Since I teach in the transition program I have a team that I work with daily. There are 5 subject area teachers and 2 paraprofessionals. We have meetings on the average every 2 weeks discussing our students progress. We are always discussing if they are attending tutorial and how they are doing for each of us. And I was thinking that Google Docs might be a good way to keep that straight. We could add to a tutorial calendar if we wanted to see a particular student and we could put down the students that attended tutorial. It might even help me keep up with who is attending.
Looking at the presentation option I thought that would be great for my students when they were working on powerpoint projects in groups. The idea of being able to work on their project together but not having to be in the same room is cool. Also all the work is in one place. The students had problems when one of them wanted to add a picture to the project that was on the other student’s computer. They had to save to their thumb drive and give it to the other student to put on their computer. I am always very worried when the students share thumbs drives.
Another way I could use Google Docs would be to collaborate on our 7th grade final exam. We are always updating the exam and adding material and correcting mistakes. But when the updated version gets sent in an email sometimes the revisions are missed. I discussed this idea in lunch today and someone at the table said that she did not feel comfortable using Google Docs. I told her that it is easy but you have to prepared that you will come across people that don’t feel comfortable using the technology. But it is only a matter of time and practice that people will feel comfortable using Google Docs.
