Google Docs

This is really cool! I can see just a lot of situations where Google Docs would be a great tool. One personal application that comes to mind: my sister and I have different versions of Word. We're both writers, so when we're trying to send documents to each other to read or edit we run into lots of problems trying to get our computers to play nice. Google Docs can definitely clean up that problem and make it way easier for us to share things.

I can see how this would be great professionally, as well. In the HHC, kids don't always have A) time B) money or C) inclination to print out their assignments. If they needed to, we could save their work on a Google Docs account and they could bring it up at school the next day or on one of our other computers if they wanted to work on it again. So easy!!

Technology Frustrations

Today we're supposed to blog about something technology-related, so I'm going to tell you how annoying Blogger is being right now. Amanda and I are trying to put pictures behind our headers, and it's just not working. Mostly the problem is that the picture has to be a certain length and width, but nowhere on Blogger does it tell us what those measurements are. So we've ended up with several pictures that are too short, not wide enough, not even the right format, etc.

I guess this is the LEARN part of the Learn & Play thing, though. So far I've pretty much just been able to jog through these things without too much problem, but this picture has me stymied. It has been kind of neat to be able to work with several coworkers on the problem, though. That's one thing I like about the initiative: everyone is excited, and everyone is sharing tips and hints for the different tasks.

Hopefully I'll be able to update soon with a working picture, but for now I'm going to go search the Internet for "long horizontal sunset picture."

Challenges

I've been looking at the 7 1/2 Habits of Highly Successful Lifelong Learners, and I'd have to say that the habit that is hardest for me is looking at problems as challenges. I like to feel sorry for myself sometimes, and even though I get through the problem I don't really enjoy it. I think this habit is also hard for me because I don't enjoy challenges all the time. I'm the girl who cheats on video games: when I had a ROM emulator on my laptop at college, I was hitting the instant save button every two seconds to make sure I didn't have to go all the way through the big boss fights again. I have to work on adjusting my attitude towards challenges and come to enjoy them instead of just suffer through them.

Probably the easiest habit for me is playing. I think "playing" is how my generation and those younger than us have learned so much about technology. If there's a new program or product or website that looks cool, we just play around with it until we know how it works and all the little tricks and tips to make it work better or faster or more awesome. I love playing with new things, especially web-based things. It's intuitive and it's fun for me.

Blogging @ Work

Everyone has started to get a head start on things with the Learn & Play @ CML program - even though we can't "officially" do the blogging until next week, a lot of us started this week! Today we all compared notes on how to change layouts, add friends, make comments, etc. I actually learned a thing or two - I thought I was all set on blogging, but Blogger is way different than what I'm used to with LiveJournal. Oh well - the whole point of this exercise is to get better at tech, right? And it's neat to see the staff sharing tips and tricks like this. Very fun!