I think the implementation of Google Apps has the potential to be of great benefit to our students. Google Docs offers collaborative possibilities that are a real plus. However, there are still some kinks to work out. Last semester, my students used their Google accounts to complete two separate projects. They had trouble with email, despite several attempts to "Work around the issues." The formatting in Google Docs was not as conducive to longer documents as MS Word is. And, when students tried to cut and paste from one document in Google to another document also in Google, things just didn't quite work correctly. The biggest problem was for a student who has a Mac at home For some unknown reason, his documents didn't show up at school, even though Google is web based. I'm sure it was just a glitch but we never did figure out that problem.
On the up side, I did hear students talk about working from home but working together and they seemed to enjoy the possibilities. With my large classes, we have not had the opportunities to work with Google as much as I would like. I think, eventually, it's all going to be great.
