Google Docs Group Project

My lovely group and I were assigned to explore Google Presentations this week, and the program exceeded my expectations. The program is much like Power Point, but it uses the same principle as many other Google programs and can be accessed from any computer or device that is hooked up to the internet. As with Google Docs, multiple people can be working on the project at the same time from satellite locations, but can see the changes immediately.

I briefly said this in our Google Presentation document, but I have always been resistant to Power Point and so I have very little experience with slide show presentations. I have never had it installed in my computer, so the little interaction I had was at school when it was required. It wasn't a particularly difficult program, but I just never got comfortable enough with it for it to be a resource I willingly sought after. Google Presentation, however, I felt almost immediately comfortable with (this may be due to the fact that I'm just in general becoming more comfortable with these types of programs, but it seems very user friendly). I like that there are templates that you can choose from, which allows me to get started faster and start constructing the slides.

I know with our Aspire program, most of us students have crazy irregular schedules, some living in different cities juggling jobs, kids, etc. This program allows us all to chip away at the Presentation when it works for us, but it still has the collaborative feel as if we were doing it together. The software is very user-friendly and makes it simple to incorporate media from the internet into the presentation. Since I am still pretty foreign to these types of presentations, I'm sure I don't know the half of the capabilities that this program offers, but I'm confident that as I use it more I will really be able to take advantage of all it has to offer.

In the classroom I think this will be so beneficial because it makes doing collaborative projects so much easier. Also (and this may be a minor thing, but to me it's big), I love that there are no compatibility issues. I don't know how many times I have been sitting in both high school and college classes, watching a teacher struggle to get their Power Point loaded and functioning on their computer. Often a chunk of the class was wasted and the teacher eventually gave up and turned to lecturing. It seems to me that Google has made that process so much easier by using their database to store everything. As someone who is not particular savvy when it comes to technology, that is music to my ears... Yay Google!

https://docs.google.com/a/willamette.edu/present/edit?id=0AaIbbjCDpu2jZHF3c25tN18wZjNjNWQ5aGc&hl=en_US