Learning Labyrinth

Thing 20 – Use Google Docs to create and share collaborative documents, spreadsheets and presentations

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I must admit I don’t use Google Docs as much as I should or plan to do. I guess you could say old habits are hard to break when it comes to creating documents. I am still using desktop publishing software and often times find myself needing a document that I don’t have access to when not on my work laptop and promptly kicking myself for not uploading or creating documents on Google Docs in the first place.
I see tremendous potential and countless possibilities for using Google Docs not only in the classroom but across the entire school community. A few possibilities and ideas for using Google Docs (because I could go on for hours) include:

• Student collaboration on a class project
• Faculty / staff collaboration on curriculum planning and department discussions
• Parent conference sign-ups / scheduling
• School event schedule sign-up sheets
• Student / Teacher homework collaboration –
  • the student can complete their work in Google Docs and invite their teacher as a collaborator to evaluate the work, or
  • the teacher can create the assignment in Google Docs and invite their students as collaborators to complete the assignment (of course the students would need to save the “default” document with their user id or initials at the end in order to complete assignments individually – obviously this doesn’t apply to group work)
• Parent communication and classroom event planning among the parents of the class
• School, Department, or Team Meeting Agendas could be posted here and designated attendees (several) could edit and add “live” notes during the meetings for others to reference later
• Multiple school collaboration – for example my school’s Instructional Technology Team could collaborate with Woodward’s Instructional Technology Team on planning Internet Safety Week for our respective schools. Thus, sharing ideas on events, presentation files and such among various schools. I for one would find this benefit incredibly useful…although the same could be accomplished through the use of a wiki, with the exception of exchanging files.

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