I'm currently taking an MBA at the University, so I'm in the interesting position of being both a staff member and a student. Obviously the course itself is great, but it's also really useful to see things from a student perspective. I'll post some other observations at some point, but here's the story of software for my first assignment. I though this worth sharing because things didn't end of as I'd expected.
Our first assessed assignment is a 3,500 report on leadership styles. This followed on from a group presentation where we'd used Google Docs to create the presentation. This worked really well, as we could collaborate seamlessly. Everyone got to grips with the software, it did everything we needed, and it coped with all four of us editing the presentations at the same time the night before it was due! My first plan, therefore, was to use Google Docs to write the assignment . It's free, and I could work on my it from whatever Mac or PC I was using. Plus it would be backed up.
It all started well, but then I needed to draw a diagram, and I just couldn't get it right in Google Docs. I'm sure it would have been possible, I just didn't have the time, so I saved it in Word format, and decided to try and finish it in OpenOffice. For general home use Open Office is great - it's my home Office application of choice, largely because it's free, but it also does everything I need, and has a drawing package. I created the diagram with no problem, and carried on with my essay, backing it up to memory stick.
I'm sure I could have completed it in OpenOffice, but I really started to miss Microsoft Office's layout features, for example its handling of styles and auto-table layouts. So I gave in and moved to Microsoft Office. Given that I'd ended up with a Microsoft solution I decided to go the whole hog (after all, USB memory sticks are evil!) and used Microsoft Skydrive to backup it up, and give me access to the document from any PC in the same way I had with Google Docs.
So what's the point of this? I was reflecting on this because I think we need to be able to guide our students through the sea of technical options available to them. I'm, sure, for example, most students aren't aware of Skydrive (25Gb of storage for free!) . And without actually trying it, I would, I think be selling Google Docs as a great solution. I think it still has a place, particularly for collaborative works, but I really surprised myself ending up using a wholly Microsoft based solution.
I've just realised that I haven't posted anything since September. This is by far the longest gaps between blog postings, and I blame (or you can thank!) Twitter. In that time I've made made about 70 Twitter updates, which may seem a lot, but I'm hardly a prolific Twitterer compared to some of the people I follow.
This seems to be part of a trend - here are a few other people who've made the same observation:
http://www.thewavingcat.com/2007/11/08/twitter-vs-blogs-revisited/
http://www.wadehodges.com/2008/12/01/catching-up-and-twitter-vs-blogs/
http://blog.andrewparker.net/2007/09/05/twitters-ruining-my-blogging/
http://graemethickins.typepad.com/graeme_blogs_here/2008/04/blogging-less-t.html
and many, many more...
So what's happening? Is this a good thing? I'm not sure, but I've a sneaky feeling that this post would make sense more as tweet "Twittering more - blogging less. Is this part of trend?".