Thing 15

I took an after-school class about Google Docs, so I knew a little about it. I liked how you could be typing something and have other people collaborate. This might not work well for class assignments without a lot of caution. I'd be afraid of kids not saving work or erasing something someone else said. How do you give credit for something that's been erased? Our instructor gave examples in an English class setting where students could make comments and edit what someone wrote. The editing part is what made me worried about erasing. Since I teach French, I'd have to get all the kids cheat sheets for making the special accents. Typing in French is pretty easy, but the kids keeping up with them is a problem. The biggest concern over these is getting enough lab time. It's a great idea, but it seems easier to just do the activities in class on paper and use highlighters for editing. I'd rather use my lab time for projects and cultural instruction than word processing, etc.

I think it would be fun to use for something like organizing club activities and creating a scrapbook. You could show pictures with the slideshow, take surveys of what the students want to do during the month/year, and have places for them to write about their activities in the club. It's easy to use, so that wouldn't require much instruction to get the kids up and running.