Weekly Report & Reflection #7

Google Docs has been an application that I have gone back to time and time again because of its easy to use sharing capabilities. The whole office suite is available to use for free (with the exclusion of certain features within the application) and all of your work is stored on the website (yay for preserving the storage space on my laptop!) which means it can be accessed through any device with an internet connection. This works wonders for those of you (myself included) that seem to loose the usb with your presentation on it the day or your presentation, or just forget to bring it. This is immensely helpful when working with groups of people that might not be available to meet in person, or have conflicting schedules. What I especially enjoy about working with Google Docs is the capability allowing multiple people to edit the document (or slide or sheet) at the same time. This feature even identifies which person is editing which part in real time. 

I've also been using the Google Forms application for creating an online survey in another research class. I already have a Gmail account, so I'm able to immediately start creating the survey with my partner (again - at the same time). This tool doesn't have restrictions on it that require you to pay a premium to have more than 10 questions (Survey Monkey I'm talking about you). 

I've also recently found the messaging tool within Google Docs a time saving feature. Instead of exiting out of the document to message other group members, simply pop open the message window and communicate away! (For those of you who aren't familiar it's the little messaging Icon that pops up to the left of the Present button on the top right side of your doc). 

I'm surprised I didn't put the Google Docs on my PLE already, what I had instead was my google plus icon, which is what I use to access the Google Docs. I've added Google Docs to the Digital category and the Online sub-heading. I wouldn't remove any tools from my PLE as of yet, I consider many of the tools we've reviewed in class as differing in their applications, and why remove a tool that may be useful for future learning activities?

This week I read an article from my Feedly on The 8 Biggest Blogging Mistakes new Bloggers Make, and while I'm not entirely new to the world of blogging, it's important to review literature that emphasizes the basics, and how to find success through that. What I found particularly interesting was the section on links. Within my blog I've used the tag "Link" to reference an image that I've included, which this blog says is dead wrong. I can see why it might be more important to use keywords that indicate in advance where the link will bring new readers. Keeping up with ways to continually improve your writing style is important, and this link showed me how to develop myself through my blog.