Just a heads up--I don't get home from work until about 6:30 pm every weeknight. I can check the ENGL 421Y website during the day, but not too often. I don't get good cell phone reception at work, so call my work number during the day, cell phone later at night.
This is the website for The Centre for Learning and
Performance Technologies (CLPT). CLPT is
a British organization that keeps abreast of learning trends, technologies and
tools in order to help learning professionals understand them and implement
them successfully in their organizations.
The organization’s founder, Jane Hart, has 14 years experience as
lecturer and learning technologies advisor at a university, and has over 10
years experience with the CLPT. Because
of CLPT’s expertise in performance technologies, a category under which Google
Docs sits comfortably, this will be a great resource. Specifically, they have a Google Docs Reading
List (found here) with keyboard
shortcuts, tips, and tutorials on Google Docs capabilities. This will be another great resource for
finding out just how powerful Google Docs is, and how others have been creative
with its capabilities. Plus, CLPT gives
information on how Google Docs compares with other performance
technologies. This will give us solid
comparison data for our group’s white paper.
This is Purdue’s website for the Division of Financial Aid,
the institution from whose point of view we are writing our white paper. Since it is the official website of the DFA,
it will have a lot of valuable information.
I am predicting that we’re going to have to be somewhat more familiar
than we already are with the DFA’s switch to direct borrowing from the federal
government for student loans. The DFA
website should have ample information on this subject. Plus, I’m also guessing we’ll be needing to
speak with some of their personnel to get information that is not readily
available on the internet or possibly difficult to find. For this we’ll need phone numbers and email
addresses of qualified individuals we can speak to about these issues. The website also, conveniently, has an “Ask
Us” tool that has many common and some not-so-common financial aid questions.
This is the Google
Docs Help
Center website. It has information for getting started with
spreadsheets, documents, and presentations.
It also has the capability of providing advanced functions support. Besides troubleshooting instructions, the
help center website has a “Known Issues” page for errors already incurred by
other users, as well as a part of the site that connects users with other users
to help them each learn about Google Docs.
This website, I think, will be vital for the completion of
this project. We will undoubtedly have
technical questions about Google Docs, and this website—the creator’s own help
tool—should be able to quickly answer these questions. Plus, if we can’t find the information we’re
looking for, we can use the search bar.
We can also use the site’s tool for connecting users with other users to
help find our information. This will be
helpful for finding information we may have missed in our own search. Just from wandering around on this site, I
can see that it will be most helpful.
I'm not sure why my comment did the weird formatting. I typed it in word and then copied it over to the rich text editor for comments. Oh well...sorry about that. It still works fine.
First Source : I think this is a wonderful source to start off with. Spelling 'center' the English way always makes me a little more happy inside, but I digress. The links appear to be useful, and the using Google Presentation Link in the real world is very benificial. I think that these sources will benifit us very well in helping to discuss why this is a viable option, as well as how this option will allow the DFA to become more decentralized.
Second Source : The DFA's website will be a TREMENDOUS resource. Having knowledge of who your audience is an important resource here as it was for the Employment Project. I think that we will find this website, and their phone numbers very helpful as the project progresses.
Third Source : I have been using Google Docs for various document sharing for the organizations I am a part of. We find it easily mimics more conventional software for basic applications, but some of the more advanced features differ in their execution. We find that using the Basic Help feature is a wonderful and easy way to answer all of our questions. Once again, an amazing resource.
Submitted by sarahchelsea on Sun, 07/20/2008 - 21:22.
Great websites Matt! I used the Google Docs Help website a lot for writing my part of the rough draft. It was very helpful and informative. It answered all my questions that I had, and included a lot of information that would be helpful for all parts of our white paper. I would highly recommend it as well!
Submitted by sarahchelsea on Wed, 07/16/2008 - 13:44.
Site 1: This website is called the Web Worker Daily, and it has 10 ways to use the new Google Docs productively. I think it will help us become more informed about the program and how it affects the working world. It also provides comments from Google Docs users, and their opinions might be interesting for winning over our organization. It also explains the downsides to Google Docs which we should take into consideration, and come up with a plan to fix it.(http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/06/29/10-ways-to-use-the-new-google-docs-...)
Site 2: This website is for the magazine PC World. It has an article called, "Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office." This magazine appeals to businesses and organizations that use technology to get their jobs done. This article could be helpful in explaining how beneficial Google Docs is compared to other software used. It does a good job answering questions that companies might have. The article is honest about the software and wants the best for the business. (http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/003783.html)
Site 3: This website describes how stuff works in detail. There is a "How Google Docs Works" article that contains an intro, what the software can do, the features and limitations, the advanced tricks, concerns, the software's future etc... This all would be helpful and it takes us step by step through the whole program so we are completely knowledgable. The more we know about the program, the better, because we will be able to sell it better to customers. (http://communication.howstuffworks.com/google-docs6.htm)
First Source : This seems like a good source for the information found within it. I enjoy the idea of being more informed of the downsides of the product we are attempting to use. I am concerned, however, with the credability of the resource used. I am not familiar with "Web Worker Daily" and I am curious as to how well known and/or respected they are. They seem to have quite a bit of content, and they seem professional, I'm just not familiar with them. Maybe its another Slashdot ( /. ) that I'm not aware of.
Second Source : I enjoy the credability of this source immediatly. Almost everyone has atleast heard of PC World, and if not, they have probably seen it in the store. The article also does a wonderful job to comapre GoogleDocs to its main competitor (Microsoft Office). Its a generally well rounded article and should help us. However, it is extremly dated as many of its features have changed since the document was written. The comment about privacy is a good point considering the content of the DFA.
Third Source : How Stuff Works has been a wonderful resource for learning, in very simple terms, how something works. Upon reviewing the site, I found it clean and decently written. The segments about the limitations of Google Docs will once again be benificial. The segment about Advanced Tricks in Google Docs should help us to write our white paper with it.
Type : White Paper / Technical Report Title : An Exploratory Survey in Collaborative Software in a Graduate Course in Automatic Identification and Data Capture Thoughts : This article seems important and useful since it discusses using collaborative software to manage teams across the community as well as around the world. With the Division of Financial Aid (DFA) being large, and interacting with multiple people the world over, this paper adds significant authority to collaborative program management and implementation. The paper gives good insight into how multiple users editing the same document can be addressed. This paper, I think, will give us insight into how Google Docs can be use collaboratively to get things accomplished within the DFA.
Type : Magazine Article Title : First Look: Adobe's Acrobat.com Document Collaboration Service Thoughts : This article is about Adobe's online document collaboration, not Google Docs. This important fact will allow discussion between two varied document platforms. The comparison between two different collaboration platforms should allow for a good foil that can be used. I find its best to present both sides of an issue, as well as different vendors for a specific product. The article should allow us to expound certain features offered by Google Doc's free service that might not even be available for pay services.
Source Three
Type : Academic Paper Title : Distributed Creative Problem Solving over the Web Author : Forster, Florian ; From the IEEE Thoughts : This article will allow us to have even more background when discussing Google Docs and other web based applications used for collaboration. The article also focuses on the distributed team aspect of the software, which the DFA would find beneficial for its offices scattered throughout the state at all the Purdue Satellite campuses. The IEEE is a very respected source of information (just like the ASME). This authority from the IEEE, as well as the background information will make this paper really worthwhile for our purposes.
Submitted by sarahchelsea on Sun, 07/20/2008 - 21:26.
Good job Joel on finding great, academic websites. I think any professor would approve of your research. They are all appropriate and professional sites that contain information that will help all our group members know more about the subject we are writing about. It gives us the necessary background information and more and more! I will take the time to read your sources, because I know they will help me in the future, and on this white paper. Thanks!
Please find a link to a collaborative GoogleSpreadsheet with sections of the paper split up and ready for editing sent to your supposed GoogleAccounts.
A document should follow soon which will be the collaborative white paper draft.
If you did not receive the message, please e-mail me with your Google Account.
Submitted by Excursion7227 on Thu, 07/17/2008 - 17:43.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2209724,00.asp
This site is a total overview/review of Google Docs. It has everything from logging in to Google Docs to creating and saving a document. This I think is the most helpful article out there to summarize Google Docs. If you still don't understand fully what the applications are or how they operate, read through this article. This will help our group if we get stuck or can not figure something out.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9732473-2.html
This site explains five interesting things you can do with Google Docs. It explains how to color code comments to keep track of who made them, and also how to track changes made to the document. It also briefly talks about how when you save a document, it is saved many times in different places so that you don't ever loose your work. This can possibly benefit our group by explaining to the members just what else you can do with Google Docs. It is more so a read once type of deal and learn from it to help make it easier to use.
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/06/29/10-ways-to-use-the-new-google-docs-...
This article gives you ten ways to use Google Docs productively. It explains how to create shortcuts on your desktop to open Google Docs, as well as shortcuts for creating a new document or spreadsheet. It also gives you many keyboard shortcuts, which I think will help out a lot. This article can benefit our group by making our experience with Google Docs flow smoothly and overall making it easier to use the program.
First Source : A credible source and a good article. This source should benifit us when we are looking to expand our own use of GoogleDocs for the course.
Second Source : Another credible source. I think some of the topics mentioned in the article will be benificial, such as the changing colours for each person, as well as the autosaving feauture (websites can be finicky).
Third Source : This is the same article Sarah found. I question the sources credability (due to never having heard of them before). That being said, it looks to be a benificial resuorce due to the fact that its goign to help up implement a plan for Google Docs and the DFA at Purdue.
Submitted by sarahchelsea on Sun, 07/20/2008 - 21:32.
Thanks John for the sources you found. We had some similiar sites, so I guess great minds think alike, haha! I will check out your new.cnet article, because it looks like it will help me familiarize myself more with Google Docs because I am still a beginner on the site. Thanks again.
Hello From Matt Cermak
Hello everyone,
Just a heads up--I don't get home from work until about 6:30 pm every weeknight. I can check the ENGL 421Y website during the day, but not too often. I don't get good cell phone reception at work, so call my work number during the day, cell phone later at night.
I'm pumped to get this done and over with!
Matt
Hello from Joel
Please send contact information to group members through E-mail.
The website is not secure to Members Only for regular posts.
Source Annotations, Matt C.
Here are my 3 source annotations--I think they'll all be a big help:
Site 1
This is the website for The Centre for Learning and
Performance Technologies (CLPT). CLPT is
a British organization that keeps abreast of learning trends, technologies and
tools in order to help learning professionals understand them and implement
them successfully in their organizations.
The organization’s founder, Jane Hart, has 14 years experience as
lecturer and learning technologies advisor at a university, and has over 10
years experience with the CLPT. Because
of CLPT’s expertise in performance technologies, a category under which Google
Docs sits comfortably, this will be a great resource. Specifically, they have a Google Docs Reading
List (found here) with keyboard
shortcuts, tips, and tutorials on Google Docs capabilities. This will be another great resource for
finding out just how powerful Google Docs is, and how others have been creative
with its capabilities. Plus, CLPT gives
information on how Google Docs compares with other performance
technologies. This will give us solid
comparison data for our group’s white paper.
Site 2
This is Purdue’s website for the Division of Financial Aid,
the institution from whose point of view we are writing our white paper. Since it is the official website of the DFA,
it will have a lot of valuable information.
I am predicting that we’re going to have to be somewhat more familiar
than we already are with the DFA’s switch to direct borrowing from the federal
government for student loans. The DFA
website should have ample information on this subject. Plus, I’m also guessing we’ll be needing to
speak with some of their personnel to get information that is not readily
available on the internet or possibly difficult to find. For this we’ll need phone numbers and email
addresses of qualified individuals we can speak to about these issues. The website also, conveniently, has an “Ask
Us” tool that has many common and some not-so-common financial aid questions.
Site 3
This is the Google
Docs Help
Center website. It has information for getting started with
spreadsheets, documents, and presentations.
It also has the capability of providing advanced functions support. Besides troubleshooting instructions, the
help center website has a “Known Issues” page for errors already incurred by
other users, as well as a part of the site that connects users with other users
to help them each learn about Google Docs.
This website, I think, will be vital for the completion of
this project. We will undoubtedly have
technical questions about Google Docs, and this website—the creator’s own help
tool—should be able to quickly answer these questions. Plus, if we can’t find the information we’re
looking for, we can use the search bar.
We can also use the site’s tool for connecting users with other users to
help find our information. This will be
helpful for finding information we may have missed in our own search. Just from wandering around on this site, I
can see that it will be most helpful.
Format
I'm not sure why my comment did the weird formatting. I typed it in word and then copied it over to the rich text editor for comments. Oh well...sorry about that. It still works fine.
Matt
Reply
Did you try enabling rich-text before you copied it into your web browser?
~Joel
Reply
Yes I did...that's why I thought it was weird. Oh well.
Reply
Matt,
First Source : I think this is a wonderful source to start off with. Spelling 'center' the English way always makes me a little more happy inside, but I digress. The links appear to be useful, and the using Google Presentation Link in the real world is very benificial. I think that these sources will benifit us very well in helping to discuss why this is a viable option, as well as how this option will allow the DFA to become more decentralized.
Second Source : The DFA's website will be a TREMENDOUS resource. Having knowledge of who your audience is an important resource here as it was for the Employment Project. I think that we will find this website, and their phone numbers very helpful as the project progresses.
Third Source : I have been using Google Docs for various document sharing for the organizations I am a part of. We find it easily mimics more conventional software for basic applications, but some of the more advanced features differ in their execution. We find that using the Basic Help feature is a wonderful and easy way to answer all of our questions. Once again, an amazing resource.
Google Docs Help Website
Great websites Matt! I used the Google Docs Help website a lot for writing my part of the rough draft. It was very helpful and informative. It answered all my questions that I had, and included a lot of information that would be helpful for all parts of our white paper. I would highly recommend it as well!
Sources - Sarah A.
Site 1: This website is called the Web Worker Daily, and it has 10 ways to use the new Google Docs productively. I think it will help us become more informed about the program and how it affects the working world. It also provides comments from Google Docs users, and their opinions might be interesting for winning over our organization. It also explains the downsides to Google Docs which we should take into consideration, and come up with a plan to fix it.(http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/06/29/10-ways-to-use-the-new-google-docs-...)
Site 2: This website is for the magazine PC World. It has an article called, "Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office." This magazine appeals to businesses and organizations that use technology to get their jobs done. This article could be helpful in explaining how beneficial Google Docs is compared to other software used. It does a good job answering questions that companies might have. The article is honest about the software and wants the best for the business. (http://blogs.pcworld.com/techlog/archives/003783.html)
Site 3: This website describes how stuff works in detail. There is a "How Google Docs Works" article that contains an intro, what the software can do, the features and limitations, the advanced tricks, concerns, the software's future etc... This all would be helpful and it takes us step by step through the whole program so we are completely knowledgable. The more we know about the program, the better, because we will be able to sell it better to customers. (http://communication.howstuffworks.com/google-docs6.htm)
Reply
Sarah,
First Source : This seems like a good source for the information found within it. I enjoy the idea of being more informed of the downsides of the product we are attempting to use. I am concerned, however, with the credability of the resource used. I am not familiar with "Web Worker Daily" and I am curious as to how well known and/or respected they are. They seem to have quite a bit of content, and they seem professional, I'm just not familiar with them. Maybe its another Slashdot ( /. ) that I'm not aware of.
Second Source : I enjoy the credability of this source immediatly. Almost everyone has atleast heard of PC World, and if not, they have probably seen it in the store. The article also does a wonderful job to comapre GoogleDocs to its main competitor (Microsoft Office). Its a generally well rounded article and should help us. However, it is extremly dated as many of its features have changed since the document was written. The comment about privacy is a good point considering the content of the DFA.
Third Source : How Stuff Works has been a wonderful resource for learning, in very simple terms, how something works. Upon reviewing the site, I found it clean and decently written. The segments about the limitations of Google Docs will once again be benificial. The segment about Advanced Tricks in Google Docs should help us to write our white paper with it.
~Joel
Research
All,
Please find below all my research. Oh, and I actually wrote this up in GoogleDocs. Frickin' sweet. I'm falling for it, honest I am.
- - - -
Source One
(http://proceedings.informingscience.org/InSITE2007/IISITv4p153-162Elli37...)
Type : White Paper / Technical Report
Title : An Exploratory Survey in Collaborative Software in a Graduate Course in Automatic Identification and Data Capture
Thoughts : This article seems important and useful since it discusses using collaborative software to manage teams across the community as well as around the world. With the Division of Financial Aid (DFA) being large, and interacting with multiple people the world over, this paper adds significant authority to collaborative program management and implementation. The paper gives good insight into how multiple users editing the same document can be addressed. This paper, I think, will give us insight into how Google Docs can be use collaboratively to get things accomplished within the DFA.
Source Two
(http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/146490/first_look_adobes_a...
)
Type : Magazine Article
Title : First Look: Adobe's Acrobat.com Document Collaboration Service
Thoughts : This article is about Adobe's online document collaboration, not Google Docs. This important fact will allow discussion between two varied document platforms. The comparison between two different collaboration platforms should allow for a good foil that can be used. I find its best to present both sides of an issue, as well as different vendors for a specific product. The article should allow us to expound certain features offered by Google Doc's free service that might not even be available for pay services.
Source Three
Type : Academic Paper
Title : Distributed Creative Problem Solving over the Web
Author : Forster, Florian ; From the IEEE
Thoughts : This article will allow us to have even more background when discussing Google Docs and other web based applications used for collaboration. The article also focuses on the distributed team aspect of the software, which the DFA would find beneficial for its offices scattered throughout the state at all the Purdue Satellite campuses. The IEEE is a very respected source of information (just like the ASME). This authority from the IEEE, as well as the background information will make this paper really worthwhile for our purposes.
Great Resources!
Good job Joel on finding great, academic websites. I think any professor would approve of your research. They are all appropriate and professional sites that contain information that will help all our group members know more about the subject we are writing about. It gives us the necessary background information and more and more! I will take the time to read your sources, because I know they will help me in the future, and on this white paper. Thanks!
Project Outline and Working Design Up
All,
Please find a link to a collaborative GoogleSpreadsheet with sections of the paper split up and ready for editing sent to your supposed GoogleAccounts.
A document should follow soon which will be the collaborative white paper draft.
If you did not receive the message, please e-mail me with your Google Account.
~Joel
http://www.pcmag.com/article2
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2704,2209724,00.asp
This site is a total overview/review of Google Docs. It has everything from logging in to Google Docs to creating and saving a document. This I think is the most helpful article out there to summarize Google Docs. If you still don't understand fully what the applications are or how they operate, read through this article. This will help our group if we get stuck or can not figure something out.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-9732473-2.html
This site explains five interesting things you can do with Google Docs. It explains how to color code comments to keep track of who made them, and also how to track changes made to the document. It also briefly talks about how when you save a document, it is saved many times in different places so that you don't ever loose your work. This can possibly benefit our group by explaining to the members just what else you can do with Google Docs. It is more so a read once type of deal and learn from it to help make it easier to use.
http://webworkerdaily.com/2007/06/29/10-ways-to-use-the-new-google-docs-...
This article gives you ten ways to use Google Docs productively. It explains how to create shortcuts on your desktop to open Google Docs, as well as shortcuts for creating a new document or spreadsheet. It also gives you many keyboard shortcuts, which I think will help out a lot. This article can benefit our group by making our experience with Google Docs flow smoothly and overall making it easier to use the program.
John Dumakowski
Reply
John,
First Source : A credible source and a good article. This source should benifit us when we are looking to expand our own use of GoogleDocs for the course.
Second Source : Another credible source. I think some of the topics mentioned in the article will be benificial, such as the changing colours for each person, as well as the autosaving feauture (websites can be finicky).
Third Source : This is the same article Sarah found. I question the sources credability (due to never having heard of them before). That being said, it looks to be a benificial resuorce due to the fact that its goign to help up implement a plan for Google Docs and the DFA at Purdue.
Great Sites
Thanks John for the sources you found. We had some similiar sites, so I guess great minds think alike, haha! I will check out your new.cnet article, because it looks like it will help me familiarize myself more with Google Docs because I am still a beginner on the site. Thanks again.