sabato 2 maggio 2009

Google Docs: a new elixir of life

This week I learnt to use Google Docs, which allows users to edit an online document, collaborating in real-time with other users. Therefore, I can use this new tool not only to write and share documents but also to work together with other people preparing, for example, PowerPoint presentations . Isn’t it fantastic? If you have to write a book or a paper with other students you can simply use Google Docs, save everything you write on a document folder and keep on working on it wherever and whenever you want.
If I had only known about the existence of Google Docs also in the 1st semester! I would have certainly spared time, while I was preparing my PowerPoint presentation with my peers. We could have written everything at home and shared files at any time we wanted and where we wanted. Needless to say, it isn’t never too late to learn something!. While using a Wiki no more than one person can edit the same page at a time, with Google Docs more than one user can edit at the same time. Moreover, I can see who is editing the page and once I entered the text and saved it, everything will be saved and available for the other users, who are working with me.
On Wednesday, I started using Google Docs to correct some bibliographic references using the APA style. An hard work!. I did this task working together with my group peers.I think that Italian students have always problems on writing references, as it is something they learn when they are at University. There are several ways of making references and following the APA style we made corrections on the bibliography of group 2. Google Books and Google Advanced Searched have been really useful to find immediately the right references of some books and scholar articles. However, it turned out to be difficult to find the suitable style to cite web pages and transcripts of interviews published on-line
All in all, I think that this new tool is quite easy to use and it facilitates collaborative work tasks. Moreover, I’m also sure that only the people invited on Google Docs will see what I’m writing and this is very important to protect my Privacy and that of my peers.

2 commenti:

  1. Hi Elena!
    I totally agree with you when you say that the tool we leart this week would have been extremely convenient also in sparing time, if we had known it before!! We, students, have always too little time!;) Anyway, the importance is that now we know it and it will be very useful in the future. It is also true that every lesson teaches us something new. To me every technologic tool is a discovery, because (I must admit) I blissfully ignore most of them!! But I'm proud of my new discoveries.
    As regards our linguistic feedback, let's see:
    - Instead of "at any time we wanted" I would write WHENEVER we wanted;
    - ". and where we wanted": I think that the fullstop here is a typing error; anyway, I would write also here WHEREVER;
    - After "Needless to say" I would put a comma;
    - "that it isn’t never too late", here there are too many negations. My suggestion here is: IT'S NEVER TOO LATE;
    - "using a Wiki", "USING WIKI" without A;
    - "at the time is not correct; "per volta" is AT A TIME;
    - A Hard, the H in hard is voiced;
    I think you wrote a good blogpost. See you soon, dear!
    Have a nice Sunday

    RispondiElimina
  2. Hi Elena,

    I carefully read your post and I see that we have the same viewpoint. As I told Francesca, Google Docs could be used also for our final thesis. Moreover, it is a manna from heaven when you have to work together with people that live far from your home. Like Skype, Wiki, Delicious and other online tools, Google Docs is certainly worth using. And, of course, it could be used at work. Let’s think, for example, to all those company presentations on PowerPoint that have to be shown in many different countries!

    As far as your language is concerned, I would like to point out just a couple of things:
    • Learned is wrong: you should say I learnt (irregular verb);
    • I would say “preparing, for example, PowerPoint presentations”;
    • After “everytime you want” I would add “provided you have an Internet connection”, just to be clearer;
    • I would say “if only I had known” (I would add “only”);
    • I would write “my final PowerPoint presentation”, just to explain better which presentation it was;
    • I think you did some typing mistakes: try to check all the full stops (two are after a “!”, another one just before “and” with no capital letter);
    • I would write “Needless to say, it is never...”. I would leave the “that” out and never is already a negation;
    • “No more than one person” rather than “people”;
    • You say “at a time”;
    • I would say: “While using a Wiki....; with Google Docs, on the contrary, more than one user...”;
    • If I were you I would check the tenses in the sentence “Moreover, I can see who is editing... once I entered...with me”. I would use the simple present: “Once I enter the text and save it, everything is saved and available”. Yet, this is not written in stone and you could ask for help to Professor Sarah Guth or Google it;
    . I think that you made a typing mistake: before hard we must put "a". You could also say "What a hard work!";
    • I would say “ I completed this task” because it seems to me more elegant;
    • I would simplify and write “with my peers” or “in group”;
    • I would say “have problem with references”;
    • Instead of “have been”, why don’t you use “were really useful to find...”?;
    • I would put a full stop after “online”;
    • You can leave the “it” before “facilitates” out because “this new tool” is the subject for both sentences;
    • I would put the very last sentence above, when you are talking about Google Docs in order to follow the logical flow of ideas;
    • I would say “that only the people invited”: I think that a definite article would be better because you specify which kind of people;
    • I would say “what I wrote” rather than “what I am writing” because maybe the people invited on Google Docs could not be online when you are writing, but they see your document later, when your editing is already finished. Yet, this is just an opinion of mine.

    See you tomorrow and have a nice afternoon,
    Bye
    Francesca M.

    RispondiElimina