by Laura Wyatt
As an undergrad, I didn’t use much of online communication regarding my classes, only because all my classes were face-to-face (with the exception of using blackboard, occasionally). Once I started grad school that has all since changed. My grad classes are all online, and communicating has been an easy shift, but trying to collaborate with multiple users was more challenging, doable, but still challenging.
Google apps wasn’t something that my profs forced on the class, and I never once heard them mention it, supposing that they have never had experience with using Google Apps themselves. I knew about Google Apps, and finally had a chance to effectively use Google Docs for an online course I had take a few years back.
The assignment that broke me into the use of Google Docs was several huge lesson plans for an inclusive education course. I was paired with a partner, and together we had to effectively come up with lesson plans for specific subjects and how accommodations would take place in a situation where there would be children with physical and/or mental disabilities.
Needless to say, there wasn’t much direction from the prof on how to collaborate when our class was an online class. Sure we could have chatted via email or other means, but that wasn’t sufficient for the (rather large) project we had to tackle. Luckily, the partner I was assigned with also lived in Westminster, so meeting up wasn’t an issue, so we had a meet-up one evening. We threw our thoughts and ideas onto a word document, but I felt doing this was primitive, so I created Google documents and shared them with her. She had her laptop and I had mine, and we sat there and ate our meals we ordered as we clicked away on our machines. We each had our own document, and every half hour we would ask each other to edit the other’s document. It was convenient because we didn’t have to send emails back and forth, since all docs were online. Of course we didn’t come close to finishing our assignment, so we had to continue collaborating virtually for the next several days via Google docs.
This was so great, because I would work my part of the assignment as she would work on hers, and occasionally we would check each other’s for errors and make suggestions. I could work on it at a time that was convenient for me, and I didn’t have to worry about my partner. Also, it made me work harder, because I knew that a peer was judging my work. I know very few profs who use Google apps, but it would be fantastic if more used them. Since McDaniel students have Google accounts, there isn’t an excuse for them not to be able to use it. I think students would be very open to using Google Docs in their assignments, but as I have noticed, some students need a ‘push’ every so often. Also, Google Docs is a great way to monitor the progress of assignments, since the prof could make it mandatory to allow them to collaborate on their document. The possibilities are endless.
Google Docs is not the only limitation- there are also Google Sites (which I have also used in a different online ed. class, blog on that will be later), Calendar, Talk, and more are being developed and added on occasion. Overall, data these days is becoming more cloud-based, and as effective as it may be, it isn’t an end in itself. Utilizing the online tools that Google offers can change the way students learn, and can even change the atmosphere of a class. I know that most students like to use their computers, and giving them an excuse to do so can’t hurt!