetzel then proceeds to give examples of the potential for the application of Google Docs in education contexts and classrooms. To summarise, he argues three main points in using Google Docs for collaboration:  The ability for Google Docs to provide instant feedback to students on their work  To conserve expenses on school projects such as printing costs  Encouraging the working together of students on a projects in a systematic and orderly manner The tone of the article is clearly very much in favour of using Google Docs for collaborative practice in educational settings. However, though this may not be an issue in educational contexts, there are disadvantages using Google Docs that are not reported. Two bloggers highlight those weaknesses which may be of concern when trying to use more features in Google Docs that are not there but are part of the Microsoft Office Suite:  The speed of internet connection is vital; if it is slow the collaborator may not be able to keep up with others' postings (Bukisa, 2011)  Most of the time you cannot work offline with Google Docs, you must be online to create and update documents (Creative Marketing Solutions, n.d.) However, the article does put a compelling list of features that make Google Docs a good system to use for educational collaboration.

References Bukisa. (2011). Google Docs review. Retrieved April 13, 2011, from http://www.bukisa.com/articles/480255_google-docs-review Creative Marketing Solutions. (n.d.). How to use Google Docs. Retrieved April 13, 2011, from http://knolt.com/creative-marketing-solutions/2010/10/20/heading-2/ Wetzel, D. R. (2009). Google Docs are a free online educational tool: Web-based productivity software for teacher or student collaboration. Suite101.com. Retrieved April 2, 2011, from http://www.suite101.com/content/google-docs-are-a-free-online-educational-tool-a105900

The article, Google Docs are a Free Online Educational Tool Written by David R. Wetzel gives a comprehensive overview of the benefits of Google docs specifically in relation to education. The article outlines these positives a few of these include (but are not limited to) the ability to secure the websites content, making it a safe place to upload work, the ability to comment and give almost instant feedback, the ability to update students on deadlines, information, and helpful tools and also to keep course content. It seems that these positives are quite a universal thing as Keith McPherson (2007) explored all of these benefits in his article new online technologies for new literacy instruction. This reminds me of the use of wiki's in education, a tool that is explored by Elisha Petersen (2009) in which the tool is used to do the same. This brings me to question, which is better? Why use one over the other, if they achieve the exact same thing? Wetzel's article doesn't seem to give any suggestion that the tool has anything wrong with it. Something that, in technology, is hard to believe. Keith McPherson, However, outlines a few limitations of the program. He states "the conversion of graphics and tables from a Word document to a Google document is not reliable and Google Docs does not run on older browsers and Safari or Opera" (McPherson, 2007). Ryan Spoon a Principal at Polaris Venture Partners writes in his blog that he decided to use Wikidot (a wiki platform) instead of Google docs, he believes that although Google docs are great for specific documents they "don't scale over time well… more importantly the documents are treated distinctly and ultimately get as cluttered as your computer desktop" so although two tools (wiki and Google docs) can inevitably achieve the same thing, they still work in very different ways, and one has to evaluate the finer details. References Peterson, E.. (2009). Using a Wiki to Enhance Cooperative Learning in

This study by Blau and Caspi is valuable for seeing how using Google Docs in a sharing and collaborating environment has on perceived student learning. The credibility of this study is enhanced by a wide survey of 118 students at an Open University in Israel. Ownership meant the degree to which the student using Google Docs felt responsible to work on and update project documents. This quantitative study also sought to measure the perceived learning and quality of project outcomes students felt were a result of using Google Docs. The implications from the study suggested the importance of owning the document, but also to make sure others knew of changes to the document. A document creator felt they lost ownership of the document when editing was done on it. They became the reader of the document. Such a change in hierarchy shows the importance of communicating changes done on Google Docs to every team member. A second implication was that the value of the document seemed to increase when more revisions was done. This suggested that more work on the document resulted in a more credible and trustworthy document as the project document was improved towards its final presentation. In fact most survey respondents seemed to not think the document got worse as more things were added to it. Overall, there was a correlation between document quality and revision, with Google Docs being perceived as quite effective in producing trustworthy documents which add to the learning process. The researchers' main advice from the study is that revising documents and suggesting improvements is far more effective than editing another's documents. Whilst this is not always possible it does suggest the importance of communication in the collaboration process. Google Docs is not a passive collaboration media; therefore, care in making sure all team members communicate changes is vital to a much better collaboration process.

References Blau, I., & Caspi, A. (2009). What type of collaboration helps? Psychological ownership, perceived learning and outcome quality of collaboration using Google Docs. Proceedings of the Chais conference on instructional technologies research 2009: Learning in the technological era. Y. Eshet-Alkalai, A. Caspi, S. Eden, N. Geri, Y. Yair (Eds.), Raanana: The Open University of Israel. Retrieved April 2, 2011, from http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:bBVQbNfm4-MJ:scholar.google.com/+google+docs&hl=en&as_sdt=0,5

Kumar's work has a reasonable amount to offer in terms of a resource; his research gives more clues to the perceived effectiveness of Google Docs users have towards it as a collaborative tool. He has chosen to use the effective research method focus groups with semi-structured questions. Perhaps the useful part of investigating Google Docs as a collaborative tool is how he selected students at the university site who were in many disciplines. Thus he was able to elicit some good insights into why Google Docs is so praised as a collaborative educational tool. One finding was that students preferred Google Docs as a time saving tool where no formal meetings took place. Although the students were on campus, it was surprising that they felt they would rather use Google Docs then all meet to work on a project. The other finding was that the acceptance of this Web 2.0 collaborative technology was greater amongst students that had previous experience with Google Docs or other similar software. Another major advantage found by Kumar (2009) was that overall using such collaborative tools increased interest in the subject matter of their particular discipline. The concept that new technologies add value to existing practice was also interesting. Although Kumar was not clear on this concept, what students indicated this was the case, such a statement suggests that using Google Docs is linked to increased interest in a subject and in turn a desire to succeed. The weakness of this resource is Kumar is not clear of this link; however, as an article to show that Google Docs is of value equating collaboration tools with increased productivity shows how potentially valuable using them can be.

Yes Michael - I agree - things are constantly changing and evolving on the Internet and as you say if Kumar did the study again it would be a different outcome. Cheers, Kaye

This paper articulates through research and data analysis from although relatively small focus group the effectiveness of using new technologies 2.0 to enhance learning of students from different background in their respective disciplines. This is as same topic as one of my discussions with article Art Education, Collaboration and the Internet. It talks about internet technology integrates into contemporary education. New generation communicates and shares information differently in current technological society. Computer literate generation are different from earlier generations who rely mainly on books and printed materials. Collaborative online activity as an educational endeavor is involving people from different areas to work together.(Harris, 1999). Internet is also being used in region of high education that adopts Web2.0 to help students learning for their self-study and group projects and leverage strategies. (Kumar, n.d). Not only for undergraduate students, but also those students from high schools and colleges, all gained the benefits of new technologies across disciplines in order to achieving their teaching and learning purposes of education. For high education, I completely agree with that Google Documents is very popular among the students for collaborative projects or assignments, because I often use Google document for my topic research and reference as well. I also believe that the internet generation's familiarity with new media undoubtedly will make this way easier for teachers to craft effective learning experiences and to use such tools to engage students. Reference: Harris, J. (1999). First steps in telecollaboration. Learning and leading with technology. 27(3),54-57. Roland, A. (2003). Art Education, Collaboration and the Internet. Retrieved from http://www.artjunction.org/articles/arted_collab_internet.pdf Kumar, S. (n.d). Undergraduate Perceptions of the Usefulness of Web 2.0 in Higher Education: Survey Development. Re

This article takes a case study approach using qualitative and quantitative survey questions to measure the difference between pre and post uses of Google Docs. The research problem was based on the observation that Web 2.0 collaborative technologies were initially causing hesitation. However, upon consistent use in the context of an online course, students changed their minds about the usefulness of Google Docs. Both researchers intended to measure undergraduate levels of self-efficacy and undergraduates perceptions of using these collaborative technologies. The study had 18 respondents to the survey. Although the researchers acknowledged Google Docs limitations in the robustness of the software, they argued that this would make no difference to the perceptions of the undergraduates using it. The results of the study are somewhat unremarkable and predicable, yet support the idea that Google Docs is very useful for collaborative student work. There were major differences pre and post use of Google Docs that were significant. A majority of students felt their level of self-efficacy, that is confidence to use the software, was much higher after undertaking the course. The second hypothesis also showed the majority had positive perceptions of using Google Docs both in the course but significantly in future studies and workplaces. Although the researchers reported mostly positive results about the use of Google Docs, one issue clouded the results. Not being able to access the documents when offline is perceived as a major impediment in the collaborative process. Overall this study may seem somewhat bland and predictable; however, it supports much positive and negative criticism of Google Docs in the ability to foster and impede the learning of the students using it.

Reference Edwards, J.T., & Baker, C. (2010). A case study: Google collaboration applications as online course teaching tools. Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 6(4), Retrieved April 3, 2011, from http://jolt.merlot.org/vol6no4/edwards_1210.htm