Free Online Storage

  • Subscribe to our RSS feed.
  • Twitter
  • StumbleUpon
  • Reddit
  • Facebook
  • Digg

Friday, 25 February 2011

Guest Post: Google Docs for Classroom Instruction

Posted on 10:04 by Unknown
Cross-posted on the the Google Enterprise Blog

Guest Post: Philip Greenspun is a pioneer in developing online communities and an educator who has taught electrical engineering and computer science courses at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1987. Today he explains how he used Google Docs to develop and distribute curricular materials and to support in-classroom discussion of student solutions.

In 1983, I began building applications to support multi-user collaboration over the Internet. When I began using the World Wide Web in 1993 I vowed never to write a native application program again and said "every desktop computer program going forward should simply run in a Web browser." Since the main reason to prepare a document was for others to view, I predicted that everyone would be using browser-based word processors and spreadsheet programs by the year 2000. I am still waiting for my "everyone goes to work in a flying car" prediction to come true also...

In January 2011, four of us were developing an entirely new course for MIT students, an intensive lab-based SQL programming and Android development class. All of us are proficient Web developers accustomed to authoring pages in standard text editors and publishing them on our own servers, but it turned out to be easier and more effective to use Google Docs to collaboratively develop course materials. Google Docs was more effective because simultaneous updates could proceed in different areas of a document and we weren't slowed down by having to do explicit check-ins with a standard version control system (or circulate drafts with names such as "DayOneProblems-final-version-by-philg-really-really-final"). Also, the "insert a comment" feature of Google Docs proved useful, e.g., when I wasn't sure if an example program was correct and wanted to ask a collaborator to check, but without leaving crud in the main body of the document.

We created two Google Docs folders the night before class: lessons, editable by us and view-only for students; workspace, editable by everyone. Into the "lessons" folder we moved the first day's assignment. In the "workspace" folder we created a "Day 1 Workspace" document intended for students to cut and paste code into. As each student walked into the classroom, we asked him or her to email a teacher from his or her Google Account (most students already had Gmail and some experience with Google Docs) and the teacher would share both folders with the new student, immediately enabling access to all lessons.

As the course materials had never been used before, they contained some errors and many sections that lacked sufficient hints or explanations. When we noticed these deficiencies, e.g., when a student asked a question, we would edit the problem set from a teacher's laptop and all students would immediately see the change on the projector and/or on their own screens.

Google Docs enabled us to distribute solutions incrementally. The first morning we created a "Day 1 Solutions (January 2011)" document and dragged it into the lessons (view-only for students) folder. As the day progressed, when 90 percent of the students were done with a problem, we would add the solution to the end of this document (by copying from another Google Doc, of course) so that students would have it in front of them and be prepared for the discussion.

The shared Google Docs workspace documents enabled us to have students paste their work into shared documents that could be used for projection and discussion and also for members of the class to try out each other's SQL queries.

To gather feedback at the end of the course, we simply created a feedback document and put it into the workspace folder, then used the "email editors/viewers" feature (from the Share menu) to ask students to add their thoughts, including whether they liked Google Docs ("great for sharing solutions"; "very effective"; "Generally yes, I did get a little confused with all the browser tabs I had open"; "very efficient and comfortable"; "green too").

We were technical people teaching a technical course, but everything that we did with Google Docs would have been easy for a person without any programming or HTML authoring background. Google Docs was an important asset for our course and significantly enhanced the in-classroom experience.

You can read more about our experience, including our wishlist, at http://philip.greenspun.com/teaching/using-google-docs-for-classroom-instruction.

Posted by Philip Greenspun, founder of photo.net and co-author of Software Engineering for Internet Applications.
Email ThisBlogThis!Share to XShare to Facebook
Posted in Guest Post | No comments
Newer Post Older Post Home

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

Popular Posts

  • More Google Experiments That Hide Results URLs
    There are at least two other versions of the Google experiment that removes search results URLs . The first alternate version places site na...
  • Add a Keyboard Shortcut for Chrome's App Launcher
    I'm not sure why Chrome's app launcher doesn't have a keyboard shortcut, but it's pretty easy to add one. For Windows XP, r...
  • Merge cells vertically in Google spreadsheets
    There are many times when you want to format your spreadsheets in a certain way to make your data easier to read and understand. Starting to...
  • Docs on the iPhone with Chris Pirillo
    Posted by: Meredith Whittaker, Program Manager Chris Pirillo , Gnomedex Conference founder, CNN.com Live technology contributor, and one of ...
  • Writing a campaign speech with Google Docs
    A few months ago, my colleague Julia and I were at a technology conference for educators. Teachers were very enthusiastic when we demonstrat...
  • Google Now for Google's Homepage in Testing
    It looks like Google Now won't be limited to Android, iOS and Chrome , it will also be added to Google's homepage. Some code from a...
  • Google spreadsheets, now with discussions
    Getting things done with others would be much easier if everyone was sitting right next to you. But since that’s rarely the case, we’re alwa...
  • Collect audience input with Google Sites & Moderator
    Google Moderator helps anyone find the best input from their audiences, whether it’s suggestions on how to stop the oil spill , debate que...
  • Get Docs in 38 languages
    Posted by: Ken Norton, Product Manager, Google Docs Earlier today we launched Google Docs in 13 more languages, bringing our total number of...
  • View .doc attachments right in your browser
    Cross posted on the Gmail blog If you receive Microsoft® Word files as attachments in Gmail, you can now view them with a single click -- no...

Categories

  • Acquisitions
  • Ads
  • Android
  • Annoyances
  • April Fools Day
  • attachments
  • back to school
  • Blogger
  • charts
  • chat
  • Chrome
  • Chrome extensions
  • chrome web apps
  • Cloud Connect
  • collaboration
  • comments
  • community
  • discussions
  • DMCA
  • docs
  • document list
  • documents
  • documents list
  • drawings
  • drivebacktoschool
  • Easter Egg
  • education
  • Faces of Docs
  • forms
  • gmail
  • gone google
  • Google Alerts
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Apps Blog
  • Google Apps Script
  • Google Calendar
  • Google Cast
  • Google Checkout
  • Google Chrome
  • Google Chrome OS
  • Google Cloud Connect
  • Google Contacts
  • Google Dictionary
  • Google Docs
  • Google Docs Viewer
  • google documents
  • google drive
  • Google Earth
  • Google Goggles
  • Google Hangouts
  • Google Instant
  • Google Keep
  • Google Latitude
  • Google Local
  • Google Maps
  • Google Music
  • Google News
  • Google Notebook
  • Google Now
  • Google Pack
  • Google Photos
  • Google Play
  • Google Plus
  • Google Reader
  • Google Sites
  • Google Suggest
  • Google Takeout
  • Google Talk
  • Google Toolbar
  • Google Translate
  • Google Trends
  • Google Voice
  • Google Wallet
  • Google+
  • googlenew
  • Greasemonkey
  • Guest Post
  • holiday
  • iGoogle
  • Image Search
  • images
  • InOut
  • iOS
  • Keep
  • Knowledge
  • mobile
  • OCR
  • offline
  • OneBox
  • paperless
  • pdfs
  • photo
  • photos
  • Picasa Web Albums
  • presentations
  • product ideas
  • profiles
  • quickoffice
  • Reddit
  • research
  • save to drive
  • scripts
  • Security
  • sharing
  • sheets
  • shortcut
  • slides
  • spell check
  • spreadsheets
  • stock photos
  • storage
  • students
  • tables
  • teachers
  • templates
  • Tips
  • User interface
  • videos
  • Viewer
  • Visualization
  • Voice Search
  • Web Search
  • Yahoo
  • YouTube

Blog Archive

  • ►  2013 (519)
    • ►  December (33)
    • ►  November (44)
    • ►  October (64)
    • ►  September (50)
    • ►  August (63)
    • ►  July (60)
    • ►  June (57)
    • ►  May (62)
    • ►  April (49)
    • ►  March (33)
    • ►  February (1)
    • ►  January (3)
  • ►  2012 (34)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (4)
    • ►  October (5)
    • ►  September (4)
    • ►  August (2)
    • ►  July (1)
    • ►  June (3)
    • ►  May (2)
    • ►  April (2)
    • ►  March (2)
    • ►  February (5)
  • ▼  2011 (80)
    • ►  December (4)
    • ►  November (1)
    • ►  October (7)
    • ►  September (10)
    • ►  August (11)
    • ►  July (8)
    • ►  June (9)
    • ►  May (1)
    • ►  April (8)
    • ►  March (8)
    • ▼  February (8)
      • Optical Character Recognition (OCR) in 34 languages
      • Guest Post: Google Docs for Classroom Instruction
      • Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office availabl...
      • This week in Docs: Now you see them, now you don’t...
      • 12 new file formats in the Google Docs Viewer
      • A refresh to the Documents List
      • More “I do"s, less “to-do"s: wedding planning simp...
      • Improved copy and paste using the Web Clipboard ex...
    • ►  January (5)
  • ►  2010 (118)
    • ►  December (11)
    • ►  November (16)
    • ►  October (6)
    • ►  September (13)
    • ►  August (13)
    • ►  July (7)
    • ►  June (15)
    • ►  May (11)
    • ►  April (7)
    • ►  March (7)
    • ►  February (6)
    • ►  January (6)
  • ►  2009 (82)
    • ►  December (14)
    • ►  November (4)
    • ►  October (10)
    • ►  September (10)
    • ►  August (4)
    • ►  July (6)
    • ►  June (6)
    • ►  May (5)
    • ►  April (4)
    • ►  March (8)
    • ►  February (7)
    • ►  January (4)
  • ►  2008 (97)
    • ►  December (6)
    • ►  November (4)
    • ►  October (6)
    • ►  September (8)
    • ►  August (5)
    • ►  July (7)
    • ►  June (11)
    • ►  May (20)
    • ►  April (13)
    • ►  March (6)
    • ►  February (6)
    • ►  January (5)
  • ►  2007 (25)
    • ►  December (1)
    • ►  November (1)
    • ►  October (2)
    • ►  September (3)
    • ►  August (3)
    • ►  July (4)
    • ►  June (3)
    • ►  May (2)
    • ►  April (2)
    • ►  March (1)
    • ►  February (2)
    • ►  January (1)
  • ►  2006 (10)
    • ►  December (2)
    • ►  November (4)
    • ►  October (4)
Powered by Blogger.

About Me

Unknown
View my complete profile