I've just revolutionized my household! The shopping list is no longer on the fridge held up by that free Australia Post magnet with complimentary pencil- it's now a shared google doc and accompanying spreadsheet that contains a list of all household items.
When the inventory reaches a certain 'low point' according to spreadsheet calculations and the helpful visual chart it's time to go shopping. Never again will I be faced with the request of purchasing toilet rolls on the way home because we are almost 'out' - heaven forbid should that occur especially living with two small children (my own) and my (greek) in-laws (and we all know the elderly and their frequent night-time rituals), however now I know that' almost out' does not refer to 'down to the last 16 rolls!' I kid you not! Aldi and pallet shopping has a lot to answer for- especially if storage containers are not this weeks special!
Back in the classroom, google docs has many benefits for students especially those working collaboratively as each student can add to a document and review the work by others. This isn't confined to the classroom either as they can work from the comfort of their couch at home and who wouldn't be a fan of that?
As a teacher the initial set-up may at first be finicky, but it is a great way to track how each member of the group adds to the overall group result. The spreadsheet option is good and would be good for juniors (stage 3) tracking data in HSIE such as weather temperatures, precipitation etc in a table over time then graphing and importing into their document. Another example of use could be Stage 4 geography tabulating demographic data and factors causing changes within communities.
It can only be a matter of time before school strategic planning documents, committee proposals, staff agenda's and faculty programmes become true working documents using google docs; where everyone can make a valuable and documented contribution, instead of one person waiting for feedback then tabulating, editing and evaluating results. This method certainly reduces the time collating data, and the 'mail trail' of attachments sent and subsequently stored. The prevailing difficulty for implementation is not so much staff commitment but time to allocate to ICT training to become savvy, confident users of collaborative, time saving (and storage saving) applications.
The fact that in using google docs, information can be shared, edited by others and uploaded without memory sticks can only be a bonus.
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Great reflective comments Jane. Glad you're going so well with the course. Just for the benefit of the course, structure your blog into modules so you've covered the requirements for that module. For example, blogs are part of Module 2 but this hasn't been reflected upon. Don't forget to be a follower of other St Pats staff blogs and comment in your own blog what you're learnt from their blog.
ReplyDeletePerhaps paragraph 2 - igoogle-yougoogle (Blog post 2) does make comment on how blogs could be used in the classroom?
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