Friday 25 September 2009

Day in the life of a Docs student

(Cross-posted on the Google Docs blog)

The Google Docs team is getting ready for back to school. We've been doing our homework this summer to make your school year go a little smoother. Today we're launching a handful of features that will benefit both students and teachers. Speaking from experience, as students ourselves, we know that these features will come in handy on any given day. Check out the schedule below to see how.


Time
Schedule
9:00am
Spanish Literature [Bldg200-253]

Writing essays about Gabriel García Márquez is hard enough in English; try it in Spanish. At least now I can make sure I'm on the right track by defining and translating Spanish words.

Like any research essay, I have to double space the document and cite my sources. I use footnotes to cite sources. They are automatically numbered so I don't have to keep track of them and they sit in the margins for easy reference. As of today, I can even print footnotes as endnotes, consolidated on separate pages at the end of my document.

10:00am
Gym break

I keep track of my daily workout progress using a variety of Docs templates. Today I'll be using the Runner's Log:
11:00am
Hiking Club [Student Union]

The other club officers and I make sure that we cover all important topics by collaborating on an agenda outline before each weekly meeting. As the secretary, I also take notes on the outline so I like being able to customize how the list is formatted.

The officers also work together to make sure our website is up to date. With Google Sites we can each edit the site when necessary without learning html. My favorite feature is the ability to embed maps, documents, and calendars directly into a page.
12:00pm
Lunch

I keep up to date on the go by viewing and editing my docs on a mobile phone.
1:00pm
Probabilistic Systems Analysis Lecture [Bldg32-123]

This class moves pretty fast. My friends and I sit near each other and take notes on a single Google Doc to make sure we don't miss a thing. With the new equation editor feature, it's much easier to read and understand each others' equation notations.
And whenever I walk into class a little late, I can just do a revision comparison of our shared notes document to see exactly what I've missed.

2:00pm
Solid State Chemistry Tutorial [Bldg5-320]

In order to lead this tutorial, I often put together some slides beforehand and share them with my students. Now that Google Docs Presentations supports subscripts and superscripts, it's even easier to make and edit these slides.



Want to try out these features in your routine? Find some more detailed information about the features here.

Posted by: Rita Chen and Stephanie Vezich, Google Docs Summer Interns