Saturday, February 12, 2011

Reflection on 2/12

Kids learning at Kiosks in India
iGoogle
SlideShare
Keynote
Google Presentation
Forms

It just keeps on coming.  I look forward to having some time tomorrow sitting in my hotel room to mess around with some of these tools and concepts.  I continue to be amazed at the range of options we have available to "make our lives more efficient and effective."  The question for me is how much of this I will actually implement in my daily work life.  What often happens with very interesting classes like this is that I start to fiddle around with some new program or technology, then after a a little experimentation, I revert back to old ways.  I think the key is going to be putting a little time in upfront to really understand a few of these tools, then find ways that they will make my life more efficient.

I have great hopes for the Google Apps arena for a few reasons.  First, because I travel some and use a variety of computers (work laptop, home laptop, iphone...) this may help me with version control.  I always find myself messing around to make sure I have the most up to date version of important documents.  If I can keep everything in one place, it will save me lots of time.  I also find a need to collaborate with others on most of what I produce, so the collaboration piece is critical.

I fear that there will be issues with compatibility.  I don't know yet if this is going to be an issue, but I remember back when anything created something on a Mac couldn't be easily handled on a PC.  This seems to be going away, but I still get documents emailed to me from Mac users that I cannot access.  In the "real world" it seems that everything is based on Word, Excel and PowerPoint.  If I can be convinced (through experience) that the Google Docs can be emailed, printed, shared, etc. with Mac and PC users universally, then I will be sold.

Cheers!

5 comments:

  1. The Mac/PC dilemma is slowly fading away--esp with updated translator programs (i.e. Flip4Mac, etc.) often built into the software suite. It used to be huge and detrimental to efficiency. Not so much any more. Keep working at Google Apps. I think it will have a lengthy shelf-life!

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  2. Hi Gary,
    I wasn't able to join the on-line class last week, but just went on the link to view what y'all were able to do. Elluminate is very cool. Clearly, there are challenges but I am excited by the potential. So glad you are in the class and willing to share your knowledge.

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  3. Diddo...sharing your knowledge is much appreciated. The Elluminate experience was special. Love the fam photo ;)

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  4. Just a quick thank you for setting up our live online session on Monday. It was very interesting and has opened up unlimited possibilities.

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  5. I to want to also give you a quick thank you for setting up the online session.. thats awesome.

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