"Let us so live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." -- Mark Twain

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

Google Docs Across the Curriculum? Thing #11 Revisited


Lately I've been thinking that we might serve our students well if we included Google Docs instruction across the curriculum somehow. I'm planning on proposing this idea to our English Department first to get some feedback, and if they agree, then figure out the best way to teach every student how to use Google Docs. Why? Every day I have students coming to me with floppies or flash drives that won't open on our computers. They unknowingly used Works instead of Word at home to word process and our school computers have been ghosted without the conversion software, or at home kids have the latest Word version which our school computers don't recognize, or the floppy is old and useless, or the computers won't open the flash drive. Novell is a great way for kids to work on projects and save them when they are at school, but it doesn't solve the home-to-school issue. Google Docs would. The first step would be how to get at every student. I could do it through the Information Literacy homeroom lessons I do with 9th graders, but 20 minutes isn't really enough time to help every student set up a Google account and show them how to use Google docs. English would be a good spot, but English gets hit with so many reach-every-student initiatives already. Maybe I could train the staff during opening week next fall, or maybe the Tech Integration program next year could train the 20 or so participants. I'll have to think about this.
(Google docs logo above taken from Google Images: http://larryhendrick.com/main/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/google-docs-logo.jpg)

1 comment:

Janet Knoll said...

I agree 100% that every student in the school - and every staff member - needs to know Google docs, and I have the same dilemma about how to get the word out. Lately I've also included delicious on my must-know list because the more I use it, the more uses I find for it. And it would solve the problem of students not being able to find websites after they've logged off the computer - they could just post what they're using to their delicious accounts. -Janet

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Having gone back to school nearly every fall since 1955 either as a student, teacher or library media specialist, I find myself somewhere entirely new: in the unchartered land of the retired. I'm hoping this blog will help me find my legs. Well I guess someone else's legs would be better considering....