Google Doc'ed out

I'm sure one day I'll be fully converted to Google Docs, but after my current frustrations, that doesn't appear to be any time soon.

I can see why our school is moving toward being a Google Docs school. Every student can have the same type of email address, sharing documents is possible, and the calendar tool is quite useful. And I'm sure I'm just scratching the surface.

But so far for me it's been a nightmare.

First, students do not use their Google Docs email addresses often enough. Like anyone, they resist change and are loyal to their nefarious hotmail accounts or prefer their already established gmail accounts.

Second, sharing documents has turned into a colossal pain for me. Now, I'll admit this is my fault. I have my beloved First Class email account. So I use that one predominantly. Then I had to create a gmail account about six years ago when I began blogging. Now I have my new gmail account for school. On top of that, I have a stupid AT&T email account I had to set up with my stupid BlackBerry.

Here is where it used to get painful: students will usually email their work to me at my First Class address. This usually works fine. However, there will be an issue every once in awhile with them using a program my Mac doesn't recognize (wps is often the one students use), but a quick and free conversion with zamzar fixes that.

Now that students have been strongly urged to go to gmail accounts, and students are like me, not that well versed in Google Docs, so those who have their school accounts will also try to share their work with me. And here is were the trauma begins. They will mess up the sharing process (not even sure how they mess this up), but I do know that instead of sharing it with my school gmail address (kurt.reynolds@myprowler.org) they will mix the two addresses up (kurt.reynolds@trf.k12.mn.us). Thus, I get an email at my school address telling me that a student has shared a work with me. Then I'll click on the link to their work only to have Google tell me that I don't have access privileges to it. This is usually because I'm already logged in under my other gmail account. So when I log back in with my school account, I expect to have permission, but no. I'm denied again because the students shared it with an imaginary email account!

Here is another source of frustration (again, this is mostly self inflicted) is just trying to track down student work that has been submitted via email. I've already stated the four separate email addresses I use (1. My favorite: &trf.k12.mn.us / 2. my initial gmail account that I have to be logged in to (like now) when I blog / 3. my stupid AT&T email which is used on my phone / 4. my new @myprowler.org account). All of these emails come to one email folder on my phone (where I answer and read 99.9% of my emails), but since it's in one generic folder, I never can keep track of where the messages are sent when I have to go to my computer and print them out.

So let's say Nick emails me his latest essay on Monday evening to my @myprowler account. I get a notification on my BlackBerry. But I don't actually get around to tracking it down so I can print it out until Thursday (see what I mean about these issues being self inflicted?). By this time, I scan my @trf.k12.mn.us account. Not there. Then I go to Google Docs. Sometimes the papers show up shared in there. Not there. I realize I'm logged in with my blogger gmail. Log back out and then log in with my @myprowler account. Then I check Google Docs. Not there (I'm not sure why or how some students share things via Google Docs and others via email from their gmail accounts). I then go to my mail. It's there. I open it and about three different screens come up. Do I want to just print it? Yes. But then it prints out of format and Nick's works cited is in the middle of his last page (not how he set it up though). So I click download, which bring up another screen. I have to actually download it to my desktop and then open it up in .docx to get the true format. After all of that, I have to find it on my desktop and print it. Whoa!

On top of all of that, I may end up deleting the message on Tuesday or Wednesday because I get so many emails! Let me tell you, I've become efficient at undelete on the First Class account. Furthermore, maybe Nick asked me a question on the paper via email. But I read it on my phone and responded by my phone. This of course doesn't go to any of my email accounts. Just my phone. So when he sends his paper as a reply to my email, it now just exists on my phone and none of my other accounts. Now I have to forward that email to my other accounts and then repeat the download process.

Again, imagine going through this at 3:30 on a Friday when grades are due Monday.

It is enough to make me go back to just turning in paper copies.

I have found, though, that scribd.com is far easier that google docs. The biggest hurdle is getting students to actually sign up for a scribd account, but once it's up on scribd

Since I have an account, students can upload their paper to scribd and then follow me (and then I follow them - kind of like Facebook or Twitter). This means that I get an email notification when they have shared an essay with me. Since we follow each other, anything they share automatically is shown on my account in a simple user-friendly way (similar to Google Docs). But what I really love about scribd is that it also has the ability to send the document to Facebook (if a student wants to share a personal essay on their grandfather, they can post it to FB and Grandpa can read it), Twitter (I often will upload assignments to scribd and then send them out via Twitter), email (so old fashioned), and, best of all, scribd allows you to embed the text in a blog. So if I have my students uploading their exploratory essays to scribd, I can easily embed all of them on our class blog.

See what I mean by being Google Doc'ed out? Much of this frustration, though, will likely be alleviated in the inevitable future when we phase out or First Class accounts and I (hopefully) upgrade to an iPhone (goodbye stupid BlackBerry/AT&T email account).  Also, another year of training with Google Docs might just get me to see the light.  But it ain't happening yet!