Google Docs

[jmikulski]

Has anyone had experience using Google Docs in the classroom? I've played with it a bit on my own and it seems intriguing, but I'm not sure how well it would translate to a group of middle school kids.

[annettemcd]

As you say, it looks intriguing. It might make sense if you had students in different locations working on one document, but I think that if you are working with middle school students at the same location, it might make more sense to just work with the tracking feature in Word or in Pages. Documents could be in shared folders on a intra-school network instead of on the internet. The documents could also be shared with USB drives.

What are you thinking of having the students do? Are you thinking of having them do peer editing? If the students can learn to do a good job of editing and to make comments which can help their peers improve their writing, then they can use those skills to improve their own writing. You might also be able to create documents with grammatical, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling errors, then have students find the errors and correct them. It would be more fun than regular paper worksheets. Google Docs might also work to create stories which start with one student and then grow as additions are made by other students.

I presently do editing for a student who lives fifty miles away. She e-mails Word documents to me as attachments. I open them in Pages and turn on the tracking feature. Then I edit the paper and e-mail back a version converted to Word and one converted to a .pdf file. I think that I might see if the two of us can use Google Docs, especially since I just had the student get a gmail account. It might be easier than the system that we are presently using.

[jmikulski]

My school has a really reliable network that can be used for peer projects, and with flash drives, it doesn't matter much anyway. The thing about Google Docs that has me intrigued most is the simple fact everything is online. I like how easy it is to publish work to a unique web address. This seems like the feature that I don't currently have available through any other resources.

[Unregistered]

I currently use GoogleDocs in my classroom. I have a unique setting (my 8th grade language arts students have laptops in the classroom), and I can only sing its praises. Work does not get "lost" in the shuffle of saving, the documents save automatically, and it is simple for students to share work and collaborate. I recommend using this to anyone who would like students to be able to be able to access their work online at any time.