In our second Educational Technology class we were introduced to the world of GoogleDocs. As there are a variety of applications, we used the “Jigsaw” approach and the class was split into separate groups of about 3-5 people with the purpose of each group mastering one of the programs. We are to become familiar with the tools and processes of our program and then introduce the application to our classmates.
I chose the GoogleForums group partly because I will be able to use it in a variety of ways as a Social Studies educator. GoogleForums can be used to create tests, polls, quizzes, etc. Our group decided to create a personality quiz to find some of the goofier things out about our classmates in Cohort B. This is my first experience with the GoogleDocs suite of applications and I decided that since I am knowledgeable about other presentation applications learning about a new type was what would interest me the most. GoogleForums was confusing at first but our resident expert, Krysta, helped us maneuver through the application and I quickly started to understand how it worked.
What is great about the Google suit of applications is the fact that multiple members of a group can work on the same document from different computers, in different geographic locations, at the same time. This opens up a whole new world of possibilities when it comes to collaboration and efficiency. It would have come in handy when working on group projects during my undergraduate years. The memory of emailing attachments haunts me to this day.
With that in mind, once Krysta gave us a brief tutorial of GoogleForums our group created a survey with all members simultaneously adding and deleting our own questions. A nice feature of GooleForums is the scroll menu, which allows users to create a different type of question just by selecting from the items on the menu. Our group got very creative in that manner and we tried to incorporate every type of question in the survey. Another interesting feature is that users can ensure responses by making certain questions “required” to finish the survey.
Finally, the best thing about the GoogleForums application is that after a survey is created users are returned to a spreadsheet with a timestamp on it showing all of the responses to the information/questions. Having all the answers appear in one location makes it very easy to create graphs. I think GoogleForums will be useful in the classroom because it allows educators to easily and quickly enhance student participation by incorporating quizzes and polls. Furthermore, it will enhance students’ educational experience because they are able to answer questions and interact from home, receiving all the class data instantaneously. I can’t wait to learn about all of the other applications and see how I can utilize them in my classroom.
Thanks for the thorough reflection. Job well done. It will be exciting to observe your groups presentation.
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