Back to school and CPD23 - Thing 13

I was doing so well, until school holidays interfered. It’s been hard to shake off that holiday feeling, but with Freshers just round the corner now, and work pressure piling up, I’m definitely getting back into the groove. However I’m so behind on 23 Things that I've been avoiding looking at the website and other people's blogs because it just makes me feel bad. Because of that, I’m going to ever so slightly skim quickly over the next few things to try and catch up just a bit.

So, Thing 13. Google Docs, Dropbox and Wikis.

Because we use sharepoint at work, I don’t have much experience of using the first 2 tools in any kind of professional capacity. Documents are kept on Sharepoint and we can control who has access to various areas. We can also give people either read only or editing rights. I now tend to keep most of my documents on sharepoint for the following reasons:

• ·         I can access them from anywhere – no more emailing documents to myself
• ·         Sharing with other people – I’ll email people the link to sharepoint, rather than emailing the document. It means that if it gets edited, everyone sees the changes.
• ·         Security – if my computer crashes, the document is safe. Our clever computer people can also retrieve old copies of the document so if someone accidentally deletes information, I can revert to the previous copy.
• ·         Collaborating – people can collaborate on a document and it’s much easier than sending the document around and then trying to incorporate everyone’s changes.

I have used Google Docs for keeping documents related to the local Cylch Meithrin (Welsh playgroup). As the committee running the local playgroup changed every couple of years (or sooner) this was an easy and convenient way to share documents between committee members. I found it easy enough to use – I wonder if they still use it or are back to 3 huge box files?

I have used Dropbox once to access a file. Someone sent me a link and I just followed it – didn’t need a password. I haven’t explored it further as I don’t see a need for it at present, and also I don’t want to download something I don’t need on to my computer.

Wikis

I don’t use, and don’t see the need for it. Only ever used Wikipedia (of course).