Thing+Three

toc =Google Docs=

Students
Google Docs featured heavily in my classroom last year for my students. I used the GDocs environment as an online draft writing book. It's a great way for students to work collaboratively especially if you're interested in branching out and working with classes from other schools. Another thing you can do is have students doing peer editing - important to make sure that you set the documents up as 'comment only' in order to NOT lose work. This could be students within your class or older students editing with younger students or even students from another school.



When I interviewed some of my students as part of my research this is what they had to say:


 * These are students from my class. I interviewed 2 boys who struggle with their writing, and then 2 high achieving students (boy and girl) who both are accomplished writers. In our class we use both a draft writing book and Google Docs as an online draft writing medium.

<span style="background-color: #ffffdd; border-bottom-color: #9999aa; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: #9999aa; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: #9999aa; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: #9999aa; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; display: block; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 30px; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 10px; width: 90%;">Student A - aged 10 (boy) On writing in his draft writing book: "... (it) takes time (for a story) to get into my head - spend most of time trying to come up with an idea" "...sometimes hard to find where I'm up to..." "Easier to draw in my book." On writing on the computer: "It helps with spelling; it's a lot easier..." "... it's easier to start off with some ideas and then brainstorming and then with bullet points and then writing... "My writing is all in one place - easy to look back to what has already been done." "I prefer to do my writing on the computer in the mornings."

<span style="background-color: #ffffdd; border-bottom-color: #9999aa; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: #9999aa; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: #9999aa; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: #9999aa; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; display: block; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 30px; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 10px; width: 90%;">Student B - aged 9 (boy) On writing in his draft writing book: "...it's hard to write, I get really confused with letters..." " I get confused about where my story is." On writing on the computer: "...I don't get confused with my letters because the keyboard has capital letters." " I write a lot more on the computer - easy to write more and I don’t have to go looking for where the story is." "It's easy to see what’s already there." "I think I'd like to try working with a buddy."

<span style="background-color: #ffffdd; border-bottom-color: #9999aa; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: #9999aa; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: #9999aa; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: #9999aa; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; display: block; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 30px; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 10px; width: 90%;">Student C - aged 9 (boy) - currently working on a story that has reached ~3000 words "I seem to get more ideas when I write on the computer - the text seems to make it easy to read and ideas flow more easily." "I'm able to go back and change things around." "It's easier to type than to handwrite although I do worry about whether the story has gone off track." "I've learnt about paragraphing and was able to go back and put the paragraphs in - can’t do that in a book - you can’t change things around in a book, especially if it’s a long story."

<span style="background-color: #ffffdd; border-bottom-color: #9999aa; border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: #9999aa; border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: #9999aa; border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: #9999aa; border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; display: block; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 30px; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 10px; padding-bottom: 10px; padding-left: 10px; padding-right: 10px; padding-top: 10px; width: 90%;">Student D - aged 9 (girl) - currently working on a story that has reached ~2000 words "When I'm writing in my book I get distracted by friends and often don't really finish it." "I'm more focussed when writing on the computer." "I prefer writing non-fiction - dealing with facts but I'm also more likely to write more with an interesting subject." "Sometimes when my writing is in my book if have good idea at home I sometimes forget the next day what the good idea was and that frustrates me. But if I've been working on computer I can go and add to story straight away." "In my draft writing book it's really hard to go back and do lots of edits - I end up not being able to read my own writing." //At this point she stopped and said "wow you type real fast - I can't type that fast." I pointed out that our hands are different sizes and that she will get faster and find it easier as she grows. We decided that the iPad was easier for her (and others in the class) because it lends itself to 2 or 4 finger typing.// "I prefer to use my draft writing book if we're doing a picture and then some writing about the picture. But if it's writing on it’s own then I prefer to use the computer." ||

Teachers
As teachers you can use GDocs for planning - both for weekly planning and for collaborative planning. Here's an example of work that I've done with Anne from Mosgiel as we were planning some collaborative work for this year.



You could also use GDocs to do some distance collaborative teaching - there's a chat box that can be used where you can have an ongoing conversation with a student or group of students. This can be quite helpful if the students are in different places (could be different classrooms or schools or even countries).

Other Activities
Don't forget that Google docs isn't just documents - you also have presentation and spreadsheet functions as well as Google sites.

Pick a path/Choose your own Adventure Stories

Book buddies - collaborative writing

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Google Apps for Education have a lesson plan page here

Google Master Chef page from Ulearn 2011

Interesting ways to use Google forms and docs
These are from Tom Barrett - check out his Interesting ways page for more ideas.

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Other Links
@http://googledocsclassroom.wikispaces.com/

A blog post I wrote about using Google Docs in the classroom

A link to googleapps training centre - this is a module about sharing docs