Google Docs are a Free Online Educational Tool - 0 views
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Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11This 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.
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Michael Nycyk on 15 Apr 11References 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