ICT in my Classroom

As our summer term Google Docs project drew to a close I asked the children in my class to reflect on what we had done. I asked them to record the one thing they found the biggest challenge about working together with Google Docs and the aspect they enjoyed the most.

No I didn’t set up a Google form with a spreadsheet to pool our thoughts - I just asked them to write them on some paper speech bubbles. Some of their responses formed part of our Geography display.

Below I have transcribed them as they are, which provides a revealing picture about the project.

Biggest Challenge when working together in Google Docs:

• When everyone gets a laptop and everyone delets stuff.
• The hardest thing for me is when were in groups and we are all sharing the same document.
• Delite stuff what we need.
• My biggest challenge is problems happening on google docs like things what I cants solve for myself.
• Putting up with arguing with other people.
• The thing I find hardest is when two or more people are on the same document and are writing in the same space.
• When we are all not talking and people move stuff and people shout.
• I find it difficult when the whole group work on the same document.
• It is hard to work with other people.
• The biggest challenge is to stop arguing.
• The thing I find hard would be the working together.
• When thay move things around.
• When you are trying concentrate on your work.
• I think it has bin a tough challenge getting use to working together because you have to talk then work and then talk etc.
• Probably if somone eles deleats your work.
• It is a challing when other pepole are writing where you are,

Most enjoyable part:

• The most thing I enjoy is that we work as a group.
• What I injoy the most about Google Docs is being able to see what other people are doing.
• I’ve enjoyed it because I like doing research about india becasue there is a lot of things about india.
• I like working this way because we can chat on the computer.
• The best thing is that one person has a laptop.
• I like the fact that we can chat on google docs.
• I have enjoyed working in this way because it gives us a chance to use the laptops more and get to work in partners more.
• I’ve enjoyed it about google dogs like researching and doing a presentation.
• I enjoy working as a group.
• That we get to talk and wright on the same doc.
• I like the chat.
• We get more ideas down.
• I enjoy working on google docs and wth other people.

It is very important that these comments help to define what we do with Google Docs in the new academic year.

The children have clearly told me here that the biggest challenge is working as a group. Before we began using Google Docs the class struggled to participate collaboratively in group activities, I knew this. Working on a document at the same time as someone else is new classroom behaviour and in my opinion needs to be modelled. Just as we would model the correct way to use a hacksaw or modelling how to write in a particular style - we can facilitate the group dynamics by modelling collaborative authoring in Google Docs. But the tool is not a magic answer to communication and working in a group as you can see from the children’s comments. When you undertake a Google Docs project, if you are working on a shared doc between a group, communication and talk must be the most important focus - not the tool.

The chat has been a popular part of the work we have done, although it is only in the presentation tool that you can instant message. This did prove a very powerful learning activity and I would recommend a reflective backchannel that collates feedback to be part of future presentation projects. Comments about seeing what other people are doing and getting more ideas down are interesting as children perhaps become more accountable for their contributions in a group - reminding me of the way Voicethread allows you to see the efforts of others.

There have been many positives from this project and I have been really pleased how Google Docs has performed so reliably under classroom conditions (30 laptops 1 wireless access point) and I would strongly recommend the two following elements to focus on if you are undertaking a similar project with your classes.

1. Model good practices - much of what the children will experience with synchronous document editing is totally new. They may have never done anything like it before and it is a new way to work in the classroom. We found that the children had a better understanding both functionally and socially/collaboratively when we modelled good practice, and gave a commentary about what we were doing as we worked together in Google Docs.
2. Communication is key - beyond learning about the functionality of Google Docs (which they picked up very quickly) the children need to understand why communicating as a group is so essential. Spend time talking with the children about what to expect and how best to approach different situations. Troubleshoot groups going off track and work as a class to help solve and suggest solutions. I asked my children are you making your work C.L.E.A.R - Communication with your team, Listening to what is going on around you, Eye contact when we are talking, Ask about problems or issues and Review what is going on in the team. (Once again number 1 can apply a great deal here)

I wish you success with your own classroom Google Docs projects and hope that some of these insights help you to better use the tools to impact children’s learning. Please drop me a line to say what you are up to.

Other relevant posts:

• Google Apps in School - Week 1 , Week 2 , Week 3 , Week 4 , Weeks 5+6
• Creating an emotion graph using Google forms
• Marking work in Google Docs

Other relevant posts:

• Google Apps in School - Week 1 , Week 2 , Week 3 , Week 4 , Weeks 5+6
• Creating an emotion graph using Google forms
• Marking work in Google Docs

What is the best way to give feedback on a piece of work produced in Google Docs? What formatting tools are most appropriate to use when leaving comments? How do you organise 30 to 60 pieces of work handed in to you? How do children hand in work? What new possibilities does this process uncover?

These are some of the questions which will be driving my thinking in this post about assessing and giving written feedback on work that children have produced in Google Docs. It was at the beginning of May that we began using Google Apps, and in particular the Docs tools, with the Year 5 children. I am beginning to take some things for granted, it has become a part of what we do and another choice for them to use. Google Docs has become just another addition to their toolkit.

I am currently marking two classes worth of narrative writing and geography projects too, and these are my reflections on what it is like to mark work in Google Docs.

3 tools to add feedback to a piece of work.

First of all you need to make it explicit with the class what they must expect to see in their work in terms of marking and feedback. Just as I have encouraged the children to communicate what to expect from each other when collaborating on a document, I have made it clear to my class the types of marking I will be adding. I have shown examples and talked through what they mean from my point of view. I think that it is important to have a few methods that are simple and have a clarity in terms of their feedback function - here are my three.

1 - How do I highlight any spelling or grammatical errors?

I use the highlight tool and a light shade of red to pick out any mistakes that the children may need to revisit and change. The same could be done with an underline tool but I wanted a clear visual cue to problem spots. A method that I explored on Friday during a “live marking” (see below) session, is to change the highlight to a green when I see that the correction is made.

The children may revisit the piece of work and see the highlighted word, they correct the spelling and they also could change the highlight to a green - signalling to me that they have seen and acted upon the feedback. In this way the original position of the mistake is still clear - although this is, in some way, redundant with the document’s revision history.

2 - How do I add comments within a piece of work?

For those comments that you might add in the margin of a handwritten piece I use the Docs comment feature. Place the cursor after the sentence or word you want to comment on and hit CONTROL+M, this is the quickest method for me - you can also use INSERT>COMMENT from the menu bar. You will see a small coloured box appear where you placed the cursor and you can add a short comment about the work. Each comment is tagged by default with your full name, time and date. This can be a useful feature and I would leave it in at least once to show the children the full information, but if the children already understand that the comment boxes will be from you, then there is no need for this info and I often delete it out.

Another reason to delete the name and date information is that if you were to add some suggestions for alternative vocabulary in a comment, the children can right click the comments and insert them directly into the text - blending their work with your feedback and suggestions. But all of the comment text is inserted including name and date - best just to delete user info  out.

It would be a useful addition to the Docs settings to be able to switch between different info in the comment box as default - for example just the date would be useful to me - or none at all.

It is worth noting that wherever you place the comments they will inherit the formatting of the surrounding text - so if you add a comment immediately after a highlighted error the comment is highlighted too. This also applies for headings and other text formatting.

3 - How and where do I write overall comments for a piece of work?

For this type of feedback I use the document header function, that way I know it is distinct from the rest of the work (dotted border) and is clearly signalled to the user when they open it - always on top.

For the first assignments I have added in the same reminder (see image) about the type of marking they will see in their work. If I need to provide a series of comments over time it is worth just dating them to begin with.

Handing work out, handing work in

One of the earliest procedures that I explored was to be able to quickly distribute a single document and the idea of children handing work in to me. Sharing is the most important part of all of this and I would say it is the key feature of Docs. Once I have created a document for the children to use as a starting point or a text for them to work on, I share it with all of my class. The way to create groups of users to share docs etc within Ed Apps is to do it in GMail.

1) Login as usual to your domain account you use and got to your GMail.
2) Open up your CONTACTS.
3) You should see a list of contacts you have, most likely to be all users on domain. Click on the ALL CONTACTS link to see everyone.
4) Go through your list and select the users you want in your group.
5) Click on the GROUPS button and ADD TO… NEW GROUP.

Now that you have created a group it will appear when you share any of your Docs if you click Contacts. When the children hand work in to you they have to simply share the document with you - they will appear in your docs home page and you will see their username next to the doc title. Naming the document with the children’s initials is important if their username does not already contain that information. For us I can see who owns different documents from their usernames, for other schools the naming of docs may be more of an issue.

A writing crumbtrail

A key feature that sets it apart from handwritten work is the document crumbtrail, or revision history. As a teacher I can see every little change and alteration that has gone on from the beginning of the document. You can access the revision history in two ways, from the File menu or from the Tools menu. You have the functionality of comparing older and newer versions.

I find this especially useful with written pieces that have been completed over a series of session or days as I can see, from the dated entries, what has been added and how much has been done. A good method to keep on top of how much work has been completed. The children also have found this useful, giving them the option to revert easily to older versions that they prefer. This tool offers me a window into the document’s past - I can retrace the crumbs and focus on the process as well and the product.

A pile of marking!

Google Docs marking means I do not need to be carrying around piles of work books - however I came across a simple, yet important, problem when I was working this week. If I have a pile of books or papers to give feedback on I activate the intricate system of piles, which I name “marked” and “unmarked” But when you are looking at a list of Docs that the children have shared with you there is no immediate way to label them or sort in the same way.

Here are a couple of my solutions: organise all of the Docs into a single folder that is named after the work that you are doing - this folder could be nested inside a subject folder too. In the same folder as all of the children’s work create two folders named MARKED (green) and UNMARKED (red). Now MOVE all of the Docs to the UNMARKED folder - get some marking done and move them when it is complete over to the MARKED folder.

I like this method but sometimes it can behave strangely because along with moving folders you can also add documents to multiple folders - it can get confusing if you have moved and also added, the document will show multiple labels.

A second method, which is much simpler, would be to use the STAR feature. Click on the star to the left of the document title. You will then be able to sort all of your documents from the STARRED view in the left bar.

I would use the star to show unmarked work, this way I would be able to see work that still needs feedback adding across lots of different projects from the STARRED view. Your STARRED view then becomes a simple marking to do list.

Live feedback

Perhaps the most exciting development this week is the idea of live marking. A time when both you and the student/s are viewing and working on the document. As much as I am looking for learning that is transformative I am also aware that this type of assessment activity is unprecedented and in its own way is transforming the way you provide feedback. It is not a new idea to sit with a child and go through what they have done - what is different is the fact that we can both work on the document at the same time - I can highlight and mark up the text and the student can make the changes that I suggest as we work. This works very well in practice as proved this week in my class, a pair of children were making the changes I had suggested to their first paragraph as I was looking at the second and so on.

One of the hardest challenges I face with a constricted timetable and expanding curriculum is finding time for the children to review marking I have given and responding to it in turn. It is a crucial step towards a more dialogue centred marking approach but is very difficult in practice with the fast pace of what we do and what is expected of us. I think that the live marking concept brings the marking you, as a teacher, provide and the response the children give together. You mark they respond - it works. The main issue is time and how long it takes to do. You have to both be working on the document, I got through about 4 of these live marking sessions in about 35 minutes and that’s my first shot at it. With 30 to get through it may be something that you have to build time in for but which is very powerful because of the immediate and fast paced response you get. It may belong to a longer unit of work which allows you time over a series of sessions/days to cover all of your students. A live marking model would also work very well for peer assessment purposes and would sidestep the issue of time.

Crucially this method of marking negates any dead time in between your feedback being given and the student making the improvements - that can only be to the benefit of the student and the standard of work they produce.

Ongoing reporting to parents

Another idea I have thought about this week involves the use of Google Docs in the process of reporting to parents. The parents at our school currently receive a paper report at the end of the year and I have just finished writing all 30 of them for my class. I have always considered the concept of contributing to the report as the year progresses - writing about the unit of work we have just finished at that moment, rather than waiting 5 months for report writing deadlines to come around. What if we shared a report document with the child’s parents at the beginning of the year and explained that the children’s reports will build throughout the year but they have complete access to them whenever they want. As the year wears on you add comments and remarks about the child which are immediately shared with the parent. Perhaps you communicate with the parents when these planned series of updates will take place or you simply inform them when changes do take place.

According to this report 82% of GB parents with children 17 or under said that an online reporting service would be helpful. The UK Minister of State for Schools and Learners Jim Knight has announced plans to have ‘real-time’ electronic school reporting systems up and running in all secondary schools by 2010, and in all primary schools by 2012. That is 4 years away for us! It is not a dedicated report writing tool, true, but it is a simple and easy way to share a document. With careful planning, the support of next years parents and my school we could have this running from next September.

Image1: ‘crumbs‘  http://www.flickr.com/photos/70685828@N00/1705580506
Image2: ‘11/15/07‘ http://www.flickr.com/photos/19627189@N06/2037138203

It has been a quieter few weeks in terms of our use of Google Docs, by our standards anyway - so I have combined some of my reflections over the last fortnight. Although less prominent in the daily work of our literacy unit the use of Google Docs has continued and has become more and more intrinsic to the thoughts of the year group.

Modelling examples of collaboration with Google docs.

Last time round I spoke of identifying the fact that the children were not very productive when taking their first steps into the collaborative use of docs. Rick and I spent some time this week modelling some of the behaviours we want the children to be aware of when working in a team. With all of the children in my room I worked on the computer connected to the SMARTBoard and Rick on one of our laptops. We had created a document that mirrored the children’s project, shared between us we gave a running commentary of our thoughts and what we were doing in terms of teamwork.

Initially we spent some minutes just talking to each other about what had been completed so far and what we were both planning to do. Key teaching point: begin the collaborative session with a mini-meet that provides a plan for what is to follow. As we began working I ensured the children were aware that I told Rick, and he did likewise, where I was working in the document. Key teaching point: to have document awareness, a sense of where your peers are working. During the modelled session I was constantly talking through my decision processes for the research side of things and also being explicit about my communication with Rick. Prior to adding an image or some text I would mention to him what was going to happen. Key teaching point: communicate what changes you are making so that your team are aware of what is occurring, no surprises.

I would recommend this modelling phase to anyone using Google Docs in a collaborative sense with younger children, to help illustrate what is expected.

Development of this skill within the children’s groups.

The teamwork side of things is our biggest challenge and we talk about it everytime we continue our project work. It feels a little new and messy at the moment, but I have confidence that these sorts of skills can and should be refined. I know that they will work better together in future projects and that they are much more aware of the issues.

Over the course of the project and in subsequent sessions (to our modelling lesson) they have shown they can apply the examples we set. A group in my class today began by logging into documents and then they tilted their laptop lids down and talked about what was to follow.

Children turning independently to GDocs

Their has been strong evidence this week of a shift in the children’s thinking in terms of GDocs as tool. During a Design and Technology session about musical instruments one of the children independently used Google Docs to make some notes about the research that they were doing. Totally unprovoked. A small example that shows that we have positioned the application as a personal tool for them and they are beginning to use it as one of their own personal tech choices.

Sharing beyond the domain

With tighter security comes less opportunity to share beyond the domain. In the administrator settings I have the option to NOT allow the sharing of documents beyond the domain. It is important to consider that this tighter grip does not allow collaboration of documents, synchronous or otherwise, with children from other schools, towns, cities, countries.

I am currently collaborating on some weather data for June with the British School in Muscat, Oman. However this has to be done through my own personal Google account. It is key to be able to balance security with collaboration beyond the walls of the classroom. It will be interesting to see what happens when we have an international opportunity to do something like this perhaps in the future.

Spell checking in Firefox 3

Just a little aside really about the use of Firefox version 3 which checks my spelling as I am writing in a form. It also seems to, although somewhat erratically, check my work as I am typing in Google Docs. There is a spell check function that works reasonably well, but I like the idea that using FF3 it will underline incorrect words in red as you type (you currently have to switch the spell check on in GDocs) It could be a useful feature.

Providing a choice - 56 out of 60 children

Back in December I surveyed the children in Year 5 and 6 who had been using the laptop resource in their classrooms for approximately 3 months. One of the questions asked for their preference in writing, either with pen or pencil on paper, or with a laptop. About 90% said they would prefer to write using a laptop. On reflection I think those figures illustrate the continued positive attitude towards the resource in the classroom. Perhaps inflated by a general good feeling about the technology.

For a literacy task this week I told the year 5 children that they complete the independent writing task either in their literacy books or by using Google Docs. 56 out of 60 children chose to write using Google Docs. I questioned about their choices in the last part of the lesson and they ranged from: “I can work quicker”, to, “I don’t have to worry about my presentation” and “I will be able to continue the work at home.” The percentage is high again but this time around I know that they are making a much more informed choice due to the amount of time we have spent using the tool.

This idea was one that popped into my head at about 3am. After George, my 2 year old son, woke us and I had settled him again, I began thinking about Google forms (as you do at 3am - what better time to be thinking about that subject!!) and the current work we are doing on film narrative and The Piano by Aidan Gibbons. Take a look at the film for yourselves.

An emotion graph is a simple line graph comparing a range of happiness to sadness against different points (time) in a story or film. This technique of graphing the emotional ups and down within a story really helps children to visualise the whole story in a different way. Once the graphs are complete they can be discussed in reference to the different peaks and troughs of emotion. “Why is the main protagonist so upset at this point on the graph, what has happened?”, “In which part of the story is he the happiest?”

The graph can reflect the events in any type of linear narrative, whether that be a book or film - it could even reflect the varying emotions within an event such as a football match. As you can see the whole plot in one graph it is useful to engage the children in conversations about the structure of the plot and the way that the emotions are tied into generic story elements such as problems, conflicts and resolutions.

The children in my class really enjoyed watching The Piano today as we began our film narrative unit. One of the children said that the main character was playing his emotions on the piano, they were the notes of his life. Such a lovely turn of phrase. The Piano is an excellent text to explore in terms of an emotional graph as each of his memories linger, bringing joy and sadness into his life again.

Once you have opened up your Google form (and I have explained in more detail how to do this on this post) I have simply added a new question for each of the different events that I would like the children to gauge the emotions for. Because the film is only two and half minutes long I have chosen about ten or eleven events. I have then chosen “Choose from a list” question type and added the numbers 0 - 10. For each question I added a reminder about the emotional scale from sad (0) to joyous (10) as some additional text. I found it really easy to generate one question and then just duplicate it using the link, and just edit what the event is.

Your form is complete and now you just need to add the line graph itself to the linked spreadsheet. You will see in your spreadsheet that the header (top) row is filled in with the different events from left to right. Under each column heading add the average =AVERAGE(Range) formula for the cells below, say down to 100 cells below. This will average out the different responses from your form and return a single figure. Don’t worry the survey results should always be added below your average row. I like to add the “Rounded” formatting to these cells as well. Select these average figures and click the “Chart” tool and create a line graph from this data. (These average cells could also be hidden, select the row from the left and click hide row) Find some more detailed steps to making a chart here.

Place the chart to the right of your data or embed within a blog post somewhere, and enlarge it so that it is clearly visible. I will be emailing the emotion graphing form to all of our Year 5s and getting them to complete the form (from within the email) alongside watching the film again. We will then be reviewing, as I have mentioned above, the responses and how the emotions vary throughtout the text. I will be encouraging them to justify their responses and decisions with supporting evidence from the film.

Now it is your turn to complete the emotion graphing survey that I have referred to - watch the film again, if you haven’t already, and answer the survey that I have embedded below. The code for embedding a form is available when you click “Edit/Resend Form” and then it is under the “Preview and Send” link.You will also see that I have published the graph which can be done from within the graph drop down menu.

Let me know what you make of this idea and whether it was worth a sleepless early morning!

• How can you use this idea in your own narrative or literacy unit?
• Have you used emotion graphs? (I know there is an option with Turning Point voting systems to do something similar which I have used in the past)
• How have you used them?
• How else have you used Google forms in the classroom?

This week we took another step towards a 1 to 1 model of personal computing in Years 5 and 6 at school. With a further 32 laptops (Toshiba Satellite A200) divided amongst the 4 classes we now have a total of 16 laptops per class. Since September we have regularly pooled the laptops between the two classes in Year 5, providing us with more machines. Now we have the option of one laptop per child if we choose to.

I spent the best part of a morning installing antivirus software, configuring the laptops to access the wireless network and proxy settings to get online. After telling the children that we had the new machines I said that we can get online but they do not have all of the software available on the others just yet. One of the children replied:

“But we can get onto Google Docs can’t we?”

Great to hear this from the children and it seems that Google Docs has quickly become another tool for us to use. Much of the novelty has worn off and it now has become just another part of what we do in the classroom. Much like the use of del.icio.us for the weblinks we use in class - when we use something the children enjoy the first question will always be: “Is this on del.icio.us?”

This week has been dominated by Optional SATs in English and Maths but we spent Thursday and Friday afternoon exploring a Geography project involving Google Docs.

We are working on a unit about India and the differences with our own country. Rick and I have planned for the children to define what they want to learn about. In small groups they are going to produce a short presentation about a topic of their choosing. In addition they will design an activity to do with that topic for the class to take part in. After some initial work the children in my class have chosen to work on these five different topics:

• The Himalayas
• Wildlife in India
• Fashion
• Indian Art
• The History of India

Much of this week I have been wishing for the integration of Google Notebook into the Education Apps suite of tools. Many teachers are calling for it and this project of ours requires just such a tool. There is a work round to register with Notebook by creating an account based on the Ed GMail account. But that is too hacky for me - I want the tool right there for the children to use and think it is about time they included it. In the remainder of this post I will refer to some of the processes that are better suited to Notebook than Docs.

The first job for the groups of children was to elect someone to create a single research document that would then be shared with the remaining group members and yours truly. Each child was assigned a colour to give a visual indication of the content they have added and sub headings for their topic were explored and added.

In the afternoon on Friday we had some time to begin the process of finding information about their topics, but before they began I wanted to highlight some of the ways that they could search for it. Intermingled within this was an opportunity to model the searching / selecting / referencing process in a document about Food in India. We will use this doc as a sandbox and exemplar of practice as we go through the project and a place to model some of the processes involved. As this research was to form part of the children’s holiday homework I composed an email with my searching suggestions to help remind them, they were:

• Explore India using Google Earth - switch on the different information layers available.
• Use some of the Google search tips I showed you. “” to search for exact phrases.
• Quintura for Kids - a different search engine http://kids.quintura.com
• Use an image search such as Google images or FlickrCC image search - you can add them to your research doc.
• Search using del.icio.us - use the + sign to search for different tags.
• Wikipedia - a huge reference library.
• Living Library

I modelled how to add a website URL reference for a piece of research in Docs - this would be automatically created when using Google Notebooks. When using Google Notebook you highlight and right click to “Note this” from any site - it grabs the site address and adds your selected content into the notebook. Each clipping is also organised separately and can be reordered. Not forgetting that you can create different sections (sub headings) within any notebook and add notes to these.

The idea then is that the group will work collaboratively on a single doc adding different items of research synchronously or asynchronously. But something doesn’t feel right. It is all very well using the sharing functionality of Docs but it just isn’t the right tool. When I do research on a new curriculum topic I gather my ideas in a Google Notebook. The children would still be able to share the Notebook between the group by much the same process as adding collaborators to a doc. That would be the right tool for this research work - come on Google let us start to use it with our classes!

Once the children began their own research I was pleased to see a variety of information searches taking place: exploring the Himalayas in Google Earth, looking at the terrain and geographic information available; del.icio.us searches looking for popular tagged sites and the use of Wikipedia and more formalised resources like Living Library.

This 25 minute session began to uncover some interesting questions and concepts about the use of Google Docs. A group of boys working on the history of India began very well but soon were having trouble with deletion and overtyping in the Google Doc (this would not have occurred in Notebooks because each clip is saved as a new note). Even though they were working on the same table, next to each other - they were just not talking. They became a bit transfixed with what they were doing on screen. It is important that when you ask the children to collaborate with each other on a document they remember understand what collaborate means. They needed to discuss and talk with each other about what was happening and who was doing what.

In order to refocus the class on this important aspect I stopped everyone and we talked about this example for a moment - I made a teaching point of it. It seemed that the group in question had actually gone backwards and lost work because they were deleting each others by accident - one of the boys told me he could get it back from the “Revision History” which he promptly did. I felt that the children were trying their best but were a little unsure about how to go about working synchronously on a document with 2 or 3 other children - there was a need to model this and show them what to do. After all it is a new skill, a completely unknown process they have not experienced before. Here are some reflections on approaching this:

• Emphasis must be placed on the communication between children when working in the same document.
• Model this process if possible - Rick and I have already planned to show the children what we mean, to be working on a doc together and to be saying, “I am just going to put an image in the second section.” They have to see and hear this in action and understand the importance of it.
• Highlight and praise the smooth running and good communication between a group - be absolutely clear why it is a good example to the whole class. Continue to flag up good practice as the project progresses.
• Just because they are sharing a document does not mean they are automatically collaborating - they have to work as a team and not alone.
• Expect to see changes - encourage the children to begin to appreciate that when other people are working with them the document they see will alter. Perhaps model this with the whole class on a single document.
• Listen and pause - as the children are working they may hear a member of their team say they are going to put a bunch of text and images in a section, encourage them to react by pausing for a moment and letting their own document update. In this way they will not be surprised by a document suddenly changing.
• What is my friend doing? Encourage the children to take an active interest in which section their peers may be working on. This could well be decided at the outset so it is clear who is working where in the document.

After all it is not about the different colours for their names. Fundamentally the children need to use their communication skills to facilitate the production of something together.

And of course I still yearn for Google Notebook in this instance. In my opinion we are settling for an oval when we really want a circle. Most of the issues I have explored above about working with docs in this way would not exist in Notebook. It references, organises and structures the research as part of the process - the children could then export the resulting notebook to Docs and refine what they have done. We will persist with Docs but it is frustrating to know of a very powerful tool that is more suited to the task, but is currently beyond our reach.

I cannot believe that we have already had three weeks of work with Google Apps in our year group. This week has been extremely eventful, and I have loved and hated technology in equal measure (well there is always a bit more love) - with major network issues it has brought into focus issues of reliability that every school and teacher need to engage with when investing their time and effort in Google Apps.

Monday - 12/5/08

• Took some time with the children to explore the various different views and issues surrounding finding and managing Docs home page.
• I emphasised the importance of the search function at the top of the page and how Google have been known to be quite good at searching
• I demonstrated a few different searches and how quickly you could find content - as you type in the search field it immediately gives feedback on that term, even looking in the people who you have shared the docs with. You can then click the results that popup to go straight to that doc. Very powerful and much quicker than navigating through folders or views.
• As a class we worked together to edit the 1st draft verse we wrote last week. I used the strikethrough tool and colour formatting as we worked on ADDING words OMITTING words and CHANGING words in the poem.
• The alterations the children suggested were excellent and as we finished up I thought that we could use the REVISIONS tool to compare our new version with the original. When two versions are selected and compared changes and deletions are clearly highlighted. If different users were to make the changes than these users are colour coded too with their edits.
• In a less sophisticated way than Track Changes this could be used on a longer piece of work when reviewing 1st and 2nd drafts.
• The children had time together to complete their 1st drafts of the poem and organise their poetry journals (Google Presentations).
• There were a few pairs that had work missing, their poetry journal presentations were missing slides. I pointed them towards the revisions tool and told them to find a version that was complete and to REVERT TO THIS VERSION.
• Although a minor incident this is an example of one of the huge benefits of Google Docs. It auto saves so many times (I keep seeing the “Saving…” message popup at the top on this doc) that unless you were to delete the actual file, a child could retrace every step in the life of the piece of writing, even over a number of days or weeks - not possible in more traditional office applications.

Tuesday and Wednesday - 13/5/08 and 14/5/08

• Oh dear.
• Powercut killed the school server during the night and the APS or alternative power supply did not seem to do its job.
• As a result of this the DHCP database has been corrupted and so the server could not administer new IP addresses to laptops and even the access points. Bad news all round.
• Keith our technician rebuilt the database today (Wed) and tells me it is working again.
• With no wireless network we were unable to access our online docs and so were in a fix - seeing the main concern I have with this approach materialising.
• We were able to continue with our poetry work with some nostalgic pencil and paper writing for a few days! It has brought into sharp focus the main drawback of this method and so I have looked further into the new Google Docs development of using Offline syncing.
• If you download Google Gears, a browser extension, you can sync your online docs with your desktop.
• It seems that this service will be made available to Google Apps Education Edition too, which is good news. But there remains many questions: will children need to work on the same laptop to see their desktop synced work? Could the whole domain be synced to a network? How will this individual use be translated into domain use?
• I hope that when teachers say to me, “But what happens to your access to the children’s docs when the internet connection is down?” I will be able to answer that we will just work on our desktop synced versions which will sync up when we are back online again.
• I would hope that there are no further restrictions to doc access because of the offline nature - for example having to work on a specific machine because docs are only synced there.
• I am hopeful for this situation but expect there may be some compromises - it will be interesting to see how docs could be used offline for a domain.
• On reflection I still have complete faith and trust the infrastructure in place. This event is the first of its kind at school, but we did not lose the internet connection (which, for what it is worth, has been amazingly reliable over the last 5 years or so) it was the wireless network that suffered. If we were to be working on a Local Authority learning platform or other such product we would not have been able to access it either. I will be chalking it down to an unlucky event - and still have full faith in my network structure and reliability.
• Do I have all of my eggs in one basket when using Google Docs? Not really - the writing and poetry language was the focus and that was still focused upon in the days we had no connection. Should you have a backup plan in the back of your mind? Perhaps, there is no harm in it - I usually have something up my sleeve for most things even if it is normal class work and not technology related. Using Google Docs to support your work is no different in my mind.

Thursday - 15/5/08

• Wahey the wireless network is back on its feet - looks like it was a corrupt DHCP database which issues and controls IP addresses. So the old IPs were not being refreshed and nothing new was being issued. Suffice to say it took a 3 hour database rebuild from Keith our technician who drafted in some extra help too.
• Anyway the whole problem has highlighted the need for some sort of backup in the event that it occurs again and, as I mention above, I hope that the Offline - Google Gears development allows us constant access and a possible solution.
• The children were straight back into their writing and we had another great session today with children completing their first verses and editing what they have written.
• Their senses poetry has a simple and effective structure and they have been using Docs tools to help support their work - it seems to have been a successful unit of work. One of the highlights is the poetry journals that the children have created we hope to continue to add to these as we continue our poetry work.
• Google Docs does seem a little glitchy - over the course of the last few weeks I have noticed things that serve to remind me that it is still in BETA. Here are a few:
• The thumbnail view in Presentations is a little odd, more often than not the text appears over sized in the thumbnail.
• Presentations seem to take a long time to load.
• Sometime text behaves strangely in Docs - rigidly holding onto formatting even if you change it, can be frustrating.
• Objects and texts do go missing there has been perhaps a dozen occasions, not just today, when we have had to retrieve an older revision because of missing text.
• As a result of this missing text phenomena I showed the children how to use the Revision aspect of Docs again, reminding them that they can revert to any version right back to the beginning of the Doc.
• As an extension I stopped the children with 20 mins to go and showed them how easy it is to add images to a Doc.
• We used the FlickrCC search tool http://flickrcc.bluemountains.net and I modelled how to drag an image from one window to another and drop it into Docs. We then looked at how to alter the image and move it about.
• We talked briefly about the Creative Commons license and what it meant (need to do more on this)
• Discussed the importance of dealing with inappropriate content (images) and what we should do - I think it is important to keep this sort of learning high on the agenda, so the children understand what is expected of them and how to deal with issues if they arise. It seems to me that this message of appropriate and sensible action should be reinforced throughout the year, not just in a bundle of e-safety lessons.
• For some reason IE shut down or crashed on a child and they were a little perplexed as to what had happened. (Note to self - must install FF so kids have a choice) A huge benefit of Google Docs is that it auto saves so regularly, as explained above. As a result the child was able to log straight back in again and pick up without any data loss. Working on a desktop WP like MS Word (auto saves could be configured - true) there is a higher chance of data loss due to unexplained crashes or application misbehaviour. You can encourage a healthy “save regularly ” culture in the use of desktop apps but nothing comes close to Google Docs saving your work every 70-80 seconds for you. It won’t forget.

Friday - 16/5/08

• During today’s literacy session we worked for approximately 20 more minutes, just fine tuning our poetry journal presentations.
• Children were still finding missing text and a few things different but were independently accessing their doc revisions and switching back to older versions that were complete. Good to see this going on as it is an important feature when editing and writing.
• Yesterday children had dragged images into Google Docs and today they wanted the same images in their presentations. This is where we faced problems but the kids worked brilliantly to work around the issue and solve it.
• Initially I had told them to copy and paste the images across from docs, but this did not work - it allowed you to paste but no image.
• Secondly I suggested finding the image again in the Flickr CC search and dragging it into Google Presentations. Even though they suggest this works, it doesn’t. Or it at least hasn’t for us. The presentation would say it is working - the message at the top of the page would be saying importing image or something similar, but nothing would appear.
• Children suggested we save the image and insert it. So they saved the image to their network folder and inserted and browsed for that saved picture. Not as simple as dragging and dropping but same result and kids happy. Children coped really well with switching from one method to another. Good to see.
• Seems to me that Google Presentations is much more glitchy than others. Behaved quite slowly today and image issue is a little frustrating.
• The choosing of images to illustrate their verses was a good extension activity. The quality of their choices were well justified and added another element to their writing.
• I was delighted to see children who had successfully inserted images splitting off and supporting their peers who had not. That sense that we are learning and exploring together was strong today.
• I demonstrated how to preview the presentation and we talked about the IM feature/backchannel that appears to the right. We talked about ways we could collate feedback about what we can see in this space.
• I began a presentation of our class poetry journal and told the children to go to their GMail and open up their inbox. With the presentation in full screen and the IM window open I copied the URL to share the presentation and pasted it into an email. I asked the children who were signed in (remember the children are working in pairs on docs that are shared between them) to raise their hands and I added their addresses into the email. This was as easy as typing the first letter of their name and finding them in the list. I fired off the email and the children opened it and the enclosed link.
• Note to Google - it would be useful to have an email link next to the presentation URL that auto generates an email to send to contacts.
• I could see from the IM window who had opened it up and joined the presentation - ripples of excitement from the kids to see their names and those of others in the window, they love IM. I took control of the presentation and showed them how I could move the slides on and it will change automatically on their screens.
• Upon moving the presentation on a slide I looked up and saw that all of the 16 wireless machines were responding in almost real time. Very impressive.
• I said a few “hellos” the usual IM stuff and let the kids throw a few messages around. I then drew the discussion back to how we could use the IM chat. The only problem that is apparent is that the resulting chat cannot be archived, saved or copied from the window. It is a flash IM and so you cannot copy text out. Although this IM within the presentation window is really neat, if the chat cannot be saved it is less useful. The alternative would be to create a group chat in Google Talk - I would have preferred to share the URL for the presentation in IM form but we have not installed the GTalk clients yet on each machine and the children have not all started up the GTalk IM in GMail.
• Ideally we could (1) All be part of a Google Talk group chat using Talk client from desktop (2) I would open the presentation (3) Copy and share the URL in the chat (4) Children open to follow, but close the IM frame (5) Feedback and answers to questions I pose could be added to GTalk chat (6) Chat is saved and archived, access it from GMail “Chats” link.
• Note to Google - let us copy or save the chat from Presentations - or merge GTalk into presentations.
• After our, on the fly experimentation with presentations and IM we listened to pairs and individuals present and read their poetry from their journals.
• I found it useful in order to jump straight to the presentation to access the shared Docs from my account and right click the Presentation name- then choose “View Presentation” from the bottom of the list. This bypassed the edit screens.

Overall reflections on Week 3

The biggest consideration for me this week is what do you do if the kids cannot access the internet. Of course we/I/you have been successful working without Google Docs - so we continued on with our poetry in more traditional ways. I am pleased to have thought a little more about the development of Google Gears and Offline Docs for Ed Apps, that could be a very important change in the reliability of this tool. If there are days when the web is flaky - it happens - then children could continue unhindered by this. Is the “All my eggs in one Google basket” an issue that you consider to be an important one to resolve with teachers adopting these tools?

On Friday we explored the IM feature of presentations and I am keen to explore how we could harness the children’s natural understanding of this communication tool in future learning activities. Could GTalk be used to get the children responding to questions at the same time, like we did with the spreadsheets example a while ago? They were so excited by that one activity - if we can just pivot that enthusiasm in the direction of learning. It is a shame the IM in presentations isn’t linked with Google Talk in some way, so that what is added there can be saved and returned to later. I will need to download the GTalk client to the laptops and continue to explore ways that IM can be used. Although I am reflecting on the use of IM within Google Apps, with the GTalk client the IM could stand alone from G Apps and so be embedded within any learning activities taking place on the laptop.

Google Presentations seems to be behaving as the one application that is most in BETA - lots of glitches and missing work issues to try and resolve this week. It can’t even handle images as it should. It feels sluggish when working with it - I hope it improves.

Today it was clear that we are all learning together and I was so pleased to see the children being creative and trying to solve problems with real initiative. They worked well on their own or in pairs and helped each other out, sharing what they have learned or a method just discovered to reach an outcome we are all aiming for. We are learning and exploring together. It has been very apparent that there are maybe 3 or 4 children who are extremely adept at using Google Docs, they offer help to others very willingly. But all the children have progressed so far since not seeing Docs 3 weeks ago - long may our learning continue.

This week has been a real learning experience for all as we engage with Google Docs within a literacy unit. It feels like our pedagogues, so often taken for granted, have been truly challenged by new processes, ideas and methods of work. I am pleased to welcome Rick, my teaching colleague, who has kindly contributed his thoughts in his own words (see Wednesday) he puts up with my hair brained schemes and it is great to have his perspective on it all.

Monday - Bank Holiday - 5/5/08

• Work this week will be primarily supporting the literacy unit Sensational from the Primary Framework, as I want to take advantage of embedding Google Docs within something very structured and curriculum driven as soon as possible.
• Thinking about ways to give each child a document so that they can work on it individually. I initially thought about emailing it as an attachment from the Sharing options. Instead of this the document could be shared as usual with the whole class, the child then opens the doc and chooses File>Save as new copy. They will then be asked is they would like to copy the collaborators too, click cancel and they have their own copy to work on. No collaborators and with Copy prefix on doc title.
• It will be important to establish some folder structures at this early stage - we will have a Literacy folder as well as a Poetry one within it.
• I will explain how to move docs between folders and talk them through folder creation although it is pretty easy.
• We will also take advantage of the colour coding to keep track of subject docs. I will keep the colours the same as their literacy books in the classroom, blue. Yellow for numeracy.
• Just edited Session 1 of Sensational unit in light of the use of Google Docs to support activities.

Tuesday - 6/5/08

• 2 docs needed to be shared so I used the Share button from the Docs home page. Added all year group (60 odd contacts) from group made in contacts. Clicked send and it crashed a bit! Wasn’t keen to share with so many in this method. Closed window and tried again.
• Opened each doc individually and added collaborators that way - no issues this time around. Use this method in the future.
• Decided with teaching colleague that the children were going to work with a partner on a shared poetry journal, but they would share that presentation with their partner and me.
• Modelled creating presentation and altering the title and adding theme - I would be using this presentation as a class poetry journal.
• Children created their own poetry journal presentation and altered theme.
• The children shared the doc with their partner and with me.
• We now returned to the Docs home page and I modelled creating a folder, naming it and colour coding it. We used (as I mention above) blue as our literacy books in class are blue. We then created a nested folder called Poetry.
• I then showed the children how to select a number of docs, including those I have already shared with them for today’s lesson, and Move To a folder using the button. The docs could also be moved by dragging them to the correct folder on the left. The Move To option is easier and less likely to result in docs being added to the wrong folder.
• The children had no problems creating folders and the children who were not logged in will need to make the same folders in their own account.
• It would be useful to be able to share a whole folder with another collaborator. A teacher could share a number of docs they need children to engage with in a lesson. Would be a useful option.
• After reading the poem that we are working on I asked the children to talk with their partner about their first impressions and to try to explain an image that appeared in their heads as they heard the poem. I added some feedback to the class poetry journal and then asked the children to add their own thoughts to theirs.
• I took a wander around each pair and talked with them about progress and what they thought of the poem, I was also able to check on any issues or problems. It appeared that the initial period when we immersed them in using Docs has given them familiarity leading to confidence.
• 2 or 3 pairs had presentations with tiny images visible. I think this occurs when the initial window the doc is opened in is small. When it is resized the presentation image is not - hence the problem. We resolved this by refreshing the page - save and closing and then reopening would also work.
• All of the children were working confidently with their presentation and we had no major tech problems at all. Able to focus on the literacy/poetry response. Pleased with the reliability of it so far. I reread the poem to focus them on the task. The children’s familiarity with the app is deceptive as not had formal training / teaching on it. But they inherit skills from Docs and Spreadsheets and also from Powerpoint - they bring these to the party and it gives them confidence. Common layout, generic structure, simple to use - one of the most important aspects of the tools.
• As soon as the children had completed their first impressions on the poem I checked that the children had shared their doc with me. Some had not so I asked them to check by looking at the Collaborator list in the share options. Revised adding me and partner in.
• Second task was to add to a single document examples of alternative titles for the poem The Magic of the Brain. We discussed the topics of the poem and explored some ideas together and I asked the children to open the doc and add to a table I had created. We talked about being aware of other users adding to the doc at the same time and to watch out for over-typing.
• I had the doc open on the SMARTBoard and I could see who had opened the doc to edit from the pop-up “Also editing…” message. The children began adding their alternative titles and then a few pairs told me they could not alter the text. I took a quick look and they did not have the toolbars and it was clear they were just viewing the doc and not editing even though they were valid collaborators. It seems that any one document has a limit on the number of concurrent editors. I exited the doc on the IWB and then asked someone to refresh and see if they could now edit and they could.
• I asked pairs to work with pairs (groups of 4) so they could continue to add their alternative titles. Talking to some of the children we tried to figure out how many users could work with a document at the same time. I think it is 10. This has implications on sharing work in the future, for example when every child is using a laptop and logged into their own account and then working on a shared doc. We will only be able to work with 10 at a time. Perhaps using different docs, differentiated for different groups, and so you have 3 or 4 docs shared with children and smaller groups working together on a similar activity.
• Another option here would be to use Google Talk as a way to collate ideas - for example instead of editing the alternative titles doc ask children to join a group chat and then to encourage them to write and submit alternative titles as instant messages. These could then be copied out of Chat and into a doc for future reference. The use of the instant messenger in this way would be an important motivator.
• Added new user for a child who had left and then returned to year group.
• Edited user who had incorrect surname - the name could be changed but not the username, I need to investigate whether I need to delete and re-add the user, or if I can alter the actual username.

Wednesday - 7/5/08

• Ensured all children had created appropriate folders. Children logged into account who had not on the previous day to ensure same folder structure.
• Some children still need to to completely appreciate the different views that are available in Docs home. They may think they have not got a Doc but it is the view they need to change. New way of managing Docs - views. We need to ensure that we include a teaching point about the management of docs home - encourage them to use Search and options down the left to sort their view, such as “Items by Type” and various folder levels.
• In first part of the literacy session the children opened up a Doc of the poem we were working on. It was still a shared copy, we reread the poem and the children talked with their partner briefly about the patterns that they could see.
• I asked for some examples and for one child to then highlight on the document a pattern they could identify in the first verse. I thought I might need to remind them of the highlight tool but they were able to do this without any problems. This highlighted section was then, of course visible on everyone else’s screens (including the IWB) as we were looking at a shared doc.
• I wanted the children to then work on their own copy and they, as planned, clicked on File > Save as New Copy - an alert box pops up asking if they would like to inherit all of the collaborators for the doc, they need to click CANCEL for a clean (no collaborators) document to work. Unfortunately I did not tell my teaching colleague, Rick, this small but very important detail. Rick has kindly contributed his thoughts in his own words below (italicised).
• Having modelled making the folders with the children we then discussed the need to have their own version of the poem as it would not be beneficial for all the children to contribute on the same document. Although I wasn’t aware of the issues involved in creating a copy of the poem with the class we worked through it. We encountered the message box as described above and I explained to the children that we did not want to copy the collaborators and therefore the children needed to click cancel. Once the children entered their google docs, hand after hand reached for the ceiling. I was faced with children wanting to inform me of the fact that they already had a number of copies in their folder! It appeared that a number of children from Tom’s class had clicked OK and copied the collaborators. As my children attempted to make a copy of the document it became apparent that they were also copying the collaborators.
  
• At this point I stopped the children to inform them of what was happening and why a number of copies were appearing. I again informed the children of the need to click cancel. Unfortunately a number of children still clicked OK and the whole vicious circle started again. As a class we deleted all copies and I decided to move on from that activity, opting to look at the task of identifying patterns within the poem together on the IWB. In my opinion the problem occurs because the children tend not to read the pop up messages through habit even though Tom has discussed this issue on a number of occasions with them.
• After the lesson, I spoke to Tom regarding the problems we both encountered. I began by reiterating my commitment to the project to Tom. However, my personal view was that individual photocopies of the poem with highlighter pens may have been a better, more efficient way of completing the activity. I also went on to explain how well I felt the presentation worked as a tool for sharing and planning ideas for poetry writing. We talked about the issues of handing out documents and established it needs to be just as easy and accessible as traditional methods. We both felt that this problem could be easily resolved as the children become more familiar and confident.
  
• Even though the technology presented problems with this particular activity, I feel that with work this can be an invaluable tool. Without experimenting and experiencing the possibilities it is impossible to assess the benefits these new tools offer the children and the teaching and learning taking place in our classroom. I feel this leap into the unknown is an exciting time for myself and the children.

• As Rick points out the process of giving children a piece of text to work on is a very important process. In this digital approach we, as a year group need to be completely comfortable with saving a shared document as a personal copy. It is a crucial process and the children need practice and familiarisation. We are, after all talking about the first time we have done this - going from a shared doc to an individual copy. Needless to say the process needs to be as easy as saying to the class,”OK please get your self a copy of the document named ???” The process needs to be fast and problem free.
• My class did manage to save a copy of their own, although some were still working on the shared copy. I pointed out that they needed to check that the doc title was preceded with COPY.
• I showed them how to insert a comment, from the INSERT Menu, from the Right click menu or by using the keyboard shortcut Control+M. Children highlighted and commented on the patterns that they could find.



• We then ensured that the text marked doc was shared with me and their partners. I suppose this is another very important process - handing in your work.
• After looking at the patterns in poem we moved on to creating a spider diagram plan in our poetry journal presentations. The diagram consisted of some simple shapes and it proved a good activity for the children to practice using the shape tool.
• I modelled the use of the tool and allowed the children to work with me at creating the diagram. We then added text over the top and I told the children to not worry about the location until they had finished entering the text. Their understanding of SMART Notebook as an object based app will prove useful when using Google Presentations



• This simple diagram will form the support to drafting a verse based on the structure of “The Magic of the Brain”.
• I thought initially that the children could write their first verses in their journal presentations. But there is no spell check nor the benefits of a clear writing tool. So I will highlight the importance of using the correct tool for the correct job. Perhaps asking the children to think more closely about this choice in the future and highlight the change of choice I made as a model of this behaviour.

Thursday - 8/5/08

• We began the session by clearing up some Docs that had been shared with children by mistake, as Rick pointed out above. I stressed the importance of the children getting to grips with managing their own space.
• Today’s task was to continue with the planning of our poetry inspired by The Magic of the Brain and then to begin drafting verses.
• I simply said to my class they need to get into Docs and load up their journals. They got stuck in straight away and had no problems. The only issue that is worth mentioning is how some children were still confused about the view of the docs they had. They were saying they couldn’t find something when in fact they needed to adjust the filtered view.
• I opened our class poetry journal and went through the different parts of the poem plan we had created yesterday.
• I opened a new Doc and we discussed the importance of using the correct tool for the task - and so explained the benefits of using Docs for writing and explained we will add our verses/poem to presentation later.
• It felt like less Google interface teaching and accustomisation today and more engagement with the poetry, the tools began to take a back seat- I know we have to experience a period of familiarisation but I was encouraged to involve the children in a more extended independent session with their Docs tool.
• Each pair would plan the next verse together by duplicating the spider diagram from yesterday and altering the text. I showed them how to right click the slide thumbnail on the left and Duplicate Slide.
• Once the plan for the next verse was prepared the children split up - one drafting the verse in a new Doc and the other working on a whiteboard. They then got back together and checked through their versions making alterations and amendments.
• A pair of children had some issues with their journal presentation and I used the revision history function to revert to a copy that was correct. Revision history is really important and as the children are editing their poem drafts I must included this as an important writing tool. If they don’t like something they have done or the changes they made they can revert to an older version. They can also compare versions to see which is best, this crumb-trail of the whole writing process is a powerful aspect of working in GDocs - not possible to see this when working with paper and pencil.
• I have been thinking about linking pairs up to share their poetry drafts so that peers can add suggestions and edit for improvement. This could be done by either adding comments (Ctrl+M) or by making changes and then engaging the children with the revision history and getting them to compare versions to see what they like.
• Rick explained that some of the children had opened a presentation thinking it was theirs when in fact it was the class poetry journal - the mistake came about for two reasons: due to similarly named Docs and because the children have not got to grips with filtering the view. Owned by Me would have directed them to the correct Doc in this instance.
• Rick also pointed out that all of the actions in GDocs home seem to be driven by single clicks and not double - which the children use out of habit.

Friday - 9/5/08

• Unfortunately I have got a bout of tonsillitis so I have not been in school today.
• I checked in later in the day to see what the kids had managed to get done in my absence.
• They continued to create planning (in presentations) and drafts of the different verses for their senses poem (in Docs)
• I reviewed everyone’s poetry journal from my Docs home page and added some comments and marking where appropriate by simply adding text or by highlighting parts to look at. Very easy to have this sort of access from any computer that is online.
• It would be ideal to have the option of inserting audio into Presentations, (likely) and Docs, (less likely) - as this could be a simple way of providing feedback.
• It looks like the next step is to complete drafts and edits of the poems, perhaps pairing the pairs up to review.
• I have noticed that the work they have done in their journal presentations needs a spell check, a noticeable absentee from the toolbar. I hope to see that soon.

Overall reflections on Week 2

It has been an exciting week for all of us in Year 5 as we learn how to embed Google Docs in a unit of work. No time for theorising about its implementation and possibilities anymore this was the real deal, 60 kids working with Docs as part of their literacy. The practicalities and processes have been the main focus.

• How do children hand in their work when it is complete?
• How do we organise our docs?
• How do we give each child a copy of a text?
• How do two children best work on one document?

We have, as you may have read above, managed to answer these questions and in the process uncovered possible problems you may come across. Such as how children must not inherit collaborators when saving a doc as their own. Or how the children need to understand how their view of the docs home page can be filtered in so many different ways: Name, Date, Sharing, Folders, All items, Owned by me, Opened by me, Starred, Hidden, Bin, All folders, specific folders, Saved Searches, Shared with, Documents, Presentations, Spreadsheets. That is 17 different filtered views and unless the children appreciate how to manage their docs using these they may, as we have seen this week, think they have lost some. Of course this is not to mention the ability to search for a document, which is very powerful as you would expect. And the advanced search options really mean that nothing is ever lost! I hope to engage the children more fully in this management tool next week.

I feel that I have come a long way in understanding the possibilities of these tools in a very short space of time. When you are engaging 60 children with Docs everyday you see what is missing and the limitations. For example it would be useful to be able to share a whole folder rather than a single doc, so we could give out work for the whole week in one go.

As Rick has said it is an exciting time and I hope you can learn from the lessons and problems we face in our journey into using Google Apps as part and parcel of our classrooms, our teaching and the learning that is taking place.

It is great to finally get some of the Google Apps tools in the hands of the children in my year group. I have been thinking about their deployment to support my teaching and learning for a very long time. In this post I reflect on our first full week of use and explore some of the issues that were raised.

We are using the Google Apps Education Edition installed on a domain that I picked up during the sign up process. I have decided to focus the children’s efforts on the tools that I consider to be the most important, so we introduced them to Google Docs and GMail. The other Google Apps tools, such as Calendar, iGoogle and Sites will have their place and will come in time, but for now Docs are king.

Below I have recorded my thoughts and Google Apps related actions that occurred throughout the week.

Monday - 28/4/08

• Created a CSV file in Excel of both classes username, firstname, surname, password.
• Generated accounts for domain using “create multiple users” tool.
• Shared my excitement with all 60 year 5s!
• 20 minute introduction to Google Docs and Gmail for all Year 5s.
• Brief look at Docs homepage and looked at each individual tool - looked at similarities with MS Office.
• Explored Sharing facility in Docs.
• Talked about when we should share and when we shouldn’t.
• Discussed the importance of security and appropriate use.
• Talked about measures if there were any inappropriate behaviour.
• Explained that we would work together to form some rules/advice to make the most of G Apps.
• Emphasised the importance of Gmail as a way to communicate the sharing of docs.
• Children had no problems with Gmail - the rhetoric of email is very familiar to them.
• Explored what spam is and how we have to deal with it if we use email.
• Set challenge of sending an email and creating and sharing of a doc.
• Explained that we will have a Google Break Tuesday lunchtime 12.30pm to 1.00pm to give children who cannot access internet at home chance to use the laptops in class.
• Shared teacher email addresses and pupil usernames and passwords.
• Children made a note of these on info sheets to take home.

Tuesday - 29/4/08

• Responded to children who had already -approx 8- logged in and shared a document with me / or emailed.
• Provided children with 30 mins in the morning to login and offered appropriate support.
• Congratulated those who had independently accessed G Apps at home.
• Had a Google Break at the children’s lunchtime when the children from both Year 5 classes could choose to work on a laptop and access their G Apps account. A very successful session with more than 16 children accessing their G Apps acc.
• Observed how children are very good at discovering new features not yet explained. Within the 30 minutes children were accessing Google Chat and nattering away to each other. When they are working together as a group, on an individual laptop, and they make a new discovery they are quick to explain to their peers what to do and how to get to the same discovery.
• There was lots of excitement about using Docs and the majority of the children were keen to tell me that they had either worked on it the previous night or were planning on doing so very soon.
• During a Geography session about the location of India the children were given a choice about how to present a piece of work and it was great to see the range tools that they turned to: SMART Notebook, MS PPT, MS Word, MS Excel, Google Docs. Many of the children chose to use Google Earth as a way to support their learning. They are making better and better tech choices.

Thursday - 1/5/08

• Had a conversation with teaching colleague in Year 5 about his concerns and thoughts about using G Apps.
• Discussed the issue of managing 30 docs that are shared with him. I talked about RSS feeds for doc changes but it seems that Apps Edu Edition does not currently support it. Boo. We talked about making folders in Docs home and I talked him through the process. We made a First Attempts folder to collate initial docs shared with us in this early stage.
• Marking and assessment of work is an important issue and we discussed the realistic merit of typing a document, pros and cons. We felt that if the children could record an idea for a sentence in audio form and have that embedded within a document adjacent to their typed effort there would be great benefit for review, support and editing. Unfortunately GDocs does not allow embedded media at present. Perhaps Presentations will soon as it allows video.
• We explored how we could assess the children’s writing if they have used GDocs. We discussed the grammar and spell check indicators in MS Word and I explained that these were not present in the GDocs so the children’s mistakes would not be flagged up to them as they work. This is a good thing when doing an assessed piece. They could use the spell checker but we could ask them to bypass this so the work is a true reflection of their writing ability.
• Time is a key issue when thinking about how children work when typing. They cannot produce as much as if they were handwriting the piece due to their slow typing speeds - I explained that perhaps we need to just give the children more time.
• I explored our next literacy unit from the Primary Framework based on the compilation of poetry “Sensational“. Throughout the unit the children add to a poetry journal. I discussed with my teaching partner the possibility of everyone creating a GDoc for this instead of a paper copy. I want the children to engage with GDocs in a structured way ASAP within the frame of a subject or topic. This is a good opportunity to do so. Taking it from exploration and an immersed approach with free reigns to a structured application of the technology to support the curriculum.
• I produced 2 documents that form part of activities within the first week of poetry unit. One of them needs to be a shared doc so that everyone can contribute to the same space - looking at alternative titles for a poem. The other needs to be a doc that each child can have a copy of and work on individually or in a pair. The solution for the first doc is easy as I can share with everyone in the year group. I think to distribute a copy for everyone for the second doc can be done by emailing it as an attachment. The children would then see the email attachment and open it as a GDoc. I need to check this.
• The ability to share a doc with a peer is also a useful way to share ownership of work. So even though when the children are working in a pair - if you only have access to 1:2 laptops, or the activity was to work with a partner, then the final step of the work would be to share it with the child who did not start the doc.
• I discussed with my colleague the use of email contacts to create sharing groups. This can be done in two ways. The first is in GMail contacts and then creating a group by adding email addresses, but you cannot see a list of who you have in your contacts so you have to go down a class list and make sure you have added everyone. The other way is when you share a Doc with someone you get the option to choose from your contacts. You tick them off and then there is an option to create a group from that bunch.
• We have created different email groups for whole year group, whole class, differentiated literacy and numeracy groups. This way we have lots of flexibility to share different documents with appropriate groups.

Friday - 2/5/08

• Checked against class list those who had not completed the challenge of sending an email and creating and sharing of a doc.
• Directed those who needed time to get online to use the 30 mins in the morning.
• Asked those more confident in G Apps (often those who had logged in at home independently) to offer support for those who needed it.
• Explained to these children that when you provide support not to take over but to carefully direct. Could we have some children to be Google Experts?
• Discussed guidelines with whole year group for sharing docs and created a simple set of positive statements to help children know when it is best to share a doc with the teacher.
• Created and shared a doc about sharing guidelines with all children and encouraged them to add to it if they thought of any new statements.
• Explored with the year group avatars and online identities and why it is sensible and safe to use something other than a photograph.
• We used the Simpsons Movie website to create an avatar and save the icon to their network folder. Some children in my class had already made theirs and emailed it to me after a brief chat with them the previous day. One child had preferred to use a Star Wars avatar - some of them had already worked ot how to upload the avatar image to their GMail profile
• We uploaded avatars to their GMail account profiles, the children worked really well together to help each other with this. Learning together.

Overall reflections on Week 1

The children’s attitude towards the introduction to Google Apps has been the most positive aspect this week. I was excited to see them engaged with these tools and their enthusiasm throughout the week has been great to be caught up in. It is clear that the procedures for distributing documents and work in a primary classroom needs refining and exploring, I am sure there is much to learn about what is best. We have spent 5 days in an immersed state, the children have been sharing their docs with me without any boundaries. On Friday we discussed guidelines for when it is best to share docs with us. I wanted the children to have freedom and space to practice the process of sharing docs without restriction. Now they are familiar I want them to think more carefully about what is shared.

It has been very interesting looking at the units of literacy we are yet to teach and planning for the implementation of Google Docs in a structured way to support our work. Many of the Tweets I received this week about GApps use in school has centred on the question of email and whether the children have it or not. From my own experience the sharing and notification of documents is driven by the power of GMail and so it is important for the children to also understand this. I look forward to having a better appreciation for the practicalities of working in GDocs from our work next week.

We have been using spreadsheets from Google quite considerably this year. The main strength over Excel is the ability to share the data that is generated and benefit from a pooling of efforts and results. One of the most recent uses in my Year 5/Grade 4 class was during a History lesson, in which we were exploring why the River Nile is so important to Egypt. I posed the question quite openly and asked the children to explore some climate data about different world cities in order to refer it against some of the major sities in Egypt. I have embedded the spreadsheet below.

Each child was given a few different cities to explore and using our class laptop resource they independently investigated average rainfall, temperature etc. They added the results into the correct sheet and as we all worked we were able to see the other results popping up.

At the end of the session I posed the main enquiry once again, “Why was/is the River Nile so important to Egypt?” I asked the children to use the “Discuss” tab (top right, next to “Share” and “Publish”) and to write their answers in the instant messaging tool. Once they had added their response I asked them to join me in front of the SMARTBoard to finish the session.

The “Discuss” tool allowed me to quickly collate all of the children’s thoughts into one place and display them on the IWB to discuss. It proved to be a good focused activity to finish the independent session and it generated some interesting points to discuss in the plenary. Here is the unedited transcript of what they responded with.

year5tb: because it dosen’t rain much.

me: the river nile

year5tb: so they can drink beacuse they can drink and stay healthy. So they can drink from in it. ? Hi J.C!

Because they don’t realy have much precipitation to live on.

They hardly have any precipitatoin and the River Nile is the only water they have

year5tb: because theres no fresh water to help there land stay moist. Becues it is the most hotist and driay and that is the only warter. Because it’s the only river in eygit. That the only river. We think that the river Nile is important because the weather is so dry and hot. It is the only wet river they have.

Why is the river niel inportent becuase the river is dray and it is not so wet. So they can keep fresh.

me: Because they hardly have eny rain fall

year5tb: Because its hot and dose’nt rain much.

So egypt can have water from the river and then take it back to there village.

As you can see in the text there is plenty to discuss with the children and we referred back to the spreadsheet as we talked and justified some of the ideas. It brought all of their thoughts into one place and became a clear focal point for closing the lesson. I think that the idea of a simple message board service / tool would be really useful for a laptop session whether in GDocs or not - perhaps something to explore, it would have to be something light, with no login so children can just get in and add their response.

(If I were to ask the children do something similar in the future I will ask them to add an initial to the post so that it becomes more useful for assessment purposes.)