Module 3 - Google Me Silly!

The STK Breakfast Club continues to explore new domains.

This week we entered the world of GOOGLE DOCS! I had heard about Google Docs and that they were being used in Education... but until now had no real idea what they were and how I could use them in my classroom or school setting.

Well.... My eyes have been opened!!

With the help of our great paper animation friend and Google Docs In Plain English I have now created, uploaded, shared and added to a variety of Google documents. THe possiblities are endless for the use of Google Doc's in education. When I first watched the two video's I thought up the following ideas for how they could be implemented in the classroom/school;

Classroom
- Joint construction of text, both with groups of students and as a whole class. You could begin a story and then share the document with all of the students and have them all actively editing and adding to the text similtaniously. As well as this you students can access the docuement anywhere there is an internet connection and as such can continue to work on there document out of school hours. In Module 2 I disucssed how I used a blog with Year 6 and how effective it was in gerneating communication and collaboration between the students. It brings us back to the notion of learning being anywhere, anytime and anyplace!
- Group assignments - allows students to work on projects and not come up with the excuse "but so and so has all the work and they are away"... I know you have all heard that one before.
- Allows for peer editing and conferencing - Like we saw on the second video students were able to publish their writing and then invite others to edit it. We do this all the time using the students books, why not change the platform and present peer editing in a new and excitign way?
- Class Newspaper or Journal


School
Reporting - WOW... one of the first things I thought of when I saw the Google Docs in Plain Engligh was the gathering and sorting of grades and comments for a range of students. At my school we teach a range of differnet students for different areas. For example: I Have my homeroom which I teach, Writing, Science and Technology, HSIE, PDH. I then teach a different group of students for Religion, a different group for Mathematics and a different group again for Reading. My homeroom also see's a specialist Music teacher and PE teahcer. As you can already tell it does get confusing and messy around the time we have to share grades and comments. Currently we have a system which works of an Excel Spreedsheet. People add in their grades and comments and then save. As you all know for experience, people make copies and we end up with a few different versions or someone adds in one version and not in antoher and then it gets deleted... and so on. The other problem with this is that only one person can be working on the document at a time... frustrating! This is definately an area we could be using Google Docs for. It would eliminate all of these issues and stress!! It would also mean that teachers could work on the document outside of school and if someone was sick or away they could still access the document and share their grades.
- We are currently working on our Straegic Managment Plan (As I am sure most of you are). We need to gather information in groups and report back on it. Google Doc's would assist in this greatly.
- Meeting Minutes
- Brainstorming for functions, events, fetes, masses etc.

I think the possibiolities are endless and I am super excited about Google Docs!!

Happy Goggling!

Amanda