GAIN Google Documents

Google Documents is an application offered were people can work on one single document simultaneously.  Also, since it is online, it can be accessed from anywhere. This means that while one person may be writing a report or such, another can be proof reading it simultaneously and editing it as they go. And these two people don't even have to be in the same room. The fact that multiple people can work on one single document at a time is both an advantage and disadvantage over a regular Microsoft word document. The advantage is that when students are working in groups, all students can have access to the project or report, and can add to it, make changes and edit it. The down side to this however is that on person can make changes to the document without the others knowing, so it would require that the document be re-read each time a person goes it to add to it. The comment section helps with this weakness however, as they can comment and tell the others on the project what they have edited or added. The advantage of Google documents for teachers is that they can actually monitor the students as the go along. Another advantage of google documents is that you can create more than just a simple word document, but can also collaborate on projects as well. Google docs also allows students to work on projects both inside and outside of class without having to worry about carrying around thumb drives.

The collaborative editing that is available through google documents it a great feature because it allows someone to edit what is written right on the document either as you go along or after it is finished. This would be a nice feature to have for editing documents. I worked at a job where we did a lot of editing papers. Google documents could have been beneficial because we could access students papers from anywhere are edit them, and then the students would already have access to the edited paper. It would make editing papers more time friendly. That being said, one of the things I really like is that when you invite a person to proofread or edit the paper, you can specify based on how you invite them, whether they can only access and read the document, or whether they can actually make changes to it.

I read a lesson plan where the teacher incorporated using Google documents into her lesson the seven wonders of nature. The students basically had to makes a web page in google documents. It this had been done the traditional way, students would have had to each type up what they thought was important individually, and they come together to put it all together into one presentation. With google documents however, each students could work on his or her own part simultaneously. So that all the information was already gathered together in an organized way. A social studies lesson on state research did something similar where students were grouped and asked to make a google site together. again they had the advantage of being able to work on the project together from different computers, as well as being able to work on the project from home. This is often not something that students are able to do, as many group projects can only be accessed on one school computer. Another teacher used google documents for teaching vocabulary. Each pair of students was given a different vocabulary word to define and create a slid about. by doing this project through google documents, once each pair was done creating their slid, a mini slide show for their vocabulary words was already to be presented to the whole class, without having to cut and paste 10 or so different slides together.