4T-Taylor's Twenty-Three Things

Pardon my ramblings below but I wanted to post a real-life experience usign Google docs.

First, a cry for help.  Then I’ll post some of the ways I use Google docs and maps. 

Here’s my problem.  I made a google account using my email (not a gmail account) over a year ago to access some shared spreadsheets.  If I just go to a normal google login page and try to login it tells me my login isn’t correct and there is no account with my email address.  HOWEVER, if I go to a previous spreadsheet that I’ve used it will ask me to just use my email up to the extension (@) part and then let’s me right in.  If I check that page I’m logged into it shows the exact same account name as the one that it previously told me didn’t exist.  I have been baffled by this for a long time and have no good answer.  I really like google applications but this blip causes me no end of frustration if I’m trying to login somewhere where I don’t have a page cached.  Does anyone have any idea?  Otherwise I’m just going to resign myself to long hours in the tech support queu with google.

I started to use Google docs a little over a year ago to work on a big project that required a lot of scheduling among numerous people.  We created a shared spreadsheet where dates were kept and the two schedulers could enter new dates and locations.  This worked really nice and we even started to use it as a signup page as well so those that were to travel to the various locations could signup for the ones they wanted.  This saved a lot of emailing back and forth.  There were some confusing things.  I added all the appropriate email addresses but some people still couldn’t get into the spreadsheet unless they had a gmail account.  I’m still not sure why this happened.  This year we started using Google’s new forms feature which allows you to create a form that others can fill in.  Then this information gets pushed into a spreadsheet.  This saves a lot of the manual entering we were doing before.  I’ve also used google docs. for a sharing documents although more as a dropbox then as a location to really edit.  I have not used the presentation tool

I still have no idea what the issue is up above but I finally just made another google account (with the same information as my first one) and now have access to everything. 

I really like google maps.  I travel to certain locations a lot and I like the personalization I can create.  More importantly I like how I can send it to my cell phone then.  The street view features are really nice too if you’re wondering if that hotel really has “beach” access or whether the beach is across a divided highway.  My sister and husband moved back to the US from Calgary last year and bought a new home.  They used this extensively to see how the house “really” sat on the street.  Pictures can be so deceiving.   Since I never actually had an account I always just re-searched each time I wanted to go somewhere.  Now I just put in 3 different locations and with some specific information.  I’m really excited about this saving me time.  What I’m most excited about though is finding coffee shops nearby where I’m going. =)

Google docs with students is a great tool but does take some serious commitment on a part of a school building or district.  Of course one teacher can use them for document sharing and things like that but if all the teachers were committed it would make the implementation easier.  I think students will really find this tool useful and I’m not sure it’s one they would naturally think to use.  Students use a lot of technology but mainly for socializing.  Google docs has real applications for them and something they could definitely use way beyond high school.  A lot of companies use them even if they already use something like SharePoint.   Google maps is a little easier to use just because students don’t have to be logged in.  I can think of a lot of applications for geography alone and I wish it was around when I taught it.  Of course it has implications in all subject areas; finding a setting in a book, measuring distance, terrain in science etc.