Google documents

What’s occurring

Kirsty Adams Student Life, Work , , , , ,

Well, on Tuesday I took a trip to the GCW top floor to discover where the posters for the wireless printing could be put. I think the idea is to introduce the wireless printing in short bursts so that if things don’t work out as planned it won’t be a huge blow and won’t have too many students complaining at once.

I don’t have a huge amount to report about work as I haven’t really been doing too much.
However, I have been asked to possibly give a 1-to-1 tutorial about Google Documents, which could be quite interesting and some good experience too.

Despite not much going on in work life, there’s loads going on in student life.
I have just signed up to be a part of the Lincoln Law Clinic that should be up and running again within the next week or so. I will be giving legal advice to some 15,000 people within the University, and those with links to the University. I have also signed up to something called StreetLaw, where I will have the opportunity to visit colleges and schools to give presentations on aspects of law.
Alot going on and hopefully alot going on the C.V. =D

Online Word Processors

Kirsty Adams Work , , , , ,

Since re-attempting my report of Google Documents, I have come across quite a few ‘Online Word Processors’. I never knew these existed until I met Google Documents and since researching Google Docs I have found more! I think they’re fab! For most of them you need to have an account, but still…they’re handy.

There is also speculation that I am not the typical student, due to the fact I check my student e-mails (all the time), I think the automatic updates sent to the student e-mail (and staff e-mail) are very useful and as Tim witnessed today, I get excited when my new sites for 09/10 are posted on Blackboard!!
Hmmm…actually…I suppose I know where Tim is coming from!

A Big Fat Favour…?

Kirsty Adams Work ,

I’ve been asked to write a report comparing Google documents and Microsoft Word.
I haven’t yet starting writing the report, that will hopefully start tomorrow, I’ve been gathering information and writing notes today.
I’ve written part of a past assignment in both Google Docs and in Microsoft Word and I want to share this with you by posting the link on here. I would be a massive help if you could try and access the document and let me know if you could access it ok or not. It allows you to leave comments and add pictures aswell so if you have anything thoughts then please, go ahead and leave something and let me know what you personally think of Google Docs =)

Thankyou!!

http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYhPvgY0B6vqZGdxZ3g4OHFfMjdmOWNoMm4yZA&hl=en

Maybe I was wrong?!

Kirsty Adams Work , , , , , ,

Its my 3rd day looking at Google apps, namely, Google documents.
I’ll be honest…I didn’t like it when I first had a play earlier this week as I didn’t think it could do much. But after having a fiddle, I found that its a good application!

The thing I like best about it is that you can e-mail a document (as an attachment, for example) to your own personal account at any time, then when you go to access the document later on it will be in your list of documents for you to open.

There is a restriction though with the type of documents you can upload. You can upload them from your computer or from a website by entering the URL. I tried with a few documents and it wouldn’t accept them. But its fine with pdf documents.

The good, the bad, and the down right ugly!

Kirsty Adams General, Work , , , , , , ,

The Good…
Is the fact I now have a telephone on my desk that I can use. Now, whether I actually use it or not is a completely different matter!
The good is also that I have learnt how to use Google Documents.

The Bad…
Is Google Documents!
Its not really that great, well not yet anyway. Ok, its only my first day properly looking at it and using it, but I’m not too keen.
All I’ve done so far is upload a document that I have created onto the program and ‘share it’ with a couple of e-mail addresses.
What I’ve grasped from it is that its just a less advanced version of Microsoft Word. I know that it has the option to share the documents in your account with the internet or with friends, but isn’t that just the same as e-mailing a document to a friend??
I’m sure Blackboard already has a system whereby students can post assignments to a certain page and it will be picked up by their tutors? (I haven’t actually had the option to do that). I know one of my friends had to do it, the only problem is that when it is posted little symbols appear throughout the whole document. At least with google documents, you get the document and that’s it, no gobbledy gook in your work, which is an advantage.
At the minute I much prefer Word and handing work in in person, at least then you know its got there ok. With handing work in over the internet, there is always a little risk of it not getting there and just getting lost along the way.
I have had a problem with google documents and I don’t really know why…I have sent my document in an e-mail to a few addresses and it has been able to be opened easily (I sent it to a yahoo e-mail account and a hotmail one), yet when I sent it to the Lincoln e-mail addresses, it won’t allow it to be opened, its asking you to log-in – slightly confusing. But this isn’t really going to be a big help if it is wanting to be used to hand-in work to tutors.

The Ugly…
My exam results =(
Not what I was expecting unfortunately…at least I still have one more year though. Fingers crossed I’ll get the results I want and need!

One more little complaint…about Google! I deteste the ‘Google Books’ application, its rubbish! I tried to search for books and it doesn’t seem to have many recent books on the net, plenty from 1968, hardly anything from 2007 or 2008!
I had a play with the Blogs application aswell, you know, just to have a look, and pretty much all of the results were from America. If I’m looking for something specifically IN England, America isn’t going to be much help is it really?!?!