Thing 16: Google Docs

How might you use this tool in your personal and professional life? What issues come to mind about using this tool with students (ie, they need email addresses to log-in)?

Teachers in my building use Google Docs to collaborate on team newsletters sent home to parents. Each team member adds their part to the newsletter and the role of editor rotates throughout the team during the year. This is much better than the old process of using Publisher and emailing it as an attachment back and forth. I also like the fact that everyone gets to participate. It’s not just one person sitting in front of the computer on a collaborative assignment.

When logging into Google Docs, I just realized that a plethora of resources were loaded onto my account from the work I’ve done this past year with a Teaching American History grant. Awesome! I forgot it was loaded there! I’m so excited to find this!

I was able to share a word document (using a template). This summer I was part of a team working on prioritizing GLCE’s and adding evidence and activities. Our work is not complete but we will not be meeting again this summer as a group. I offered to upload our creation to Google Docs knowing it was one of our assignments. I just successfully uploaded the document and invited the participants. Success is sweet!

The main issue is that students need access to email which is against our district technology policy. Another issue is that all invitees can change any part, not just their own creation. I think ground rules would have to be established from the beginning and agreed upon by all collaborators. How much of another person’s work should you change? Are you going to require permission from the author to make changes? Or will you handle that with suggestions instead of changes? Does that somewhat defeat the purpose of on-line collaboration of documents?

One other thing to keep in mind is that Google Docs has pros and cons. The advantage is that Google Docs looks like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. The disadvantage is that Google Docs looks like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. It does not always behave the same.