GoogleDocs

I've talked about GoogleDocs before, mostly in reference to other things (like Twitter), but with the update of Google Docs, it seems like it deserves its own posting.

I mostly started using GoogleDocs for two reasons:  #1, Twitter and #2, Blackboard.  I like being able to post documents to Twitter (which is impossible without something like GoogleDocs, since it doesn't let you upload files).  I've been using it a lot lately, it's especially useful for tweeting completed versions of papers from classes, reviews and other materials.  With many of my students having iTouches, they can access those files from anywhere (including school), which has been handy, because they can check their answers/complete things at school from their own device without me providing them with laptops.

Blackboad is another part of why I use Googledocs so much.  I always found it odd that you can't upload files to announcements on Blackboard.  It was frustrating to me for a long time, so I started using Googledocs as a workaround.  There are times when I need my students to just get to a file, without looking around for it-Blackboard didn't let me do it, but Googledocs does, which is great.

Googledocs just underwent an update, and it's lovely-it's starting to resemble MS Word Suite more than I ever thought it would.  There are a number of changes, but I think the best one so far is the drawing aspect.  It resembles the image creator/editor in MS Word.  But, since it's Googledocs, it's completely collaborative, so students could create mindmaps, webs and other organizers and share them amongst themselves.  Using with groupwork seems like a natural application or if you taught an online class.  The tools are easy to use (you'll completely recongize them from Word)- I created the one at the top of this post in about one minute.  

Here's a video that outlines the changes to Googledocs: