Overall Satisfaction with G Suite
Google Suite is used throughout my school, used by both staff and students. G Suite allows all school members to have their own user account, which is used for Chromebook login as well as Gmail, Google Classroom, and all of the Google apps. Students are able to appropriately communicate with their teachers and peers from either Chromebooks or their own person technology devices. G Suite allows students to work collaboratively on group work, as their documents are live and able to be shared with fellow students. Staff members also have the ability to work collaboratively, sharing documents for viewing or editing depending on the need.
- G Suite allows students to work on group projects together, without having to save and email out a document. All of their work is live, which allows them to work on projects from any location and on various devices.
- G Suite is also beneficial for staff members. Documents can be shared in order for other staff members to edit, or the settings can allow for colleagues to view or comment only, without editing the author's document. This helps throughout departments, as there are many fluid documents used.
- G Suite allows staff members to work with students in the editing process within Google Docs. A student in a study lab can share an essay with their support staff and be working on it collaboratively while being in separate locations.
- One issue with G Suite is that the programs do have limited editing abilities, compared with the full Microsoft versions. For example, Google Sheets has limited templates compared to Microsoft PowerPoint.
- Another feature that is lacking is the ability to create and edit graphs within the G Suite apps.
- All school members are able to work on one platform for schoolwork as well as email.
- G Suite is able to be accessed through school-issued Chromebooks, personal cell phones, as well as personal computers off campus. This is a great feature so that students are able to complete work outside of the school building as needed.
- G suite allows teachers to check student work right within the program, without them having to use a separate site to check for plagiarism.
I have not used a product with live working documents previously. Prior to using G Suite, students working with a group had to coordinate who was working on the document, share and then email out. The other alternative was for them to coordinate a time to work physically together. In terms of teachers, the same was true that only one document was able to be edited at a given time. G Suite clearly is more conducive to working collaboratively.