Clouds clear confusion!
Ha! What more can I add to those applications listed so thoroughly by Angela? With the exception of Edublogs, I use the exact same suite of cloud tools, as well as Glogster and GoogleDocs with my students. I love the freedom that the cloud gives me when students can access their projects online from home or school, and I can mark them without hauling around a bunch of paper. I try to stick to educator versions of these websites, which hopefully limits their access to questionable content, but which also allows class management of accounts. I am also constantly amazed at how students seems to need to personalize their profiles (8-0) and use the messaging features of some of these tools before they can get down to using them to produce something.
One thing that drives me nuts, however, is having to set up a multitude of email addresses in order to be able to share a class project set of Googledocs. Even when I ask the students to give me their working email accounts, half of them don’t remember the password, etc. Does anyone have a way to batch sign up students without the need for a school domain?
My GoogleSite pages are my lifeline as they hold both my personal and school passwords. Crazy, I know, but I have sort of encrypted them… I do have backups of all 61/2 ETEC courses worth of files saved there, and bookmarks from all the ETEC courses listed in Diigo. Oh yes, and what would I do without Zotero, my fav online reference organizer? Yikes, it’s not so much a cloud, but a veritable fog that is interspersed through all aspects of life!
KJ
Posted in: Week 08: Files in the Cloud
ashleyross 10:47 pm on October 24, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
I’m not sure if this is what you’re looking for, but you can actually publish the file(s) directly to the web through Google Docs. You do so by selecting “File” then “Publish to the Web”. It will give you a URL that you can give people to access your page. It does not change your visibility settings though, so only those who have permission to edit will be able to do so but anybody with the link will be able to see your page(s). It also updates everything automatically when you edit the Google Doc. You can read more here https://docs.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=183965
Karen Jones 8:42 am on October 25, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thanks Ashley,
Setting up the set of class Googledocs alone would be easier than setting up individual emails, as well. Thanks for the tip!
Deb Kim 11:32 am on October 25, 2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Thank you, Ashley.
I didn’t know either that you can publish the file to the web through Google Docs.
Good information to know.
Deb