Thing #13

I had never heard of Zoho before this activity and I do like the fact that it s a free way to create documents, but I like Google Docs even better. I like that it allows you to create different types of documents not just ones you could produce in Microsoft Word. Google Docs is like a combination of some of Microsoft Office programs; it lets you make spreadsheets like excel as well as word documents. I have had previous experience with Google Docs that contributes to my preferring it over Zoho and Microsoft. Every semester I go on religious retreats held by other universities and as a staff member I get a lot of emails. The most important ones involve staff assigments and tranportation, which come in the format of Google Docs. The thing I love about it is that when someone sends you a Google Doc you can open it and add to it, and it will save automatically. Everyone puts thier information in and it all stays nicely in one place that you can go back to and change if necessary. Google Docs also has the benefit of being free. All you need is a Google account. I am not so sure I would use Zoho much in the future when I have other options. I found it more confusing and harder to navigate for some reason.
These programs will be great to use in the classroom. When a teacher assigns group projects, students will be able to share them easily and can edit them from home. They do not have to be in the same room even though it is still good to communicate in person. Google Docs will definitely make collaborating on projects and other assignments more fun and less stressful for students. They do not have to worry so much about scheduling a time, date, and place to meet. I think even the students who do not do well in groups will be motivated and active in doing group things. We have all had that experience when given a group project/presentation where there is one person (at least) that does not participate and makes everything harder for the other group members. Being able to share documents and such through technology may just help with that problem because those people can at least do their part while they are sitting at home.
The document I created with Google Docs was the first thing that came to mind: a preadsheet of all 12 grandkids on my Dad's side of the family from oldest to youngest, our ages, birthdays, and where we fall in the order. I thought it would be interesting to figure out the average age and to my surprise it was a lot higher than I expected. But I did realize that would be because most of us are right around the same age. As you can tell if you look at it there were 8 of us born within a matter of 7-8 years...I like to refer to it as "the original 8". That is how many grankids there were until one of my uncles married a woman who had a child from a previous marriage, and before another uncle got remarried to someone ten years his junior. We have a couple of very new editions to our family that have really stretched out the age difference, but did not really effect the average. I did even realize as I was putting in birthdays that Google Docs was putting the full birth year (I typed 89 and it put 1989).
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqVYGyWKgaqgdGRPdGZIeU5jZDNzMGxOMzYzRlBmVGc#gid=0