Thing 18

I explored Google Docs. I did not see much difference between the word processing and presentation programs compared to Mircosoft's. This was a good discovery because my upcoming students might be using Google Docs. I very much like that Google Docs users can share and collaborate on documents. This is a big-time plus! I also liked that the documents could be accessed from any computer with Internet connection. Am I correct in thinking that this would mean students could work on documents on their home computer? If so, this could have merit as well as negative aspects (such as not knowing if the student is completing the work independently).

I did have trouble using the spreadsheet on Google Docs. I was able to make a spreadsheet, but couldn't format the cells because the toolbar would not become active (don't know what to call this--the toolbar was gray, I couldn't use it despite clicking on it). The Help section did not help with my issue.

I was pleased to see Docs for Teachers, but felt like many of the documents were not geared to the elementary level. I would rather make my own as I have done in the past.

In the future, I will explore Open Office on my work laptop.