Office Tools
"New technology is common, new thinking is rare."
- Sir Peter Blake
Reflection
When I first looked over the syllabus for this class, I wondered what I could possibly learn that would be new to me in terms of office tools. Having worked in an office for years, I thought I had that area down pat. However, I was pleasantly surprised with all the new knowledge I gained from this class regarding Google documents. I was amazed with all the things you could do in Google documents/forms from creating basic assessments and rubrics to more complicated forms that employ logic. I found all of these forms to be very useful tools, especially for educators. The fact that you can share documents with students and colleagues through the cloud makes this tool extremely powerful.
For class, I created an assessment based on my integrated unit plan. I found the form easy to create and use. What I really liked about it was the fact that you could insert page breaks and attach logic to your questions. This is especially useful because it demonstrates students' comprehension of content. The other thing I really like about this platform is the fact that you can import all of your data from your assessment into a Google spreadsheet to be conditionally formatted. This, again, shows me how well students comprehended the material I presented in a lesson. I love that I can look at that spreadsheet and see in a glance who needs more work in a certain area.
I believe students could also benefit from using Google documents. As a middle school teacher, I would introduce them to new tools and features throughout the year in order to scaffold their learning. I see students using Google documents for group projects as a way to share information and work on their projects together. I think this enhances learning because it promotes collaboration among students and because these tools are easy to use, students will waste less time working on their projects.
Google forms/documents fall into the analyzing level of Bloom's Taxonomy because I was able to make several different forms (assessment and rubric) inside of Google.