Report of Productivity Tools

  “Online productivity tools use social networking features such as sharing, collaboration, and synchronizing to support efficient workplace and time management practices in online environments.” (P. 269) Common productivity tools include online documents, dropboxes, calendars, notes and to-do lists, they can all be implemented for educational purpose easily.

  Because of the strict laws of copyright, I know it’s impossible for American teachers to demand every student to use Microsoft Word or other similar software pre-installed in personal computer to create or edit documents without payment. But it would not be a problem if each student had an account of online documents service such as Google Docs or Zoho. By using those documents service, students can write, store and manage text documents like traditional ‘office’ software, in addition, they can share their documents with selected others whom they invite to view or edit their files directly. It’s more convenient for students to submit their text assignment by just making it valuable to view for teachers than send teachers an email with an attachment. And students don’t need take their laptops or U disks to get their saved documents out anymore, all they need to do is log into their accounts to access their files from any internet-connected device. What’s more, it’s efficient for students to practice skills about storing and managing files because they need to put their files in order by rename them in particular rule for quick finding.

  Sometimes it would make students frustrated to find a file from different devices if they are not sure where the accurate location is, but they will be released completely from this hard process by using dropbox service. They don’t need save the same file in different devices anymore because their files saved across all digital devices they have used could be synchronized automatically, it means that they are enabling to access their documents anywhere as long as they have an internet-connected device. By the way, they still need save important files in their hard drive or U disks as a backup in case. It’s really a great service for students who don’t want to waste time on boring duplicating work.

  As we all know, it’s not a good idea for teachers to announce something important by verbal giving or board-writing in class because students may ignore relative information inadvertently. But now, teachers won’t worry about this by using online to-do list and calendar service. They can register a public account for class to publish class plans, write done the date of activities and provide guidance for students’ time arranging. Of course, teachers are the only administrator of class account and it is separated from teachers’ private calendars and to-do lists. Teachers can also track the process of students’ diary activities by focus students’ calendars and to-do lists if they are premised.

  Teachers also can register a public account of online bookshelf service for class to build a virtual library which include reference lists or bibliographies of recommended books and relative reviews. Of course, students can get recommendations from it, write book reviews, share their collection and reading interests with others to develop the class bookshelf with teachers. It’s useful for students to improve workflow and efficiency, and also be of more value to teachers’ own classroom administration processes.

  Absolutely, it does function actively and effectively for students and teachers to implement relative online service into actual teaching and learning, but I prefer using wiki or blogs for similar environment because they are more integrated and convenient for managing. For me, I don’t want to register in different websites which provide similar service because there will be so many useless recommended emails in mailbox, not so god.