Week 4: Google Docs or Microsoft?

Google Docs and Microsoft Office are both great applications in their own ways. The difference is that Microsoft Office is a more sophisticated software that has many features, while Google Docs is a simpler version of Microsoft Office where the user has the capability to instantly access their documents.
I would recommend Google Docs application over Microsoft word in school for the following reasons. Google Docs is perfect for basic classroom use. It not only enables uploading and saving to desktop, but is accessible for editing anytime from anywhere, it securely store files and best of all it is FREE. If the school’s budget is low, then it would be beneficial for the school to use Google Docs. Google Docs is adequate for straightforward documents, worksheets, note-taking, collaboration and sharing.
There are three types of documents that students can create; text documents- like they would in a word processor, spreadsheets, and presentations. For the formatting options, adjustments can be made to the font and layout, students can insert images, tables, footnotes, and other elements. In addition, there are tools for looking up terms and counting the number of words in a document. One of the many other great feature of Google Docs is they way documents can be shared and exported in various ways. Export formats include Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF. Documents, and entire folders, can be made public and can even be edited by teachers / students who have access to the file, making it easy for students to work together on group projects or share their work with their instructors. Many students today have laptops and move from one computer to another, if they used a program like Google docs, it would enable them to easily access their documents from the school’s computer to their personal computer instantly if they need to make changes or just simply need to add an idea that may have just popped in their head.
Although the spreadsheet part of Google docs isn’t as sophisticated as Microsoft office, students who would use the basic functions will have no problem; on the other hand the more advanced students will find the application exasperating. Microsoft Excel has many different features and options that enables the program to have greater graphing and analyzing capabilities.
In spite of the fact that I think Google Docs should be used in the classroom, there are to some degree where it shouldn’t be used. For example, if there are more advanced students who are writing publication / research quality documents and need sophisticated spreadsheet and other software, Microsoft would be the way to go.