The horror...of google drive

After completing my medical training at the University of Alpaugh at Alpaugh California, I feel qualified to make the statement that yes, using Google does cause Alzheimer's disease in young to middle aged men.

 

Again, I blame, at least in part, the prominent operating systems in their quest to move away from GUI implementations of simple unix or DOS style directory interfacing. If a user can't even figure out how to organize and retrieve their files in a somewhat less than black-box search method (or worse, social media sharing black hole), how on earth can companies expect them to have any clue on basic security precautions and methods?

But in reality I just hate having to search when I don't feel I need to. I can't be the only person in the world who hates having to do key word searches to accomplish anything on a desktop.

 

you guys know you can organize your google drive the same way you have 'organized' your directories in the old days, right?

You can make folders and all that cool old 1998 stuff...

 

Thanks a lot, Jupiter.
I was doing fine today until I started thinking about this thread...

 

We've all heard stories about compulsive hoarders who save every newspaper going back for years, all neatly bundled & tied, stacked up eight feet tall everywhere in their home. The hoarders move through circuitous pathways between the stacks along routes that only they know. One day a stack topples, crushing them. Their desiccated remains are found months later.

Can the same thing happen virtually to a culture?

 

It's convenient to use on projects but when finished I delete all documents. (Just in case...)

 

Our school only started using Google Classroom the last couple years of my tenure there. I volunteered for a Chromebooks "cart" in my classroom during the second round of purchases--they transitioned gradually as funds came--on the promise that I'd use it every day.

I have always hated "computer labs" for English students, because you had to schedule them ahead of time, hope there were enough computers in working order, lose class time in moving to and from the lab. . .I wonder if we had "pencil labs" when that tool was first invented. The internet-connected, word-processing Chromebooks on every desk in the classroom solved lots of those problems.

I doubt that I came close to the potential of Google Classroom as a teaching tool, I know I didn't. It was good to be able to assign writing and research tasks, formal and informal writing projects, and visual presentations, and to "look in" on students as they worked (or didn't work) and offer suggestions, corrections, or comments. It was good for students to spend time with formal writing on keyboards, many were woefully unfamiliar with the conventions of typing, and with formatting pages for academic work.

The pile of papers I'd hauled home every weekend reduced to almost nothing--that was good--but depending on the assignment, it could take just as much time to read and score student work, and since my "teacher computer" was at school, I ended up spending my weekend grading time at school, rather than at home as I had in the past. Och, tamale.

The biggest real drawback I saw was in the "audience" aspect of student writing (writers should always have a sense of their audience). I had them print out (they'd have to go somewhere else to do it) major pieces of writing, like formal essays, so I could read them more quickly and more closely, and I'd write scores and comments in the margins the old-fashioned way, with my pen. But all the other writing had pretty skimpy audience: just me, and only for whatever time I could afford to give it, which was sometimes close to none. It depressed me to think of it that way, but I saw Google Chrome as a "black hole" of student literary effort. The gems of thought that sometimes come from students' writing never went home to post on Mom's fridge or go in her scrapbook, and the one person who could have caught them was often too busy to even see them.

Retired now, I leave all that to the teachers of the future. They're better at working gizmos than I'll ever be anyway.

 

That's still bigger than a tweet, and it's not as colorful as Facebook.

 

ha! all I know is I had 3 kids in college and thank goodness for google docs! the whole family would pitch in and help edit grammar mistakes, spelling etc... 2 of 3 have now graduated and at their graduation we all agreed that being able to read and review was pretty dang cool... it beat the absolute snot out of my old typewriter (and profs who would say 'no onion skin paper' 'no eraseable paper' 'no whiteout'....

I have been playing with some guys... they use ipads and I installed the google app for them and the songbook is all google docs... it RULES....

 

Yeah, Google tends to take over everything when it gets a toe in the door. Kind of like vampires - they can only come in if you invite them, but once you do, they're never satisfied till they suck every drop of blood out of you.

When I got a Google email account, it decided to merge all my personal calendar with my work calendar. And "reorganize" my calendar to make it useless. Not good.

It took a tech two days to untangle everything so I could cancel my Google account.

Never again!

 

I don't really see the issues. It's my Drive, I can keep it clean or keep it cluttered as hell.

I personally use shared folders for my clients, and organize them before a project and give them access to only what they need. At the end up the project, I tidy up that folder, download it, and archive it. The client does the same. It cuts down my email interactions a ton because the client knows where to upload what files. And that's not even mentioning collaboration on files and commenting on files. It allows for a fraction of the email I used to have on a project.

There is never a situation where I have issues finding stuff by searching.

I'm in my 40's, so it's not like it wasn't a new system for me to learn, but I just don't really have issues with it. It's improved my work flow personally.

 

I just tell my kids to ask Grammarly...

Of course (sets down on cracker barrel), back in my day, we'd just ask Grammer. She had been an English teacher, you know.

 

yeah, we have talked about that... but, I think we enjoy the debate about WHAT they are saying as much as spelling and usage.

 

I can see that. Friends of mine, when their daughter was in primary school, reviewed her French report, which had to be on a local industry. She had done it on cannabis (this was before legalisation). They did a find and replace and viola! the paper was about apples orchards.

 

that made me laugh out loud.

 

Not that the paper made sense at that point, but the teacher didn't pick up on it when it was marked.

 

thread about electrons uses and is about electrons.

 

Genius for sure. I know if I were grading, as long as a comparison were being made intelligently I'd mark it high...

 

Well, we use it in my workplace, and even if you try to organize your files and delete worthless stuff, others don't. Like most Google products, it is cleverly designed to thwart control and privacy and to promote leakage and sharing, both wanted and unwanted. After all, that's what Google is monetizing -- not some public service or wonderful utility: just an information magnet that they can mine. When older unaccessed (by creator) files start to become more expensive to host than profit justifies, I'm sure Google will establish a shelf life limit and set those electrons free. After all, they have never claimed to protect your info in perpetuity.