What's Up Docs? Using Google Docs in Your Classroom

Google, a word that has become part of everyone's vocabulary. It is a versatile word, acting as a noun and and verb and it has become a versatile tool. As teachers, we are prolific writers. We may not all be best selling authors, but we create thousands of word documents, power point presentations and spread sheets during our careers. These words of ours are stored in a mulitude of locations. Think about it. In your classroom, they are piled on your desk ( at least they are in my room), filed neatly away in cabinets and ring binders and stuffed into book bags and briefcases. They fill our virtual world as well, taking up megs of memory space on our computer hard drives, stored on floppy discs,yes, I know that there are still floppy data discs out there, cds and jump drives. We love to post our words on websites and email them to colleagues. It is not enough to have one copy of our documents. In order to use them in our classroom we print copy after copy to distribute to our students and share with our colleagues. Google is also in the business of searching and organizing words. Millions of websites are searched every minute by people all of the world who are trying to find just the right set of words to answer a question or solve a problem.

Google is now also able to organize and store your words too. And, this is the best part, you can now share your documents, spread sheets and powerpoints with anyone you choose to. This can be your students, teachers in your department, committees you are working with, teams you coach and groups you advise. You can even create new material right on the site. This application is called Google Docs. First, you need to have a free Gmail account, which will allow you to set up a Google Docs account. Once you have a Gmail account, you can create a free Google Docs account. Below is a short powerpoint explaining the basics of Google Docs. The hyperlinks in it are clickable and will take you to the start up page for a google account and for google docs - (as will the links in the preceding paragraph) If you would like to print out the powerpoint or see it enlarged, click HERE.


Our district is also in the process of establishing a Fairview Google Page, which will allow you to access Google Docs using your Fairview login. Our students can use Google Docs to access their work at home or at school. Because it can be used to create word documents, spread sheets and powerpoints on the site, they can also work on assignments even if their home computer doesn't have one of these Windows programs.

Google Docs can function as a Wiki too. This means that anyone that you invite to share a document can also be given the permission to edit that document. This is a great tool for collaborating on a unit plan or a shared assignment. Students can use this feature to put together a group presentation without actually having to meet at someone's home to do it. It can also be used to keep updated lists of supplies, brainstorm ideas or plan an event. Departments can add to lists of useful lesson links on a word document. Administrators can ask teacher to contribute a powerpoint slide for a community presentation. You get the idea.

Once you have created a Google account, you can also access other Google tools like:
RSS Reader- which allows you to get updates from your favorite news sites all in one place
iGoogle - your own virtual customizable homepage that travels with you where ever you go and lets you pick cool gadgets to include, like weather, news feeds, your calendar page
Blogger - the site that I am using to host this blog
Calendar - which allows you to create multiple calendars online and share them with others
Gmail - which has a chat function that allows you to chat online with other gmail users and also allows you to forward a copy of incoming mail to another account
Custom Search - which allows you to create and save specific Google searches - maybe for a topic you know you need current info on every year or a topic that you cover in your curriculum
Earth - find anyplace in the world, see it in satellite images or in 3-D, create your own pages with embedded pictures of your vacations and more
Picasa - photo management software that also allows you to export photos into Google Earth
SketchUp - create 3-D images and more

If you are interested in learning more about Google Docs or any of these other Google applications, I will be offering after school classes over the next two weeks. I will send emails out to the staff with specific dates and times. If you would like to see more of what Google Docs can do, check out the Google Docs Video Tutorial.

This is a sample of what a PowerPoint slide looks like that I created directly on Google Docs and then published to the web. To go to the website and see it online, click this link WEB view



This is an actual powerpoint that I created in class using my AirLiner (interactive smartpad) to write notes directly onto the website I was using. I could then use the AirLiner tools to capture my screen image and save it. Then I used the smartboard software to save the images as a PowerPoint - which I uploaded onto the Google Docs Site. For this particular lesson, my Avitar (the computer version of me) was acting as a tourguide in the online world of SecondLife. I will be writing more about this in my next blog.






Are you interested in finding out more information on how teachers are using Google Docs in their classrooms? You might want to read the following articles:
TechLearning Dec 2007
Using Google Docs Spreadsheets to Share Data
Shared Classroom Ideas
Using Google Docs for Assessment

I would love to hear your ideas on how you might want to use any of these tools in your classrooms - feel free to create a post to this blog by adding a comment.