CN4C’s blog...

I've been using Google Drive for a number of years for storage purposes - principally backing up teaching documents. 2 years ago I switched to DropBox which, for storage, is far more user friendly/practical, I love DropBox & have clocked up about 34Gb of free space some of which came with my phone contract. Both systems are usefully cross-platform & multi-device friendly. However, I continue to use Google Drive to upload ITQ courses for Internal & External Verification. We have a dedicated Google account for this. I can compile & upload the courses at my convenience from any location & the verifiers can immediately access them from where ever they are. There's no paper, so the sustainability-in-education people like it.

I've been using Google Docs, recently, as a learning tool for new ICT users who don't own computers, they can be digitally included without the expense of buying a computer. They've set up a Google account which gives them an email address, storage space & access to free software (particularly word processing). Google Docs is good visually, easy to navigate, has editing tools that are similar to gmail text editing tools & a good stepping stone for progression to Microsoft Word with which it is compatible. My learners have been creating CVs which they can then update & email off, from any computer. My only concern is that now they've discovered the templates they may not find Microsoft Word (more formal) as fun!

My Level 2s started blogging last week - they each created a post but were less interested in writing content & more interested in the design facilities, this is the 1st time they've experienced blogging or being able to affect the 'look' of software. So it was interesting to see them exploring & being unafraid to be adventurous - good for learning!. 

My youngster learner is setting up a Raspberry Pi so I uploaded a picture of it to Picasa & discovered the others had found it when it appeared in their blogs.