1. GOOGLE DOCS IN HIGH SCHOOLS
Cheryl: accountability and collaboration


Name: Cheryl Davis
Grades: High School (9-12)
Title: Technology Coordinator - Acalanes Union High School District

In the Acalanes Union High School District teachers across the curriculum are using Google Docs to expand collaborative learning. In World History classes several teachers revamped student presentations on Imperialism from in-class Power Points to collaborative online Google Docs presentations. This enabled students to test their ideas and showcase their work to a larger audience. Advanced Placement classes in English and European History moved peer edited outlines and essays to Google Docs enabling students to access learning 24/7. In psychology, one teacher re-focused student research papers to include a Google Docs component so student research results are shared.

Students appreciate the ability to collaborate online in their own time frame. Teachers as well as students appreciate the stronger accountability for individual effort on group projects. Google Docs enables teachers to observe the projects as they unfold, giving students feedback prior to the final outcome. Teachers are able to individually assess student participation and content using the revision tab on Google Docs to see how editing is proceeding and to encourage students as they work.

And the students aren't the only ones using Docs to collaborate. At one school, parent council meeting agendas and meeting outcomes are in Google Docs. Also department chair and staff meeting agendas have moved from paper to Docs encouraging staff leadership, collaboration, feedback and 24/7 access.


Olof: out from the sidelines, participating in the process

Name: Olof Andersson
Grades: Year 7 to 9
Subjects: Mathematics and science
School: Kvarnbergsskolan
Location: Gustavsberg, Värmdö, Sweden
Website or blog: http://blog.olofandersson.eu

Many of my students use Google Docs when they are working in teams, both with essays and presentations. In some point of progress, the students invite me to join them and have a look at and give comments on their work. It helps me, as a teacher, to be able to participate in the process, not just see the final product. The students also appreciate that they can work without having to think about different software at home and at school.


Collette: computing with collaborative presentations



In my attempt to avoid sitting through days and days of PowerPoint presentations in my high school computer classes (and boring the students in the process), I decided to upload each of my students Online Safety PowerPoint's to a Google account and the class joined the presentation. One student talked aloud while everyone listened and chatted about the presentation.  The students asked questions in the chat, added their own information and followed along in the presentation.

For the first time I can EVER remember as a teacher - 100% of the students were engaged in the presentation and participated in the chat.  The students were enthusiastic and offered insightful and appropriate comments.  The students liked being able to add their input without interrupting the presentation.  I will definitely use Google shared presentations again.

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2. GOOGLE DOCS IN UNIVERSITIES

Kristopher: over 30 students online and contributing to the materials database in real time

Name: Kristopher Overholt
Grades: Junior, Senior level college courses
Subjects: Fire dynamics, structural fire safety, PC applications in engineering, Intro to Fire Dynamics Simulator
Website or Blog
    http://www.uhd.edu
    http://uhd.edu/academic/colleges/sciences/engineeringtech/sfet/index.htm
    www.sfpeuhd.com

I am an adjunct lecturer at the University of Houston-Downtown as well as a student in the fire protection engineering program. I have used Google Docs in any engineering course that I lecture or tutor in to make my life easier and give everyone the information that they need when they need it.

In the fall semester of 2007, we created a database in which we needed about 15 thermochemical properties for a large number of different materials. We also need the reference source for each separate parameter. I opened a Google Docs spreadsheet and explained it to the class in 30 seconds. By the end of the class we had over 30 students online and contributing to the materials database in real time and using comments to include the URL or source from which that particular property was found. It was much better than any other method we have used in the past and each student's grade was given based on their active participation and contribution. I have even used Google Docs many times this semester to tutor engineering students who are in the PC Applications class and need help with spreadsheet formulas. Instead of using Excel in person, we sometimes just use Google Docs remotely, it even makes weekend work/tutoring fun!

We also use Google Docs for the organization of our Society of Fire Protection Engineers group by listing resources in the university library, keeping track of member's information, and making collective class notes. Now I have everyone in the engineering department (faculty and students) using Google Docs for any spreadsheet work and much more active collaboration is going on. Of course, I always use it for most of my personal life - graduation invitation lists, class notes, class schedules, and so on. Thanks Google!

Example published documents:
1) Validation of the burning rate of a small pool of ethanol
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=ajfdr2fw6926_28dpdrsq&hl=en
2) Fire Dynamics Project Fall 2007 Project
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=ajfdr2fw6926_56ggq66r&hl=en
3) Adequate grid resolution for Fire Dynamics Simulator
http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=ajfdr2fw6926_39d4ft4q&hl=en


António:  watching learning as a process


Name: António Oliveira
Grades: Computer Science (2nd year)
Subjects: Information Systems
School: IPCA - Instituto Politécnico do Cávado e do Ave
Location: Barcelos, Portugal
Website or Blog URL: www.ipca.pt

My name is Pedro Oliveira and I'm giving a class of information systems on IPCA (www.ipca.pt in Barcelos, Portugal). In the last semester, all my students delivered a document (done in groups of two students) with their final work. They liked very much the possibility of using Docs to work in the same document, without having the problem of managing the versions, worries about the security and backup plus. One of the main features that I found was the ability of following their work (each group gave me access to the document), since the first day, inserting comments along the documents and giving clues to the students. Moreover in the end all of their work was published (with a click) and presented to the student community. All I want to say is thanks for the excellent tools that you have and keep up the excellent work."


Stephan: spicing up language teaching

Name: Stephan Rinke
Grades: College (ages 16+)
Subjects: Languages (mainly English as a foreign language)
School: Volkshochschule Essen
Location: Essen, Germany
Website or Blog: http://web20inflt.blogspot.com, http://www.vhs-essen.de

We often use Google Docs in our language courses to give students the opportunity to improve their writing skills cooperatively. Frequently we create Google Documents as a basis for group work. Typical activities include:

• making a boring text more interesting by adding more detailed descriptions as well as adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions
• changing the tense of a text to practise grammar (e.g. changing a text from present tense into future tense)
• spotting and correcting mistakes (e.g. wrong verb endings, typical misspellings, etc.)

Students find these tasks motivating and also create class notes and longer documents collaboratively. And with Google Docs being web-based, students often use the opportunity to complete their group tasks from home.

Google Docs plays an important role in our efforts to promote cooperative learning: http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgs7whtj_155qww6k7gj


Jose: students co-authoring reports


Name: Jose I. Icaza
Grade: Graduate students
Subjects: Leadership for Sustainable Development
School: Tecnológico de Monterrey
Location: Monterrey N.L., México




I use Docs documents to have my graduate students write bibliographic research reports coauthored by them all. As an example, in the course "Leadership for sustainable development", my 15 students recently wrote together the report "Sustainable communities and cities: cases and plans". Each student was to find out about a planned or real sustainable place, incorporate his or her findings into the report and improve the overall report with the instruction: "Leave the whole report better than you found it". Grade for this activity depended both on the quality of the individual contribution and the quality of the whole finished report. It was so good that we then hit "publish" and here it is [in Spanish]:
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ah8tf3pzsm4v_73fn8dhzdd