Can't...fight it...any...longer. Google is just making it impossible to ignore their innovation, wealth of tools, and their business model. I've been slow to jump on the Google-wagon. I remember when they were just that little, itty-bitty, privately held search engine company in 1998...yawn. Yeah, one among the many others... so what? Now, as I watch them consume smaller Internet companies and grow to the largest Internet presence ever... well, my first thought is: why didn't I jump all over that IPO?...daytrade it...then sell it at $747 per share (yes, this is a GoogleFinance link). Well...if I had, I wouldn't be writing this blog post for a professional development class!
I remember the days when the only Operating System that came on the home computer was DOS -- everything you did was from a command prompt and you had to build everything yourself. How proud I was to write my first program, a home budget, more than 30 years ago (on my 32k memory computer). It only took me 3 days and all it really did was balance my checkbook and keep track of balances. All on that ugly green screen with the little blinking cursor.
I was thrilled when Microsoft came along with Windows 1.0. THRILLED! Yes, the MS-machine has made me very happy over the years -- I was happy to fork over the cost of MS Office, FrontPage, Excel, Publisher, Powerpoint (before they were a part of Office) -- productivity and ease-of-use ruled all decisions. But wait...what do you mean I can do all of that, plus tons more, without any cost at all. You jest!
All I need, now, is a high-speed Internet connection (that's like oxygen now, isn't it...a basic staple of existence?), open sourceware, and I can access every productivity, creativity, entertainment, business, and leisure tool I can imagine. Thank you Google and all the Opensource developers. My only complaint was that everything in GoogleDocs was online -- you couldn't work on your documents offline. Oh wait -- you can now work on GoogleDocs offline!
I will begin learning to use, share, and create with these new tools -- the advantage being...well, ease of use, functionality, flexibility, collaborative features, and portability. Huh, I have come full circle. And, I have to admit -- they have some really cool applications (and more springing up every day). As far as using GoogleDocs in education? The uses are limitless, only depending on the knowledge and creativity of teachers and staff to use, model, and teach using these great tools.
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