April 18th, 2007
Google Presentations...one more step in the right direction
Google's announcement of presentation software to be added to their existing Docs and Spreadsheets applications is welcome news for those of us in Ed Tech. Google doesn't pretend that this is meant to compete with MS Office or even OpenOffice and it doesn't represent a viable alternative to these products for us. According to Google CEO, Eric Schmidt:
"We don't think its a competitor to Microsoft Office…It's casual and sharing and a better fit to how people use the Web.
So why should we care? According to the Google Blog,
"Well, we tried to keep it a secret as long as we could, but to be honest, we've been dying to tell you about the bun we've got in the oven. We'll soon be welcoming a new addition to the Google Docs & Spreadsheets family: presentations."
What this brings us is (hopefully), the easy collaboration tools, remote storage, and a proving ground for bigger and better Web 2.0 technologies from Google and elsewhere. For our students, it's one more reason that they can't say the dog ate their homework. That presentation due for class? They can just share it on Google Presentations. This is also one more reason to take a look at Google Apps for your domain and provide students with tools they understand and use intuitively anyway.
Follow Chris Dawson on Twitter! Christopher Dawson is the technology director for the Athol-Royalston School District in northern Massachusetts and a member of the Internet Press Guild. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations, but always keep in mind that the opinions expressed here are his own and not those of his daytime employer, even if he talks incessantly about his day job.
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| 04/18/07
