how can we use google docs in our own
teaching and learning in this video i'm
going to show you three concrete
examples that you could do either online
or
in the classroom
really hope you like the video these are
lovely practical ideas if you do like
the video please like it please share it
with other teachers and i'd love to know
of the three ideas which one you like
the best
let's get started
so let's go over to my google docs and
what i'm going to do is i'm going to
quickly explain the first example to you
and then show you exactly how i did it
so this was an actual class
in zoom so this was an online session
but this would work perfectly for
homework or even in class as well what i
did was i put the students into groups
and i gave them a question which was
they were teacher trainers so i gave
them a question to discuss and then one
person in the group wrote the answer so
each group had a group leader so you can
see that this group was for example was
in room one and then we got another one
down here room two etc now the key thing
here is that i set up these little boxes
before i even shared the google docs so
that each group knew exactly where
to
write so let me show you how i did that
and then let me show you how i shared
the link the important thing to do is to
share the link if you're teaching in an
online situation to share the link in
the chat window the students click on
the link they've got the link ready
they've got the google doc open and then
get them to go into breakout rooms and
to screen share but let me quickly show
you how i did this
so let me go back and create a new dock
so i click on new come to docs
just click on
new document you just need a blank
document the best thing to do whenever
you work with google docs first thing is
give it a name so name your document
just so that you can find it okay and
then what i tend to do is write the
question that i want the students to
discuss here at the top so i've written
my question here at the top what do you
think of the flipped classroom as a
teaching method and i'm going to have
four groups so what i next do is i click
on insert
table and then i can actually create
five groups or five columns like this
i'm going to put here name of group so
then we can have group one group two
et cetera so group one will write here
group two we'll write here group three
we'll write here and group four will
right here and then i normally just move
that over and then this is the space for
them to write their ideas
now what i often do as well is that i
make it bigger so it just gives the
students plenty of space
to actually write their ideas in okay
and also let's hopefully encourage them
to write a little bit more so this is
the way i set the google doc up
now what i do is i share that google doc
now it's really important when you share
the doc to click over here and you need
to make sure that you set it so that
everyone can access it so click here and
change the setting to
can edit
and then make sure that you click on
copy link
now share that link if you was in the
class you would share the put the
students into groups share the link with
them group one obviously will right here
group two will right here group three
right here etc if the students are
working in zoom or microsoft teams and
you put them into breakout rooms then
share the link before they go into the
breakout rooms tell them to click on the
link so that they've got it open on
their computers
and then when they get into breakout
rooms only one person will need to
screen share the document and then they
can all see it on the screen and work
with it
so we're on zoom now i would just
paste that link in and click on enter so
that the students could then click on
that link before the actual breakout
room start and then obviously i would
create my breakout rooms
and that will mean that when they get
into breakout rooms one of the students
can screen share the document onto the
screen so that all of them can see it
and then of course they can start
writing it and i normally say to the
person who screen shares the document
that it's their responsibility to do the
writing
now when you finish the activity what
you can do is come back to the share
button
and you can close it you can stop it so
you can click on change and just simply
set that to can only view and that will
actually mean now that the students
can't write anymore
and then you can bring them back into
the main room
open up the doc onto the screen and
obviously discuss what they've written
and that's exactly what i did in the
example that i showed you
okay so that idea of creating the boxes
is really good because it kind of tells
the groups where they've got a right but
now what i'm going to show you is a
really interesting trick that you can do
with google docs by simply changing from
can edit to can comment and a lot of
teachers don't realize the options that
this kind of opens up so i'm going to
take you through a couple of ideas now
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right let's get back to the video
so if we look on the screen now you can
see that people have added comments okay
and there's a really clever way of doing
this so in other words when you've got a
document
either students have written on or
perhaps a document that you simply want
to present to your students and then you
want them to comment on it you don't
want them to actually write on the
screen but you want to add comments on
the side like we can see here perhaps
questions etc
okay i'm going to just show you how you
can do this so this can be really
interesting the teaching situation you
present a document to the students or
even it could be a document that they've
actually been working on and then they
can comment on each other's great for
peer feedback yeah so you present a
piece of work and then students can
comment on it or perhaps if it's a
language teacher teaching situation they
can focus on grammar mistakes etcetera
so i'm just going to take you through
how this can be done
let's say afterwards i now want group
one to comment on group twos and group
two to comment on group one and group
three to comment on group four etc and
group four to comment on group 3 which i
could easily do all i need to do
is to come over to the share button
and set it so i need to change it again
but this time i'm going to change it to
comment
ok
now the students can comment on each
other now i'm going to click on done and
just show you a lovely technique so
let's say that i'm now in group two
and i've read this and i want to comment
on this particular part here what i'll
do is i can select that
and then i can click here
and add a comment and i can say yes
this is a good point okay and i can add
that comment onto the screen then
perhaps another one we're discussing
more things and we think here we want to
add another comment and again we can
click here so this again would be group
two looking at group one's work etc here
yeah i
can comment again so i often do this
where i get the students to comment on a
piece of work
that uh
perhaps it might even be a piece of work
where there's spelling mistakes or where
there's grammar mistakes for great for
language work but also great for example
for questions where you say okay i want
you to read this article and think of
questions to ask so it doesn't have to
be
necessarily a google doc that's been
produced by the students it could be
simply a story that you put on the
screen on the google doc or
an interview and then the students can
simply comment and again once you've
finished the activity you can click on
the share button and turn that off when
it's time just click on change set it
back to edit and now no more additional
comments can be added so this technique
of selecting and then clicking on the
plus button is a great way of making of
getting the students to add comments to
the side of the screen the other nice
thing is that afterwards you can review
the comments and then you can actually
just
resolve them by clicking on them
for the last one i'm going to show you a
kind of technique that i use a lot to
get students to generate questions and
again great for language learning but it
could really be for any area of the
curriculum and the idea is i'm going to
use the comments idea but i'm going to
do it in a slightly different way so let
me just take you through this now so
what i'm going to do this time is i'm
going to grab this here and it's text
about me i'm just doing it because it's
going to save me time i'm going to copy
that text i'm going to come over and i'm
going to create a new document so i'm
going to come over to docs i'm going to
paste that document in so we've got the
information there now what i'm going to
do is as well i'm going to make this
slightly bigger so that it just makes
nice space out onto the screen so we're
going to increase the size of the font
okay just to make it a little bit bigger
like that
now what i can do is this one i'm going
to get students to read this document so
this would be a great activity for
homework but it could be done in class
get the students to read the document
and then to think of questions to ask
okay
so for example let's say that i first
start by clicking on the share button
sorry clicking on make sure that you
always give the document a title so i'm
going to call this one interview
very important make sure you do that
because that means that you can always
find the document then you're going to
click on the share button and you're
going to make sure that you set it
to anyone can comment again so we're
coming back to that comment one now the
students can come on again working in
groups or working on their own it could
be for homework and they've got to think
of questions to relate when they've read
this a good way of kind of really
getting them to think about the document
in terms of reading and say for example
here i don't know as
let's let's say for example this one
here i'm going to click that and click
on the plus button to say
what
sorry
what did
you
win an award for
okay so you basically getting the
students to work with the document and
to think of questions to ask this works
really well if it's a story or if it's a
context where there's lots of
opportunities to ask questions so for
example question here might be
how long
did you sorry i keep making mistakes did
you work
at warwick
okay
uni so you can really kind of get the
students to really interact with a text
and this time what they're doing is
they're just thinking of questions to
ask can work nice in the situation if
you for example get the students to
write a little bio about themselves and
then share that with another group of
students or another individual and get
the students to ask questions again once
you finish with that you can click on
the share button and then come back down
change that and then turn that to view
and now nobody can actually comment on
the document
nice little twist on the comments idea
that i really have made use of in the
past particularly in language learning
contexts
okay really hope that video was useful
please come over to
teachertrainingvideos.com as i said
please make use of the special section
on google loads of great ideas around
using different google tools if you want
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to leave some other videos on using
google tools that you might find
interesting and thank you very much
you