Docs & Spreadsheets in the Classroom

1. Docs & Spreadsheets in the Classroom Palo Alto High School

2. Classes that use Docs & Spreadsheets • Beginning Journalism (10th & 11th) • Advanced Journalism (newspaper) 11th & 12th • Freshman English

3. Classroom demographicsBeginning Journalism • 35 per class • 60% Caucasian; 25% Asian; 5% other • 70% top students in school • 30% lower performing students • One semester elective class • UC elective credit

4. Classroom demographicsAdvanced Journalism • Advanced Journalism • 70 students in class • Students take class for 2 years starting in junior year. • Prerequiste: Beginning Journalism • Highest performing students in school • 70% caucasian, 20% Asian, 10% other

5. Classroom demographicsFreshman English Freshman English class size: 22 Ethnicity: 50% Caucasian 30% non-native English speakers College bound Highly motivated Some with 504 plans

6. Student feedback • Love having documents available on any computer • Love the ability to work with friends • Increases enthusiasm for writing • Quality of work improves because students are so enthusiastic

7. Setting up a Gmail account Distinguishing between a Gmail Account & a Google Account Some problems with spell checker Getting all the kids to sign up Even honor lane students will have trouble setting up Cannot use Groups for collaboration Each email must be entered Problems encountered

8. Google Groups • Set up all my classes on Google Groups. • Can send assignments on the web • Ask students to read an article and print out worksheet • Allows for online discussion groups • Easy to set up • Students communicate with each other

9. Collaborative book reports Co-editing essays Vocabulary work Essay tests Creative writing Poetry portfolios Advantages: Saves automatically Students can always access documents Teacher can always access documents and see where students are Assignments for English

10. Personality profiles Movie reviews, restaurant reviews, book reviews Peer editing built into program Easy to publish work on Blogger Easy for all students to read each others work News stories: can check each others for accuracy Sports: peer edit and upload stories to Blogger Opinion articles:upload to Blogger Assignments for Beginning Journalism

11. All students submit articles on D & S Editors edit articles at night and students can see their corrections Develops online night editing groups Facilitates editing process during production week Can save in a variety of formats Can find articles easily Use Spreadsheets to keep track of articles Can easily rename articles Docs & Spreadsheets in Advanced Journalism

12. Make sure all students change their display name to their first and last name Have students go under file to “rename” and change the name of their document Have students use last name, first name so you can easily see what they have done Example: Jones, Bob: Of Mice and Men essay Tips for using Docs

13. Teaching WritingAlliance for an Excellent Education • . • Collaborative Writing, which uses instructional arrangements in which adolescents work together to plan, draft, revise, and edit their compositions • Specific Product Goals, which assigns students specific, reachable goals for the writing they are to complete • Word Processing, which uses computers and word processors as instructional supports for writing assignments • Sentence Combining, which involves teaching students to construct more complex, sophisticated sentences • Summarization, which involves explicitly and systematically teaching students how to summarize texts

14. Teaching Writing • Prewriting, which engages students in activities designed to help them generate or organize ideas for their composition • Inquiry Activities, which engages students in analyzing immediate, concrete data to help them develop ideas and content for a particular writing task • Process Writing Approach, which interweaves a number of writing instructional activities in a workshop environment that stresses extended writing opportunities, writing for authentic audiences, personalized instruction, and cycles of writing • Study of Models, which provides students with opportunities to read, analyze, and emulate models of good writing • Writing for Content Learning, which uses writing as a tool for learning content material

15. Moving to the next stepBLOGGER • Encourage students to publish a blog • Very easy from Docs. Just click publish. • Writing for a real audience makes the difference. Students are enthusiastic. • Students can upload pictures, video, documents to the blog easily

16. Facilitates Grading • Student can upload documents while you wait on phone, if you cannot locate an essay • Option to discuss essay while on phone • Can easily send comment to student on essay & email to let them know you’ve graded their essay

17. Real time monitoring • Can see what students are doing as they work in computer lab • Can monitor student progress from home (if out sick or away) • Can see student work at all stages (revisions history)

18. Sharing teacher ideas • Share your ideas for using Docs & Spreadsheets on the website • THANK YOU!