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By Christopher Case, Teacher, Miller Creek Middle School, Marinwood, California
So I'm having one of those recurring teacher nightmares. Not the one about a class I can't control on the first day of school, or the one where there's something hanging out of my nose while I'm speaking to the students. This is the one I have about being out of town for a workshop while the kids take complete advantage of the substitute teacher and get nothing done all day.
Except this time it isn't a nightmare. It's really happening. I'm taking a break between workshop sessions, opening up my laptop in a quiet room on the 25th floor of a building in downtown Oakland, California, when the problem begins. The first email dribbles in. It's from the sub, who can't find my plans and isn't sure what the kids are supposed to be working on. She's thinking about getting a movie from the library to show classes all day, but she isn't even sure what we're studying. And the students have apparently convinced her that they're allowed to get on the classroom laptops and surf the web whenever there's free time (yeah, right!). I'm freaking out because things are unraveling faster than a bad wig at a retirement home. My cell phone battery is running low, my email is inexplicably blocked from sending, and soon I'll be stuck in a workshop session for another two hours before the next break.
All I can think about is the hour I spent planning a cool class podcasting activity, and the mess – probably both figuratively and literally – that I will have to clean up the next day. Just as I'm thinking for the millionth time that I should simply never be out of the classroom, Google Docs & Spreadsheets saves the day. A second email makes it through, and this time it's from one of my students. She's asked me to collaborate on a Google document! Instead of a nightmare, I have a dream: the opportunity to check in and collaborate with my students from afar. I immediately accept the invitation, and within ten minutes all of my students are connected with me and working productively on research and script writing for their podcasts.
Okay, so I can get a little dramatic. The great thing about Google Docs & Spreadsheets is that it really is a dream for educators of every stripe. Since I was first introduced to the software at the Google Teacher Academy in Mountain View this past November, it has changed my classroom more than any other software I've used. It's not just that we've switched the application we use to write papers – we've fundamentally altered the way we communicate, create, and collaborate. Perhaps the best testimony to the power of this software to get kids excited and involved in projects is the fact that, based on my results, my colleagues at Miller Creek Middle School are introducing it to their classes as well. You could say that Google Docs & Spreadsheets is transforming the way we teach one classroom at a time. And I can't imagine that the same thing wouldn't happen at a library – or anywhere else that learning and collaboration takes place.
Communication
Take, for instance, the dramatic impact it's had on the way I communicate as a teacher. No longer am I shuffling through copies of old papers with illegible comments on them to piece together a cohesive picture of a student's progress. Instead, I'm able to pull up multiple writing samples with just a few mouse clicks, and to review a student's revisions as well as the final product. This has been an invaluable teaching tool because my discussions with students about their writing are more clear, timely, and content-driven. And I can have the same kind of discussions with their parents. At this year's parent-teacher conferences, I repeatedly pulled up documents to illustrate points I wanted to make about the strengths and weaknesses of a student's writing. It enriched these conversations so much that more than one parent asked me where they could get Google Docs & Spreadsheets for their own personal use or for their college student. I can envision the same kind of success in a library context – why not keep staff meeting agendas in Docs & Spreadsheets, where participants can read them at their leisure, add their own agenda items, and insert comments or questions leading up to the meeting? You could print the most current version or take your laptop to the meeting and display it on a projector so everyone can follow along.
Creativity
Google Docs & Spreadsheets has also had an impact on the way my students create a new piece of writing – whether it's an essay, podcast script, blog post, or research paper. Before I introduced my students to the software, they expected to write in relative isolation, to submit a paper only I would see, and get it back marked with a simple score and perhaps a few corrections and comments. Now, the energy is completely different from the very beginning. Students can easily collaborate with one another – and with me – at any stage in the writing process, and the expectation is that the document will transform over time. The ability to incorporate collective brainstorming, peer editing, and continuous feedback makes the process dynamic and ever-changing, which inherently raises the level of expectation and achievement. You still have the familiar editing tool bar and spell check functions, but there's freshness and excitement when students are able to work on the same piece from any computer, compare revisions, view the history of a document, read and react to inserted comments, and publish the final piece directly on the web.
If your job as a librarian includes helping students with group research projects, you might consider showing them how to use Docs & Spreadsheets to brainstorm topics, share information, and pool resources. All of their library research will automatically be saved in their own accounts and accessible via any computer, so there's no need for you to worry about keeping the hard drives of your library's computers free of student clutter.
Collaboration
Perhaps the most satisfying piece of the Docs & Spreadsheets pie is the limitless opportunity for collaboration. The software doesn't just "support" collaboration, it screams out for you to collaborate with a click of the "Collaborate" tab. And when you collaborate over the Internet, the world opens up and the walls of the classroom fall away. My students often work on group projects outside of class, and they can easily "get together" without leaving their homes. But the possibilities don't end there. One afternoon I was working late, and I logged in to my account to work on a lesson plan for the next day. I noticed one of my students working on a challenging research paper, and since she'd asked me to collaborate, I jumped on to take a look at her progress. To my surprise and delight, I wasn't the only one collaborating. One of my other students was online offering her suggestions for improvement, as was the student's older sister – logging in from a university on the other side of the country!
It doesn't take a wild stretch of the imagination to picture collaborations among groups of students at different grade-levels or living in different countries. And in the library, this kind of collaboration could help students think more deeply about how they find and evaluate information. For instance, you could start a collaborative project in which the library staff and students at your school work together to produce a guide to library and Internet research. Not only would you gain insight into your patrons' research blind spots, you'd also be giving them an opportunity to learn the best research techniques directly from the experts.
Tips and Tricks
I've spent a lot of time poking around in Google Docs & Spreadsheets, but I remember what it was like when I first got started. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of Docs & Spreadsheets. Enjoy.
Tips for first-timers
- Don't be shy – jump in and go for it. You'll find the tool bar, spell-check, and other elements of the word-processing software very familiar, but with a huge advantage over traditional applications. Your documents will be saved automatically about every 20 seconds or so. As long as you have access to a computer connected to the Internet, you have access to the document. It's saved online so you don't have to think about file space, file names, folders, or anything else that could come between you and the document.
- Change the name of your document any time you like. Once a document is saved, it's easy to change the name. Just click on the title and type in the new name.
- You must collaborate! Don't hesitate to share your document with others right from the beginning – this is the heart of the application. Simply click on the "Collaborate" tab and follow the prompt to type in the email addresses of your chosen collaborators. Then watch as your collaborators join in. Everyone can work on the same document simultaneously, in real time. You can choose to accept their edits or stick with your original version – everything is saved in "Revisions."
- When you're ready to print, don't forget to use the "Print" button in the Docs & Spreadsheets menu (not the "print" function in your browser).
Tips for veteran users
- Don't overlook every editor's best friend: the comment. You can click on the "Insert" tab to insert a comment with the click of your mouse. The comment box appears and lets your collaborators know who has commented and when. I recommend placing your comment at the end of a paragraph, so you won't disrupt the layout or interrupt the flow of the writing.
- Check out the "Revisions" section and explore all you can do there. You can review earlier drafts of a document and compare two versions. If you're using Docs & Spreadsheets in a classroom or research seminar, this lets you easily see the changes students have made based on your comments – no more searching around to find out if they actually listened to you.
- Use "Tags" to organize your documents. Once you've saved your document, it goes into the "active" document list. From there you can tag the document to file it. My wish list for the next version of Google Docs & Spreadsheets includes adding a familiar filing system of folders for tagged documents, but in the interim the tags alone are useful.
- Publish your documents on the web with the "Publish" tab. You can choose to point to your document on your blog or website – just use the unique URL. It's an easy way to share your document with larger groups of people or the general public.
- If you're a Google Earth fan, you can introduce students to it by having them research an area of the world, then use Docs & Spreadsheets to collaborate on text for "placemarks" that everyone can view.
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