Afterwards I was able to share with him a few experiences that I have had over the years with google documents. I was able to share how it has helped me connect both with my family and classmates.
The first way that I have seen it been an amazing tool is that of a family contact list.
Over the years the Wilcox Family tree has continued to expand and grow. In an effort to keep us all connected my older brothers created an excel spreadsheet about five years ago with all the family contact information. However, as time goes on people have moved, children have been married, and grandchildren have come. So in an effort to keep us all connected, and without having to constantly bear the brunt of personally updatign everyone else's information, they created a Google document. This document is private and shared only within the family, but provides a great contact list with up to date phone numbers, addresses, emails, birthdays, and (recently added) blogs. Each person is able to get on and update there own information and keep it current and we are able to sustain our family's connection over great distances.
The second major way I have seen Google documents utilized is creating Study Guides.
Last Winter semester I had an amazing class with a very intelligent professor that expected a lot out of his students. In fact he gave us a nice little study guide outlining some possible things he would like us to know for the final exam. I say little, however, in reference only to the font. In about font size 7 he gave us a solid list down the entire page of terms and concepts he would like us to be familiar with. He then went on to tell us he would also like us to know every section that we had read during the semester (which included about 14 chapters of 30 pages a piece.) The magnitude of the study was overwhelming. And as much as I loved the class and wanted to spend what would take up to 40 hours to prepare by myself, I opted for a more efficient manner. We were encouraged to study as groups, so we made one. That is a group of 52 people.
Normally to manage a group of that size would be nearly impossible. To gather them all in the same room would be chaotic enough, and to try to email in and cut and past different sections would lead to a project bigger than its value. So we set up a Google document and each took 5-15 terms or chapter sub-sections. What we created was a super study guide. We were able to create something simple enough that we could all use, but yet in depth enough to bring our past studies into recall. I am happy to say that in the end it worked as I was able to walk away with the class with an A. Google Documents enabled us to bring to light something that was near impossible for any of us to do individually.
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