May 15

Google Docs

This week, I have been planning our Staff Development Day e-learning session. So, apologies first of all for the late (okay, really late) post. And co-incidentally enough, this week was also my week of using Google Docs quite a bit.

Firstly, I had to write synopses of all the sessions for the SDD. Then, I had to give this out for editing to everyone that was presenting, and then get it back and make changes. Traditionally, I would have printed it out and got everyone to make their changes on paper and give it backĀ  to me, and I would have edited the master copy. Or, I would have emailed it to people, and then made the changes that were emailed back. This time, I used Google Docs to do this.

You can use Google Docs to create a word document, spreadsheet or presentation online. The power of this is not only that it can be stored online but can also be shared with select people.This document is then emailed to them, but not as an attachment, but simply a link to the online Google word processed document.

Another Common Craft video (and again, there’s no sponsorship from common craft, they’re just really good)

Advantages:

Online word processor that is quality, reasonably quickly to load and free!

Kids can work on things at the same time. So, instead of having kids work together, one person actually on the computer, students can watch changes on the document happen, and respond to those, so you can be working on the same document at the same time, at the same or two different locations.

You can collaborate with others, either in the same classroom, or across the world and construct documents together. Either using a word processor, spreadsheet or presentation. You can use it as an interactive whiteboard if you have a data projector, because content that is typed on the student documents automatically goes to the teacher document. You can use this for group brainstorming sessions, or even get students to type in questions during a lecture-style discussion so students can ask questions without being required to have the confidence to raise their hands, and without interrupting the teacher. THe presentation tool even has a chat room at the same time, so students can type ideas or questions during the presentation that they think are relevant. The teacher can then go through these questions when time permits, and ask students whether the question was answered in latter parts of the presentation.

Encourages proof reading prior to submission. Revise/edit process part of the writing process is facilitated by the ease at which teachers, students and others can be involved in the writing process.

Research suggests that when writing, students are more fluent in writing on a word processor.

No excuses for not bringing homework, and no transferring via USB, disk or on paper. Students can submit work by simply sharing with the teacher, if the teacher so chooses, or students can print out and submit.

Create forms from spreadsheets, and send it to people to get feedback from lessons, units or assessments. This information is filled into a spreadsheet and you can analyse it.

This is a presentation eg created by a variety of teachers that shows how to use Google Docs

If you’ve used Google Docs inĀ  your classroom, it would be great if you could reply below and share how you managed it and how you used it in the classroom.