This Document's Backstory

In February 2006, when two New York City Writing project teachers, Joe and Ken, became aware of Writely (now Google Docs), they started to make a list of how to use this online word processor in the classroom. Soon they invited Paul to join them, and in July 2006, Paul invited several other teachers who were in summer technology institutes to join in creating this document. In November 2006 -- after we had reached our limit of 50 collaborators -- Paul copied the document for further additions and changes. Now there are two documents called "Things to Do with Google Docs." Here's the second one.

We invite you to add to, delete, rearrange, or replace anything you want in this document.

Examples (right-click/ctrl-click on a Mac the links below)
Here are a couple of examples of Google Docs documents that might suggest to you how you might want to use this application:

Investigative Journalism Article by a 9th Grader (See the template at the start of the Revision history.)
Young Children and Technology, Inquiry writing with photographs.
Reading, Writing and Technology , collaboratively written by 3 NYCWP teachers.
Response to Modern Love , many teachers collaborate on response to an article.
Andrea's Poem , written and revised during a digital writing marathon

Comparison of Using Google Docs to Conventional Wordprocessing

Benefits and Drawbacks of Conventional Wordprocessing	Benefits and Drawbacks of Google Docs
Drawback I tried using MS-Word to track comments and edits when I was advising a 10th grader on her 10th-Grade personal project. We discovered that there were conflicts between our two machines most likely due to the facts that I was using Word on a Mac and she was using a Windows machine with a different version of Word. What a mess it can create and there was no way to see this until it was too late.	Assign more than one student to a document to create a "Jigsaw-like" research project. Imagine two or more students assigned to 'writing groups' with each member researching and writing about different world religions, or countries in a particular region of the world. I've been thinking about such a project that might involved Guilded Age Robber Barons. Benefit The collaborative writing is direct and instantly viewed by all
Drawback When students send me attachments or place documents for review in a share folder on the server it is difficult to isolate them by class or by assigment if they are not labled correctly	Benefit Teachers can track the progress of students writing more effectively when students tag their documents as instructed. Drawback The teacher's Google Docs account will fill up with documents and this can become unwieldly. Tags have to be used precisely or there is considerable risk of not getting work seen by the teacher
Drawback When students used conventional word processing in my class, and then submitted the papers electronically to my website for evaluation, I invariably received such a variety of formats that I was unable to have enough corresponding software support on both my home (PC) and school Mac) computers. I kept reminding students to use specific word-processor software, but their home situations didn't always permit that, when they had computer access at home.	Google Docs documents track revisions and provide RSS feeds allowing teachers and students to collaborate and conference more effectively.
	Teachers can provide feedback online to student writing. (You can add a highlighted comment like this) (Or like this I suppose). One teacher we know has already found herself working on a document with her student at the same time while conferencing on the phone. (By the way, teachers can add links too, like this one about writing or phoning; unlike other web links, you won't jump to this page by clicking with your left mouse button, you have to use the right button ). Instead of writing comments, teachers using Google Docs might change whether and when they actually edit a student's writing (while teaching him or her how to restore from the revision tab.)
	Peer editing. And peer revision--by pairs or small groups. It would be fun to create virtual writing groups, where the students had a layer of isolation between themselves and could speak more freely about needed changes. The asynchronous capacity allows you to move this activity outside of class time as well.
	Teachers can assign long term projects without having to deal with floppy disks, documents created at students' homes that don't exist or work at school.
	Documents can be published in such a way that they are shared with an entire class.
	Synchronous collaborative writing has many possibilities, though it isn't easy to avoid producing a document that feels like it was written by a committee. Imagine a poem being written together with one word starting in each corner of the screen, however. The poetic uses of synchronous collaborative writing are immediately more appealing.
	Teachers can track student writing in real time from home or from a district meeting that they had to attend.
	Self assessment. Students could use some of the documents saved in the history to tell a story of their revision process. These documents could anchor an otherwise vague portfolio cover letter in actual evidence.

Ideas on How to Use Google Docs in the Classroom
Because of the unique features of Writely documents teachers can do some of the following things that they could not do with Microsoft Word:

Assign more than one student to a document to create a "Jigsaw-like" research project. Imagine two or more students assigned to 'writing groups' with each member researching and writing about different world religions, or countries in a particular region of the world. I've been thinking about such a project that might involve Guilded Age Robber Barons.
Teachers can track the progress of students writing more effectively. Teachers can tag student documents, e.g. "memoirs2009".
Writely documents track revisions and provide RSS feeds allowing teachers and students to collaborate and conference more effectively.
Teachers can provide feedback online to student writing. (You can add a highlighted comment like this) [HIGHLIGHT THE TEXT AND CHOOSE BACKGROUND COLOR] (Or like this I suppose). OR ADD A COMMENT USING INSERT/COMMENT LIKE THIS -Madeline 7/19/06, 6:26am
One teacher we know has already found herself working on a document with her student at the same time while conferencing on the phone. (By the way, teachers can add links too, like this one about writing or phoning; unlike other web links, you won't jump to this page by clicking with your left mouse button, you have to use the right button ). Instead of writing comments, teachers using Writely might change whether and when they actually edit a student's writing (while teaching him or her how to restore from the revision tab.)
Peer editing.
Teachers can assign long term projects without having to deal with floppy disks, documents created at students' homes that doesn't exist or work at school.
Documents can be published in such a way that they are shared with an entire class.
Synchronous collaborative writing has many possibilities, though it isn't easy too avoid producing a document that feels like it was written by a committee. Imagine a poem being written together with one word starting in each corner of the screen, however. The poetic uses of synchronous collaborative writing are immediately more appealing.
Teachers can track student writing in real time from home or from a district meeting that they had to attend.
Self assessment. Students could use some of the documents saved in the history to tell a story of their revision process. These documents could anchor an otherwise vague portfolio cover letter in actual evidence.
For teachers who have little experience in publishing web pages or little space in which to publish web pages, writely documents can be made public and viewed as web pages. Simply create the document. Select publish (or re-publish document if you have made changes since you last published the document) from the publish tab. To grab the URL, go to the file menu and select "view as a web page" and capture that URL. This URL will always shows viewers the latest published version of the document.

Questions:
Do you lose anything by this "paperless" process? Storage and backup don't appear to be the problem they would be on a school network. If technology is scarce, however, this process becomes less feasible.--Larry Barton
How cleanly does this export to MS Word? (Just checked - very clean; keeps all formatting)
Writely doesn't seem to have columns.
How's this for a solution to columns? -Madeline 7/5/06, 10:33am

Column #1	Column #2
just use INSERT >Table and choose no border	That way you can have the appearance of columns

Is it possible to set up the following environment using a Firefox tabbed browser: Create the links as bookmarks, and then display your bookmarks as tabs. But if you use tabbed browsing, you could quickly have an unwieldy Tab-bar, I think. You might need to add a Customized toolbar in your browser to protect the content, but I'm sure it can be done fairly simply. BTW, Firefox has a built-in feed aggregator, so that tab would be unnecessary, I think. If your e-mail account is at Gmail, you can add a Gmail icon to your toolbar by customizing the toolbars, so that link would be unnecessary as well. It would be handy to have, particularly for editing PDF files. You send them to yourself at Gmail and then open them as HTML, which can be directly loaded to Google Docs for editing. (Thanks for inviting me, folks. I'm thrilled as punch to be here with you all. I missed the deadline for applying to TM.)--Larry Barton
Tab one: A Feed Aggragator
Tab Two: Email Account
Tab Three: Classroom blog
Tab four: Teacher's del.icio.us Page
Tab Five: Student's del.icio.us Page
Tab Six: Google Docs

I'm not sure if this is what I was meant to do, but here goes. Collaborative writing has its appeal but how do we track individual contributions to a collaborative piece? To track individual contributions go to the revision history. This will list every change that has been made to the document by author. You can also compare different versions which is very powerful when looking at the editing process. -Tonya 7/19/06, 7:37am
I like the poem idea and it's a good way to introduce students to writing in a particular genre. I'm thinking of Patsy's drama class for high school students and if Writely would have worked better, more efficiently, than Nicenet. I don't understand how you get to a "page" that is just for your class/program/school. I imagine that everyone, the whole world is not able to access and write on any page. I hope I will learn some of that when I get there later today. I'm leaving Lehman in the next 10 minutes and should be at East Side a little after 11, if everything goes as planned.

Can PowerPoint presentations be worked on here? That would open up a new dimension.

Peter Elbows Freewriting, focus sentence, freewriting focus sentence,
adding focus sentence to images.

3 goals of work together
accessing and managing information - tagging
creating content with multi-media - using images
connect and collaborate with others.

MAPS for Collaborative Writing Software

Ideas from 7 Things Document
- Because collaborative editing puts control in the hands of the editors... trust and respect
- Freddy knew the strengths of his collaborators
- Collaborative editing depends on trust
- Applicable to distance learning
- Increase in group assignments, and this offers a tool for engaging with materials
- Group of indivduals can create a document that reflects the contributions of the group
- Versions of the document
- Protocols for editing
- Students asked to complete group assignments, these tools make it efficient and fun
- Group work and multi-tasking are more popular now
- Working simutaneously on the document can build a sense of community
- Collaborative editing can be separated by time and space, but develop community
- Students in class can take community notes and share ideas
- Wikis show ideas over time and represent different needs
Feelings about collaborative writing
- Frustrated!!!
- Slow, slow, slow
- Discombobulated
- Confused
- Immobilized
- Strangled
- Intrigued
- Lacking in tools
- Curious
- Potential
- Wondering if and how kids would do this
- Chatty
- Too artificial
- Brainstorming
- Confused with the tool
- Lost a sense of ownership - uncomfortable feeling
- Creates a new territory for writing
- Inquiry came from one and became the group's task
- Wrong tool for the task -- trying to hammer a nail with a finger
- Teaching with mud
- Authority
- Collaboration doesn't always mean that everyone is equal
- Start small, too many cooks...

Element of the Rhetorical Situation	Google Docs/Collaborative Writing Tools	Wikis
Mode (Genre) - what form will this reading/writing take? Both word and wiki	Agenda, notes, stories, article, something you want a response to,
Advantages for one over the other	Comments, familiar formats, more private, invitation-only before going public, maintain more control/ownership, familiar layout	Make changes, revert, discussion, public nature of the text/audience, fun, instant updates, WYSIWYG, easier code, hierarchy
Media (Software Tool and Presentation/Publication) - what medium will it be presented in?	Google Docs	Wiki
Audience - to whom is this reading/writing addressed?	small to large groups wanting to produce a collaborative piece of writing	overall community of readers/writers on the internet OR specific audience of readers/writers limited in size
Purpose - what is it trying to do?	create a "voice" share ideas compare versions
Situation (of the Writer) - what does the reader/writer know and what is he/she able to do?	purpose of assignment use of Writely
Situation (of the Writing Task) - under what circumstances (access, equipment, deadlines, collaborators) is the reader/writer working?	internet access, no advertising	fewer barriers to entry, advertising

MAPS for Collaborative Writing Software

Element of the Rhetorical Situation

Google Docs/Collaborative Writing Tools

Wikis