Too tired today to try and think of a pun for the title... Following the crash course in productivity tools I thought I'd try and explore Google docs a bit more. I have had to use this for some collaborative work before and as I hadn't had an introduction felt a little nervous - I was unnerved by not having the option of saving but having to trust that it happened automatically. Also I didn't like the fact that there was no organisation, just a long list of documents. I have just discovered that I can put docs into collections, but it annoys me that they still appear in the long list, meaning the sense of overwhelm is not avoided. I think I also remember it being said that you couldn't share files that are in collections?
Finding google forms quite useful and it occurs to me that the job I've recently done of co-ordinating the requests for work shadowing could have been done more easily if I had a form for requesters. This would have saved me time finding out and collating information. So I drafted a form I could try and use if I co-ordinate this again. Having come out of it I now can't work out how to get the url of it to post it here! Also, occurs to me I could use this to get people to sign up for a training session on Moodle I'll be organising and perhaps use the form to ask people in advance what they want to get out of the session. Hhhm, but what do I think of the caution in Katie Piatt's blog against using it for secure or personal data? Does anything with people's name count? That would rule out both my intended uses! With my counsellor's background I am a bit cautious about anything to do with confidentiality.
I also had a tiny experiment with google presentations. It was a joy to discover another option. In my self employed capacity I have been planning a presentation using my home PC's antique version of PowerPoint, then trying to do it in open office as I was worried about not being able to open it at the training venue, then realising I probably couldn't open it there if they don't have open office installed. So the potential to access my presentation at a different venue without having to know what software they may have on their computers was a welcome relief. I found the presentation tool fairly easy to use but was perturbed by the fact I couldn't see an option for printing the presentation with my notes included, this would make it actually pretty difficult to use the presentation as you can only see a tiny portion of the notes on the screen. As ever, I can't tell if this is me being inexperienced or whether this is a limitation.
