Google is a monster search engine with enormous capacity. I’m still learning fun tricks about refining my searches to isolate the exact results I need, and it remains my favorite research buddy… but simple searching aside, the variety of other applications developed (and acquired) by Google is staggering. The more I delve into the collection of useful tools and software, the more I find. Google offers layers and layers of choices in an ever-growing array of software goodies.
I’m reminded of my husband’s magic culinary specialty, hometown spaghetti (the kind he used to cook at the firehouse for all the hungry firefighters). That plate of endless spaghetti has magic powers — it seems to start growing when I consume it, until, after eating for five minutes, the plate is still as full as when I began. In the same way, Google keeps increasing its offerings. Just when you think you’ve finished exploring the Google collection, more pops up.
Google Docs and Google Groups
I’m a newbie when it comes to exploring Google Apps (the name for the collection of Google software), but I’ve been jumping in to explore and use the system. I’m heady from the experience — such amazing stuff! For example, these applications allow users to interact online and widen their reach.The best part for education, in my opinion, is that Google allows user interaction and peer sharing/editing. For colleagues in the workplace or for teachers and students, this means text documents no longer need to be emailed back and forth to review and/or edit. Now a document can be posted on Google docs and shared online by as many people as necessary, or a discussion can be started in Google Groups and, with permission, anyone can participate.
I made the following presentation as a way to introduce Google Apps to a panel of community college educators. Limited to only 10 minutes, I pared down the list of applications and focused only on two: Google Docs and Google Groups, although I mentioned more. I was also required to speak about the pedagogy of using Google Apps, so a few slides touch on the needs of 21st Century learners and how Google Apps speaks to those needs.
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Posted on February 14th, 2009 by Sharon Elin
Filed under: Uncategorized
