Just sending out a request from a reporter who is interested in talking to parents who are using Google Docs with their kids. Leave a comment on this post if you might be willing to be interviewed and I’ll put you in touch.
Technorati Tags: google_docs, education
Hi Will –
I don’t use it with my own children, but I do put all my babysitting info into a doc to share with various caregivers. I call it the Henry and Julia Manual and it’s very handy to send off to babysitters ahead of time. 🙂
We’re in the process of rolling out Google Apps for Domains school wide, enabling the administration as well as the teachers the chance to use Google Docs. The plan is if it is successful to make it available to the students sometime this or next year depending on how things go.
I’d be very interested in that kind of article. Looking forward to hearing more about that.
We’ve been looking at Google Apps (email, calendaring too) also. It seems like a good fit for a school. On a related note, I see an increasing number of parents and their chidren using facebook.
We use google docs on my boys’ computer as they don’t have access to a printer and we just haven’t installed MS Office. They can work on projects at school, home or a friends house and not have to carry a jump drive.
My 13-year-old daughter (now 14) and I used it extensively when she was preparing for the California History Day competition and was staying at her cousins’ home two states away. She organized her work and I could look over it, and we kept a to-do list together–all in Google Docs. Our whole family uses it because we have a “webstation” computer in our kitchen, so all our word processing is done with it…
Tried to get my kids to use it for school projects, especially the collaborative ones. They refused because they were learning it from ‘mom’ and not any of their teachers. They were concerned that it wouldn’t be accepted by their teachers.
Now, EVERY time i offer professional development to educators, I include Google Docs info.
I used Google Docs exclusively to teach my daughter her senior Civics/Gov’t course. In a course we put together she had to analyze and summarize various aspects of each state government’s branches. So, there was a doc for each state then a final paper discussing what she found and her supported opinion on what works best.
Sharing the docs saved lots of paper and printing and hassle. It was as close to paperless as possible.
I’ve used Google Docs in the classroom at several community colleges. These students are quick adopters and once they recognize the value, they tell their friends. I now have colleagues asking what these Google Docs are all about.
http://www.adjunctprofessoronline.com
This is a bit off topic but I was looking at Google Labs recently and stumbled upon a new Google ap. It’s called Google Page Creator. It allows you to easily create attractive web pages with a WYSIWYG page editor. And of course, it’s free. The application hasn’t been officially released yet but Google is allowing people to use it anyway. It’s fantastic. For anyone using Google docs I highly recommend checking it out.
I wanted to set my son up in a Amazon used book reselling business, so I created the business process in a Google doc and set it up to share with him.
He hasn’t bitten on the business yet.
I also noted that he has a list of phone contacts for all his friends, aggregated into one word doc. I am going to put it on the web in case our computer tanks again. He was without his list for a month and for a teen that is a disaster.
We’ve used Google Docs all last year for a couple of our classes coordinating them with Blogger and Google Groups. (and Page Creator for specific projects) My staff loves it because you have one login and it offers so many services. Another cool new beta is http://tools.google.com/gapminder
I got to talk to the reporter about this and it sounds like it will be a really interesting story!
We’ve used it with both my son and stepdaughter for homework or planning purposes.
I forgot to mention that we use Google Calendar with my siblings and parents as well–the brothers-in-law particularly seem to like its’ ability to layer in multiple schedules.
I even got my family to try out wikis by setting up one to plan our thanksgiving dinner! It was much easier than sending repeated emails around about who was bringing what, and we’ve used it for subsequent holidays also. It also got the kids involved(who normally wouldn’t respond to the emails!)
Looking forward to the article!
I don’t want to downplay Google Docs, but I think there are two other products out there that are also worth taking a look at – ThinkFree and ZOHO. These two offer office apps online with online space to save them in, and in my opinion, they do a better, more full featured, job of imitating the office suite that most are used to, but don’t want to pay for!
Our district is currently investigating ways that we can use these technologies to exit the M$ Office licensing treadmill within the next 2 years.