Zoho Sheets Evaluation

I broke up my learning excursion on the new application up over several days of exploring. Trying to learn a new application in one day just leads to frustration or just coming to the conclusion of "it's just like this other product" which I didn't want to do.  Zoho applications were a completely new experience for me.  I've never heard of it or had any idea what other applications were available.

Day 1:  Once my account was created (murray@zoho.com) I spent the first few minutes exploring the top navigation/function buttons.  Obvious there were several buttons that are universal (bold, italics, line justification, sum, etc) but there were ones that were familiar but normally on the display of buttons.  Several of these buttons were for the formatting of the cells, but are so commonly used that it made sense to put on the list (dollar sign, date format, text wrap, and others).  I found myself trying out various of the buttons and playing with some test data.

Day 2:  I spent the next day playing with the purpose of spreadsheets and decided to manipulate some data and do some calculations.  Having some experience with Microsoft Excel I felt pretty confident with formulas and not to my surprise many of the formulas are exactly the same.  I added some numbers and used the 'drag-down' technique to populate cells.  I added text (Monday, Tuesday) and tried the drag technique and the other days of the week were populated, this really didn't surprise me.  I tried a few more basic calculations and then proceeded to try other formulas.  I like 'randbetween' so created a list of values which worked and of course was written same formula as in Excel.  I ended the second day of playing with some values created so explored another feature of spreadsheet is the charts.  I created a simple bar chart with a few values.  There are clearly very limited features that can be applied to the charts.  The amount of chart choices are wonderful but there isn't that granular details that Excel allows you to manipulate but for a simple chart it was perfect.

Day 3: My intentions were to explore a few of the buttons that focus on sharing and publishing, which I'm assuming throughout all the Zoho applications.  The publish button gave many options especially the one I found interesting was the ability to embed in website/blog.  This option gives the code to display the sheet directly within the page.  The other item I explored was the 'share' button.  This gave the options to invite other users to share the file with.  Since Julie had already created a group for us, I simply added that group to the permissions.  Very easy and straightforward to create an file and share it.  Not being able to have any group members on-line at same time prevented a test to see if simultaneous edits were possible, which I'm thinking it may.  This will be one item I will continue to test and explore with more.

Overall, I was very impressed with such an on-line "free" application that has so many features.  Even though Google Docs are very similar it's nice to know that other options are available. For those that don't have the money to spend on a Microsoft product or even want to use up disk space on their computers, this is a excellent choice.  Having the ability to export files as Excel file, comma separated values, and even PDF  makes it very compatible with any other software applications that people have.  I plan to use Zoho apps for a period of time to see if I'm able to remove my installed Office suite, the only draw-back is I need to be connected to the Internet to use Zoho Sheets.  There is no 'off-line' option like there are for other Zoho apps.

Wiki

I've had some past experience with Wikis over the past couple of years. It was one of those "hey Joe, we you need to update information that is incorrect on the Lyman Briggs College in Wikipedia." So, I quickly had to create an account and get my hands dirty. I sure wish I would have had some prior experience before that ordeal. I wasn't sure sure how to do anything in them and wasn't sure I was even supposed to be in there. Now I have a much better understanding of them and don't have any problems editing and adding information to the LBC wikipedia page.

The updated LBC wikipedia that I changed was the enrollment of students in the college. Over the past couple of years we've expanded and are now nearly at 1900 students compared to 1200 just two and half years ago, we now we are at capacity. Here is a screen shot of the edited page:

This summer I have a faculty member that will be teaching a small group of students in class that are asking for me to host a wiki site for them.  They want it to be password protected so only the course can maintain.  I have the code already set to go but might suggest them to check out Wikispaces like we did for our own wikis and take that extra load of work off my hands.

Here is the wiki I created to get started on having one.  I haven't done much or even sent out any invites.  http://murrayj5.wikispaces.com/

Computer-based Instructional Objects

Now a days in the class it's extremely important to include some type of technology in the learning process.  It's these times that us as teachers need to be keeping up with the students, but with any type of technology there are always things to consider before finalizing it as a lesson plan.

If we were to use our stAIR projects for example there are a few immediate issues that comes to my mind.  The first consideration of course is the software version of any particular application.  For those that use may use Powerpoint 2007 there are new tools and additions to the software that aren't available in the older software, which may hinder the full learning experience from that application.  Not every computer has been purchased in the last six months so the hardware to view that particular application has a major impact on the application as well.  I couldn't imagine trying to watch a kiosk with animation and sounds that crawls when it's running.  I can only imagine how frustrated it would make me.  So, software version and hardware considerations are crucial when it comes to any type of computer-based instructional objects.

One of the biggest issues with Powerpoint Presentations that could potentially be converted to stAIR projects is that some of the file sizes for these items are enormous.  When photos and audio gets added to these applications the size of them grow rapidly.  Today, not everyone has high-speed Internet so having to download a stAIR that was 60Mb (which isn't all that large) could take several minutes to hours to download.  So the size of the stAIR that could be downloaded from the Internet could be an issue, a solution to this problem would be placing it on a CD or DVD.  Of course this assumes every computer has a CD or DVD player.

Using a WebQuest as another computer-based instructional object opens the doors to some of the same considerations but also adds couple others.  First of all, the notion of accessing the Internet to view the WebQuest can have its hiccups when the Internet is down at times.  I supposed if someone was to wait until the last minute to complete their assignment and the Internet or even the web server was down for maintenance it would make it hard to complete.  There seems to be the ability to download each of the WebQuest but in order to do that you need to be a member which looks as some minimal fee.  So not having the ability to view them on your own local computer makes it very difficult.  Sure, one could print the pages off or even save the pages as a PDF but that would "freeze" the WebQuest in it's current state and the learner wouldn't know if it was updated by the author or not.  Things are always changing so I'm assuming that most WebQuest at some point or another would need some tweaking to accommodate for these changes.

Searching for a WebQuest was a bit challenging to complete.  I decided to search on "technology" in hopes to finding what some schools are doing in their classrooms. I've found a few and although had no idea what WebQuest prior to our readings, I'm not sure I'm completely convinced on these items.  I wasn't all the impressed on what I was finding.  I suppose I had higher standards on my expectations on what WebQuests were all about.  It wasn't until I found "Inside the Computer" that I finally found some potential usage of them.    For one I thought there were more of a process in the WebQuest, meaning that since they are on the web it would be more like a highly graphic, flashed advertising, pull-me in type of website, which they are not.  It took me a little while and going through the "Inside the Computer" WebQuest to finally get what they are all about the potential they have for learners. This particular WebQuest has some very clear tasks and processes with in it.  Maybe it was because of the style of tasks (quiz) but I saw me actually wanting to do the WebQuest where I hadn't found it in many of the others.

Differences between traditional web pages and blogs

Having some experience with twitter, facebook, and webpages, I've never had an interest in having a blog. One reason is I usually don't have much to post on the above social apps, why add another one right?

However with blogs there is a huge difference between traditional web pages and blogs is the content updates.  Web pages usually have static information that doesn't change all that much frequently however a blog (to truly have an operating one) would need continuous input.  The content on the blog is very dynamic and changing which helps pull other readers back to your blog.  The ability to have multiple commenters is a very wonderful thing to one get others perspective and allow for feedback which doesn't happen on web pages.

Having my first blog posting completed, I'm excited about creating others.