| Online Collaboration Makes Life Easier for Teachers |
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| Wednesday, 24 September 2008 05:23 | ||||
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A typical English and Social Studies teacher spends many hours correcting papers. Wouldn't it be great if students could peer edit their paper in an effective way, prior to turning it in? It would not only save the teacher time, but teach students about editing and revising. Many teachers include peer editing in the writing process and spend time in class running peer editing groups. Now there is an even better way that does not take up so much valuable class time:It is called "Google Docs." Docs is an online word processing program that has many virtues, but the one I appreciate the most as as teacher is the online collaboration feature. It allows multiple users to share one document in an easy-to-use format. There is even a video teachers can show their students that easily explain the process. My students do peer editing online at any time, day or night. And, as you know, most students stay up late at night, working against a deadline. To make it easier on them and to help them turn in a proofread paper, students can work together in pairs. The online peer editing simply involves clicking on "Comment" and allows a place for the commenter to write his or her comment in a pop up window. This comment can easily be deleted, modified or even incorporated into the document. Here is a presentation that helps explain this feature. Some of the assignments that I use with Google Docs, in addition to regular essay assignments, are for those assignments I call "Buddy Books." With Buddy Books, two students pick a book to read together and then discuss the book online via a Google Doc. Each student uses a different color so I can easily see who wrote what, and it makes it fun for the students to collaborate this way. It also eliminates teachers having to carry home tons of papers to correct each week: They are all online for you to view. You do not need to correct anything online, but it is there if you or the student want to access it. Access is another critical reason I choose to use Google Docs. Students can access their Google Docs work from any computer that is connected to the Internet. It is not dependent on platform and can be accessed from an PC or a Mac. Thus, students can use the computer lab and easily have a productive writing session without worrying about having to send themselves the document or carry a data stick. They can then access the same document in the same place from home. A third reason Google Docs is great in the classroom? It saves automatically. I cannot tell you the number of times my classes have had computer failures when students lose everything they worked on simply because they forgot to save. Fortunately, Docs saves every 20 seconds or so, preventing this kind of problem. If there is a power failure of a server failure, there is also no problem. When the Internet is back, your document will be back there, too. And, how many teachers have heard students say, "I worked on my essay for hours (or days)?" With Docs, teachers can actually see when students worked on a paper. Just go to Revisions and every time a student logs in, you can see what they added (if anything) and the date and time. Gone are the days of fibbing -- at least about their essays. To sort your essays, I suggest that you have students name their essays using this formula: 2Brown, Ben: Of Mice and Men. (class period, last name, first name: name of assignment). That way, teachers can click at the top of the page where it says "Name" and all the documents will be sorted in alphabetical order by class period. For the student, there are multiple advantages to using Docs, but one of main ones, in addition to peer editing, is that it allows students to easily keep a writing portfolio and share it with other students or with teachers. Many of my students have portfolios spanning a couple of years and it is helpful for them and for their teachers to see their progress in writing. Students can even review their writing on on their cell phones. It is hard to imagine what they will think of next, but this wireless generation loves their cell phones. The cell phone application was recently added as well as multiple other new features. There is a great video, plus additional resources for teachers and administrators, explaining how and why they use Google Docs in the classroom. It has made a big difference in the way I teach and the writing fluency of my students. It may give you some good ideas for your classes, help you and your students be more productive in class, and save time -- something all teachers value. Disclaimer: I am a long-time high school journalism teacher at Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto, CA, but I also have children who are either employed by or otherwise have a financial interest in Google. I am not employed by Google and own no Google stock.
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Esther Wojcicki
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