Cloud Faves - Google Docs Software Review
When I was a kid, probably around the ages of 1-10, I thought that the cloud was a word that meant the little white fluffy things in the sky, that play with the sun. Buts as I got older, that term changed for me. You see, my dad's a real big geek. You may not come to that assumption when you see him, but he's the biggest geek I know and love. He's obsessed with the Internet, computers, and devices that create networks within the world. He got his first computer at the age of 10, and from then on his knowledge about computers, servers, networks platforms and everything else grew. To me, he's simply the "All Knowing One" when it comes to anything tech.
When it came time, I asked him, " Daddy, what's the cloud" and his face immediately lit up with excitement because he knew, now that he could talk tech with me. He explained to me that the cloud was basically not in the air, but in many different places all around the world, and it helps people have access to certain online documents, photos, files etc. from anywhere in the world.
Fast forward 19 years to me, sitting in a lecture room at 3:00pm on a Tuesday, listening to my professor explain what the cloud is. It made me think of that exact moment with my dad and I when I was younger. The only difference was, my dad made it easier for me to understand 'The Cloud' by not touching on all the points that encompasses what the cloud is. My professor on the other hand did not hold back. He gave all 90 students a full description of what the cloud is, followed by a cheeky rap video that one of the students from the same course created a few years back.
Therefore, my new and current understanding of the cloud is that youtube video my professor showed my class, Hit It!
Currently, the only reason why I vigorously use the cloud, is for the software that allows me to collaborate with others in terms of creating documents. The software I'm referring to is Google Drive, and more specifically google docs, Google spreadsheet and Google present. This software is commonly used by many, especially students in high school and university. This software is great because it gives students like myself, the ability to collaborate on projects, wherever we may be. I find that Google Docs is a crucial piece of software for people to utilize in university, because there are so many projects where students are out into groups to create their final deliverable for their professors.
With group projects, I enjoy Google docs a lot. Other than breaking down the location barrier when it comes to engaging in group work, Google docs provides so much more, to fully maximize on productivity, fairness, and total collaboration within the group.
I enjoy taking leader positions when participating in group projects, and I always enforce that there will be equal work all through the project. With Google docs, I can see who did what within the document, and any revisions within the document too. This allows easy grading when group marking is to be done, because I can easily tell who was a slacker, and who wasn’t.
I also appreciate that we can stay connected, and all know the same information when completing group projects. In communications classes at Ryerson, Group projects are always expected, and group members are to be expected to create deliverables, a presentation about the deliverables, a report on why the deliverables are effective, and that same information must be in the presentation or else you’ll lose marks for in-consistency. In summary of this point, there are so many things going on in group projects when in Professional communications, and I enjoy that Google docs simplifies the ability for everyone to be on the same page. If there are updates to anything, people will always be aware of those updates so everyone understand and communicate the same message once all the deliverables are created for the final submission.
Yes, there are so many upsides to google docs, but there are downsides to the platform as well. Due to the fact that academia works in mysterious ways, sometimes you will be put into groups, and not have the ability to pick for yourself. This allows for anyone to screw with you. I want to draw back to a memory from first semester in University. I was included in a group where we were revamping a University Groups Social Media presence. This was a big deal and worth a big chunk of my final mark. Not to mention, the whole class did terrible on the mid-term and this was my time for GPA redemption. There was this one guy in our group of all stars that didn’t shine like the rest of us; he was more of a dim lit black hole, looking to destroy everything in his path, including our group project.
This guy was given clear instructions as to what we needed him to do, but with people like Trump in the world, the agenda of life won’t always work in your favour. Instead of working on the section that he was assigned to work on, he went and revised everyone's work.
The word livid couldn’t even describe my full emotions at that point in time. Did I forget to mention that he did all of this, the night before we were to hand in a full report, and a present our findings to the class and professor, followed by screen shot deliverables of our social media campaign?
So yes, livid could not describe my full emotions at that time.
Thank the lord, Beysus Christ, that google drive allows you to *un-do* revisions that people have made to documents that you share.
Even though, it took a lot of clicks, typing, and cups of coffee to file not only mine, but my other group members all nighters to fix the mistakes an ignorant numskull “revised”, we got the highest mark in the class.
The real person to thank however, is the cloud technology behind Google Docs that allowed servers to save all the revisions done on the document, and save all the intellectual progress that my group made together without the ignoramus, we were able to revert, and enhance our document which, evidently let us all get our GPA redemption.
Thanks Google Docs and the Cloud, I owe you a drink the next time we hit up a bar!
If you have an experience like mine, or if you want to give me your own stories on bad experiences with the Cloud, tweet me @kylechaudhry
Thanks for reading y’all and stay tuned for next weeks entry!
