Weekly Reflection & Report Post #7: Google Docs

     Collaborative learning brings value to everyone who participates in it.  By communicating and learning with others, students are given more opportunities to actively learn and engage themselves with other people’s learning (Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, 2013).  Collaborative learning exercises come in many different forms including peer review workshops, research assignments, group presentations, and written papers (Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, 2013).  This type of learning can be practiced in various sizes including whole classes, large groups, small groups, and partners (Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, 2013).  A great example of one way I use collaborative learning while participating in ADED 1P32 is through the online discussion forums.  Considering we are in the midst of a Digital Age where technology is becoming increasingly popular in the academia industry, there are many collaborative tools students can use to practice this type of learning.

      Say goodbye to unorganized e-mail attachments and hello to a computer-based home for digital documents (Lefever, 2007).  In this week’s learning activities and collaborative group assignment, I was introduced to a collaborative tool commonly known as Google Docs.  Google Docs is a unique service that makes sharing documents simple and free of charge.  I always feel buried by e-mail attachments when sharing, editing, and sending back group projects via Hotmail, this can create one huge mess that is unorganized and can negatively affect productivity.  While working on my group assignment, I got to utilize Google Docs to edit and share the presentation with my partner Eugene.  By allowing him to edit what I share with him, I was free from any messy Hotmail inbox.  Instead, everything was always in one place … my Google Drive.  This made everything much more easy and enhanced our productivity and efficiency.   

     Google Docs provides students with many opportunities to improve their personal learning environments.  Google Docs can create word documents, spreadsheets, visual presentations, and more.  This being said, many students could find this service very helpful while working in collaborative groups.  For example, partners creating a presentation can work on, edit, and share between each other their work… just like how my partner and I utilized Google Docs.  But there are other ways of using this service as well including sharing spread sheet information such as statistics and financial statements for students studying business or actual business people.  Google Docs delivers a great system for students to work collaboratively with their partners and groups in an organized matter.

     Although I enjoyed working with my partner via Google Docs, I was not impressed with Today’s Meet.  Today’s Meet is an online group chat service that my partner and I used to discuss our presentation.  I must admit that I was not satisfied with this service at all because it only allowed me to write 140 characters each message as if I was tweeting on Twitter.  This feature, or lack of, frustrated me considering I wanted to say more to my partner in each message.  We eventually gave up conversing on Today’s Meet and continued our conversation via regular text messaging.

     The experience of working collaboratively online was great, especially compared to previous collaborative group work experiences.  I now realize it is not group work that I dislike; it is choosing the wrong partners that create a nightmare for me.  This week’s assignment has made me realize that I can be satisfied working with others in a collaborative assignment… as long as the partner of choice and the environment in which we work meets my needs.  By working with my partner, we were able to cover more ground that I would be able to alone (Institute for Writing and Rhetoric, 2013).

     After creating our presentation on one of the nine elements of digital citizenship, I have gained more knowledge in regards to digital security.  Although I was familiar with this term prior to researching it, I have found more ways to protect myself in the cyber world.  As technology advances, digital natives like me need to continue to seek knowledge of digital citizenship in order to keep safe in the increasingly dangerous online world.

     Speaking of digital security, while browsing my Feedly I came across an article of interest shining light on the rise of cyber-attacks in Ukraine. Take a quick read!

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/cyberattacks-rise-as-ukraine-crisis-spills-on-the-internet/?_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

References

Institute for Writing & Rhetoric. (2013). Collaborative Learning/Learning with Peers. Retrieved from: http://dartmouth.edu/writing-speech/teaching/first-year-writing-pedagogies-methods-design/collaborative-learninglearning-peers

Lefever, L. (2007). Google Docs in Plain English. Retreived from: http://youtu.be/eRqUE6IHTEA