In Summary...

The course has come to a close, so now it's time to reflect over what we have learned. I really appreciated learning about and exploring the uses of the various online options for word processing, presentations, databases and spreadsheets. While I didn't find any of them to be better than using Microsoft office products, I did see the benefits to the use of the various online products. Google Docs was great for the group work assignments. I did introduce them to some of my students. It was especially useful to them when they wanted to work on documents at home and at school. I also showed it to a few students in my structured study hall, who were frustrated by the process of working on PowerPoint presentations as partners and not being able to just import a second person's work into the presentation. It's definitely a good option for those students who have Internet at home, but not Microsoft Word, or other Office products that we usually work with at school.
We used the textbook too, which I didn't find to be as beneficial. I found it to be a dry read and not something that captured my attention. Possibly part of the lack of interest for me was tied to the fact that there were quiz questions, short answer and essay to go with it, which raises anxiety for me. I found some of that to be seemingly redundant, although I may have been interpreting the questions incorrectly. I tended to leave that for Wednesday night, since I dreaded doing it.
Overall, the course was interesting, full of new adventures and kept me wanting to learn more.