I just played around with Google’s Sites feature. It seemed quite comparable to Wikispaces. You can select different themes, add text and media, organize pages, select templates… But, there is one option that really stuck out in my mind here. It is a real frustration that I have with both this blog and Wikispaces… You cannot indentX2 or X3 or X4 unless you muck around with the HTML. And, in the spirit of wiki, that is too slow for me. Google’s sites solves that little issue in no time flat. Does this mean that I am going to jump into the Google boat?

Not yet. I’m not convinced. It stresses me out that Google is this centralized online app powerhouse. I’m all for a loose federation of applications as opposed to a centralized suite of apps owned and supported by one vendor. Now, there are advantages and disadvantages to this approach… I realize that. And, I don’t want to say much more on the subject at this time. Perhaps another day when I have more time…

My task this week was to review Google’s word processing application. I thought that it was a fine, rudimentary word processor. Here is my (quick) evaluation:

• Tables default to middle vertical alignment. It should be top. It would take additional training to help students understand where to look to fix this.
• Image placement is rudimentary. You can set alignment, but there is no behind-the-text alignment or free positioning of the image (at least not obviously).
• There are two views: “Normal (plain) view” and “Fixed-width page view”. The default is Normal… I prefer the Fixed-width.
• Hanging indentation missing.
• Copy and paste of image from one document to the Google document does not work. You have to go through the file menu to insert an image.
• It has spell check with any easy-to-select other languages (much easier than Microsoft Word)!
• It has word count. Very useful.
• It does do page numbers, but you cannot preview them as part of your in-work document. They are part of the print settings.
• You can add a header and a footer. Yay! But, you don’t have control over them from page-to-page. So, once you have set up a header and footer, you are stuck with it.
• I do like the idea that it automagically saves a version history for you.