Thing 15

How might you use this tool in your personal and professional life?

Sometimes it seems like Google seeks total world domination, but Google Docs is a great product for true collaboration. It streamlines the process and lets even the most casual computer user become a competent user. I think that most work in the future will be team-based, since everyone will be connected to each other and to every possible source of information. But now we are in a transition time and I think that schools are much slower to change than business or individuals. Still, the ability to work together at home and at school using Google Docs should be explored by students and teachers.

What issues come to mind about using this tool with students (ie, they need email addresses to log-in)?

I am concerned with the digital divide; not every student has access to a home computer. It also takes maturity to focus on homework when using the computer (even for me who still sometimes takes a Solitaire break) though I guess students would be multi-tasking. Also there must be a way to keep students accountable for their individual work in a group project without too much effort on the teacher's part. Maybe Google Docs could keep track of when a person signs in and how long they stay on the site. Plus the issue of student e-mail addresses and other privacy/security issues, though I do not think there would be bandwidth issues which is the beauty of the Cloud.