Google Docs

The middle school I am conducting my student teaching experience has employed a school wide use of Google Drive. Starting in sixth grade, students are given a Google Drive account which they are to utilize throughout their middle school career. In order to orient students with the multiple uses of a Google account, such as sharing documents to a teacher, fellow students, editing and working as a group and more, sixth graders spend a class period in the computer lab where the computer educator teaches students how to navigate their new account. Google accounts are a very useful educational tool, especially in the English classroom. When students are assigned a written homework assignment, essay response, or group project, our students simply share their documents with my cooperating teacher. Documents can be printed out and edited, or simply edited via computer using Google editors. It is also useful to use Google, while all documents are time stamped, and a teacher can see if an essay was edited last, or can even set a time limit for sending in essays or written work. Students can also collaborate for group work using this tool, while edits are done in real time. For example, I recently had students conduct a mock trial in our Language Arts classroom. While students worked in class to gather their evidence, many groups decided to collect their evidence and create their arguments on Google Docs, editing and adding their personal contributions on a document which they eventually shared with my cooperating teacher once it was completed. I find this to be a useful tool to integrate into my future classroom, while it eliminated paper usage, makes organization very simple, and also creates a sense of student independence and initiative as well as room for collaboration and creativity.