Thing 8

To be frank, this is my first experience with Google Docs. I need more time to explore before I will be comfortable using it with my classroom. After watching the presentation on “Google Docs in plain English”, he makes it sound so easy and convenient. The document has one computer based home on the internet. Instead of sending the documents to many different emails, you can attach email addresses to the document and invite writers to collaborate on the document by inviting them. They can edit and save the document online and changes will be saved immediately.

It is nice to know that I can create documents, spreadsheets, or presentations no matter where I am or what computer I am on and be able to collaborate with others. I can see how I could save a lot of time by not emailing files around. I like the idea that anyone can edit the document online from anywhere even at the same time. I also like the idea of being able to collaborate on a document with other teachers also. I think it would be very helpful to collaborate with teachers from other schools who teach the same subject area you do.

I have my students do many group projects, and I think this is when I would possibly use Google Docs. I like the idea of group collaboration by having the students record their group projects together in a single doc. I currently have a wiki which I use to encourage students to communicate with me, and I can add comments for the students to read. I didn’t need the students to have an email address to do this as you do with Google Docs.
This is something that would need to be approved by the school.

This is another free Web 2.0 learning tool that will help bring our students into 21st century learning. The students can collaborate without the need to install software. Users can simply log in to the service to access their files and the tools to manipulate them.