Google Docs

A powerful collaborative tool for teachers and students is GOOGLE DOCS.  In brief, Google Docs can be defined as a web-based word processing tool.

Google Docs has tremendous potential for improving productivity and for enhancing teaching and learning:

• A user can create a document that can be instantly shared by others and edited by others 
• To view or edit the document, a participant only needs to have a computer with access to the web and only needs to access a single web site
• Each participant can take part in the process simultaneously
• Productivity is improved because time is not wasted emailing a document back and forth among participants each time someone tweaks the document--updates are in real time
• By allowing instant feedback on shared documents, it promotes collaboration among students working on a group project
• It also provides a great tool for a teachers, who can use students' documents to assess their level of understanding and who can offer instant suggestions for improvement, allowing students to make changes where recommended

In my experience, Google Docs is easly to learn.  Anyone who has used a popular word processor such as Microsoft Word will find Google Docs intuitively familiar.  Google Docs may not have all of the "bells and whistles" that have been incorporated into MS Word, but it is powerful enough for most word processing applications.

Kristeen B. and I created a sample document with Google Docs, tentatively finding our way together during the project.  It includes a summary of Google Docs features, plus an unrelated image that we pulled off the web (for purposes of demonstration).  The sample document can be viewed at:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lUj510-6VTm5yvt8NvZRFMNxf4NsgLwBwZgQtOZu15c/edit?hl=en