Activity 4: Google Suite

Cloud is the name of the protagonist in video game Final Fantasy 7.  If you know that and have beaten the game (4 times cause you can't just play it once!) you are an über nerd.  

Cloud computing is a term that gets thrown around quite a bit, but what is it exactly?  Basically, it means that instead of saving to your computer or to a server in our school district, you are saving your work on the Internet. This means that you can access your work from any computer (or other device) with Internet access.  It also means that you can allow other people to access your work at the same time you do instead of figuring out how to send them a copy.  Since Mounds View provides Google accounts for all users, it is a powerful, free tool for collaboration with our fellow teachers or for our students to use when working on group projects.  Watch the following video on Google Docs Suite for Education.




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This next video gives an example of how you might use Google Docs with students to give feedback on their work:




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Google Drive is one example of cloud computing; there are several others out there.  In fact, most of our camp activities reside in the cloud, since you create an account for each website, which then stores your work.  Since Mounds View uses Google Apps for Education, that is what we're using for our activity this week. 




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Google Drive has unlimited storage and can be used as a location to store any files you use on your computer, whether they are Google files, Microsoft Office files, or files of any other type.  In addition, you can set up Google drive to change your current Microsoft Office files into Google files so you can take advantage of the full collaborative capacity of Google Drive with all of your files.  This video is a tutorial on how to upload files from your computer to Google Drive.
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To Complete Activity 4:

1. Create a Google document that you could use at school (it could be a word document, a form, a spreadsheet, a presentation, a calendar...you have tons of options!  

2. Share your document with your camp counselor and a few of your fellow campers.  Give them access to comment on your document.

3. Create a link to your document and include it in your blog post. Make sure that your document is either a public document or accessible to anyone with the link, so that others can view it!  If your document contains confidential information, email the link to your counselor and some of your fellow campers for their feedback.

4. Choose a document or a folder with a collection of documents to upload into Google Drive and convert into Google Documents (side note: uploading something into Google Drive will not remove it from your computer). Share this document with your counselor and some of your fellow campers for their feedback.

5. Answer these reflection questions:

• How will you use your Google Drive in your teaching practice?
• How could cloud computing be a useful tool in your classroom?  
• What are the pros and cons of using it with students?

5. Comment on 3 other nerds' blogs for this week's activity.