# 5 Google Docs

Google Docs has made an impact on my professional life because it allows me to create, edit and work on documents while collaborating in real time with other people. I love the way Google Documents lets the ‘owner’ of the document update and edit without transferring everything back and forth across devices. I am completely ‘over’ version control (doc vs1 or vs 14?)

I have worked in team with people in ICT projects that demand close collaboration on decision making and we already engage in a lot of email traffic so having our work uploaded into Google Docs is a sanity saver.

In my technical job, I use a spreadsheet in Google Docs to continually update all the software and hardware items that need identifying and accessioning into the school data base. Because we have moved out and into demountables then out and into our new school, the hardware has been relocated so many times that I would end up with several copies of the assets register.

In the past I would have taken home the assets register draft on a spreadsheet and update it with barcodes etc and it occurred to me that I could collaborate with myself on this project. I have several tabs for software, hardware and data outlets around the school map. Thankfully I am nearing completion and can finally transfer all the details to the school’s database. I gave both my principal and IT boss rights to view and edit the spreadsheet in case I won the lottery and went overseas for a carefree holiday !

I took the opportunity to have a look at ZOHO and it seemed to have a lot of useful tools. The writer was impressive as it looked much like Office 2007’s ribbon interface. I had a look at some of ZOHO’s tips and found that pretty well anything one can do in Word can be done in ZOHO. Sometimes I get cross with the limitations that Google Docs has on headers, footers and table properties.

But a new Google Docs thought popped into my head this weekend. Our diocesan email account was down for the weekend because of a system upgrade and we were all suitable warned. However, being someone who needs constant reminders and who tends to lose the reminder post-its, I tend to shoot off professional email reminders to myself at school or personal to-do reminders back to my home account. My diary is always a good fall back but I open my emails first thing in the morning. So I found that I was high and dry this weekend so I started a doc of reminders that I kept editing.

What does this mean for education? Potentially, teachers and students could tap into a whole network or experts for collaboration online anywhere – anytime.