Overview
If you haven't checked out Google's stable of free, web-based
applications lately, you really should. Free, anytime-anywhere
web storage, collaboration features, and a convenient offline mode
all make for a compelling argument to take some of your student
writing online. This blog will take a quick look at some of
Docs' most exciting features and how they might be tapped for the
classroom.
Remember—you don't need to have a Gmail account in order to use
Google Apps. You do, however, need to create a Google Account by
registering with an email address of your choice. This one account
will allow you to access all of your documents as well as any that
have been shared with you.
Documents
Easy to Use
Keeping the user interface (UI) fairly consistent to that used in
Microsoft Word or Open Office's Writer, it isn't difficult to pick
out the most basic features if you've spent any time using a word
processor in the last five years or so. Of course, with the
simplicity comes a price: Docs isn't for documents that require
specific formatting or desktop publishing. It is a fabulous rich
text editor and will serve you and your students well if you keep
this in mind. It should be noted, however, the Google has made leaps
and bounds on this issue, now supporting more advanced features such
as page layout view, footnotes, headers, footers, and page breaks.
Collaboration
This is where all Google Apps really shine; they brought real-time
collaboration on projects to the masses. Any document's author can
invite others to be a collaborator (can edit documents) or a viewer
(read-only access). Being a teacher, you may find this a little
dangerous if students put their work into each others' hands, but
fear not: Google saves all of the changes that have been made to a
document since its creation. If Student A decides to erase all of
Student B's work, simply to into Revision History
in the Tools menu and
each change between autosaves are laid out chronologically for you,
allowing the document's author to revert to any of these versions.
Speaking of which...
Autosave
How many times have you lost
important work because you forgot to save before your computer
crashed? It's happened to us all and is particularly devastating to
students who have spent a lot of time working on a project only to
lose it. Google Docs automatically begins saving your document as
soon as it is named. An interesting consequence of this is that you
can see when documents were edited, and by whom. You may find that
your students are writing at 2 am, or that only one student has been
working on a group document, which will help you better support them
in class.
Access Everywhere
No longer must students be
dependent upon their printer, their group member, their flash drive,
etc. because the documents are all saved online and can be accessed
anywhere where there's an internet connection.
(Relatively) New Offline Access
We don't always have internet access. If you have your own
computer, however, you can download Google's Gears application which
keeps a copy of all of your Docs, spreadsheets, and presentations on
your computer and allows you to edit them offline through your web
browser. The next time that computer is connected to the internet
while logged into your Google account, it will automatically update
the documents in the cloud (online). It works in reverse as well;
when you log on, it will sync your offline docs to their latest
versions. While your students may not need (or be able to use) this
feature, if you become a heavy user of Google Apps, you'll find it
invaluable.
Easy Google Sites Integration
When Google put together Google Sites, its simple, modular version
of wiki sites, they were very smart in making it very easy to embed
any other Google product (calendars, spreadsheet, docs,
presentations, etc.). Your Google Docs are literally plug-and-play.
Just remember that if you want everyone to be able to see a document
on your website to publish it to the world and make it public.
Otherwise,only those whom you have invited through the collaboration
features will be able to view (which is incredibly handy for
confidential information like grades).
Ideas for Classroom Implementation
You and your students' access to internet-ready computers and your
imagination are the only limits to how you can harness Google Docs in
the classroom. Some classroom tested ideas that I and some of the
teachers I work with have had success with:
Peer editing writing online: students get writing partners
who use the color-coded Insert Comment feature to respond to each
others' writing. Students can also use different font colors to
correct each others' work.
Group Paper: The teacher creates a Google Doc of the paper
outline or writing prompts and each group member tackles a paragraph
(useful for English Language Learners or writing-resistant
students). Then all together, the group reads through the paper and
reedits to create a more unified piece of writing.
Online Class Discussion: If you're not ready for a wiki
(user-edited) website for your class but like the idea of students
documenting their discussion online, you can create a Google Doc of
various class discussion questions and students can log their
answers in the document. Can also be used for a “public” class
journal.
Coming Next: Google Spreadsheets!
Please feel free to add your own ideas and/or experiences with
Google Docs in the comments!