Professional Development Plan / Short-Term Goal #1

I created three short-term goals in my Professional Development Plan for me to complete with hopes of improving my overall knowledge of technology and my ability to use it proficiently.

My first short-term goal was learning how to use a digital colloborative tool. Over the semester, I decided to familiarize myself and use Google Docs for projects, in-class assignments, and connecting with other classmates. Here is a picture of a presentation that three other group members and I solely used Google Docs to create:

This presentation is about the online tool called Moodle. I helped design the layout of each page and the information presented on the slides. I learned that using Google Docs is a tool that helps make learning more efficient. My group members and I did not even have to meet together because Google Docs allows for any person of your choosing to be able to both edit and view any document you want from any computer. If you would like to view this presentation, click here.

Another document I created with a group using Google Docs was an example Artifact Proposal. Click here if you would like to view it. The three of us were each on different computers, but as we collaborated together, we would each write and update the document on our own time. Google Docs is especially helpful because it does allow for multiple people to edit a document at once, rather than having one person do all of the work. Below is a picture of this document.

By using Google Docs, I learned to create, save, and share a document. After entering one's Gmail username and password, at the top of the webpage, click on "Documents." If I wanted to create a new document, towards the upper left-hand corner, there is a button that says "create." By clicking on this, I can create a new document, presentation, spreadsheet, form, or folder. After clicking on one of these options, a new window will pop up. Then, towards the upper right-hand side of the document, there is a tab that says "save." That is how one can save a document, presentation, etc. Finally, if one would like to share their creation with another person, right next to the "save" tab is the "share" tab. By clicking on "share," one can invite others to view the document.

I will definitely use Google Docs as a future teaching tool. Instead of requiring students to meet outside of class for projects, I could have them use Google Docs to create their presentations. This will relieve some of the stress students feel about meeting up with other students. This would be especially helpful if the group members had conflicting schedules because it then would allow students to work on the project when it is most convenient to them. I also could use Google Docs to create any type of lesson plan (using documents), class lecture (using presentations), survey of how I'm doing as a teacher (using form), etc.