Tag: docs

Office Online

I frequently write about Google apps which I feel offer students great opportunities and value. While I believe Google offers the best resources of this type, I also believe that without competition companies fail to improve and take advantage of the commitment of their users.

So, I propose that if you are a committed Microsoft user that you try out Office Online. I was surprised when I tried to investigate this service and found that I already an account. Evidently Office Online is the follow-up to Microsoft web apps and documents created with Online are stored in OneDrive with is the follow-up to SkyDrive.

Online is a free product that offers a software as service equivalent of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. The free version comes with 15 gigabytes of storage. Microsoft offers a service similar to Google Apps for Education – Office 365 Education.

The Verge offers a comparison

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Collaboration

I have stumbled into an approach for advanced classes I like. I run my grad “tech for teachers” class using a kind of flipped model. There are reading assignments and tasks to be completed before class and then the class (online in this case) involves discussion, demonstrations, etc. I typically generate some talking points/notes I provide students at the beginning of class to provide some structure. The outline does not necessarily control the class but it offers some structure in case a structure is needed.

The topic for the week focused on productivity tools, the writing process, peer editing, etc. and one requirement to assure the students had explored the procedure was for the students to comment on a Google doc I had shared. I decided to use the document I was working on for the class outline as the target for the student exercise. The results were pretty interesting. There was no expectation of relevance just the requirement to demonstrate the students could use the comment feature, but the things they decided to add were interesting. I decided the tactic offers some interesting possibilities for the future.

docscollaboration

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Google Doc Table of Contents

The Google Doc adds-on offer some new capabilities and a great way of expanding the power of apps in general.

docaddon1

I am putting together content that will eventually be divided between a textbook and related online resources. My work flow results in one giant integrated file and I eventually decide what I will end up putting where.

docaddon2

 

In the image that appears above, you see the Table of Contents as a second window to the right of the open doc. The one technique I had to add to my normal approach is to identify my headings as headings (I usually just bold my headings). If you are familiar with HTML headings, you  are ready to go.

 

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Docs Research Tool

Google has added an interesting new feature to Google Docs. Under the Tools heading you will find “Research“. Select text and then select the research tool. A pane will open with the results from a search on the selected text. You can preview individual hits from the search. You can then use the tool to insert a link or cite a source for information you might decide to include in your document.

Google blog post on the new feature

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