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Google Docs for High School Students
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This generation of students in the classroom today has grown up with using digital tools. Google Docs is a useful tool that can be used from any Gmail account. Google Docs is an online word processor that lets you create, share, and format text documents. This also allows collaboration amongst your co-workers, friend, family, etc. to occur in real time. This collaborative work is much faster and more beneficial for sharing your work with others.It’s much quicker and easier because your work is automatically saved on the drive after each letter you press. Google Docs are very beneficial f or students, parents and teachers. It allows teachers to share their homework assignments, permission slips, and new ideas for their classrooms with students, and parents. Google Docs also allows for feedback from students and parents. This will be a beneficial tool for the future of our classrooms, and learning.
 * Introduction: **

According to Tania Jordan, a member of the ICT-KM program, Google Docs is beneficial to her program because Google Docs is a “hosted (online) service where you can create, store and share documents, spreadsheets, presentations and online forms,”. Google Docs is a free web-based software offered to everyone who has a Gmail account through Google Drive. It allows users to create and edit documents, while also being able to collaborate with others. Google Docs allows you to save your work from one computer and work on it from a different location without having to email documents to yourself or use portable jump drives.
 * Definition: **

Google Docs is the combination of two separate programs, Writely and Google Spreadsheets. Writely was a [| web] -based [| word processor]  created by the software company Upstartle and launched in August 2005. Spreadsheets was already a program of Google’s that was run through Google Labs. Writely had continued to run its own system until Google acquired the Upstartle company on March 9, 2006. It wasn’t until September of that same year that the program was added to Google Accounts. While this was going on Google made Google Spreadsheets by using technology it acquired from 2Web Technologies. They launched Google spreadsheets on June 6, 2006 as the first public component of what would become Google Docs (Google Docs). When first released the program was only offered on a first come first serve basis, and it later became a free beta program available to anyone with a Gmail account.
 * History: **

An issue that could occur is confusion with all the people editing and revising the document, especially if it was occurring at the same time. People may also accidentally add/delete information of someone else’s. A solution to that could be to have everyone agree to add comments to what is written and not delete. Another issue is that Google Docs are an online program, so if you get to a space where the internet is not available it makes it difficult to work on. You can work offline on the document but if more than one person is working offline not all the changes will come onto the online version of the Google Doc.
 * Issues: **

There is also a question of ownership when it comes to Google docs. “Section 11.1 of Google's terms of service says that ‘you give Google a worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute any Content which you submit, post or display on or through the Service for the sole purpose of enabling Google to provide you with the Service in accordance with its Privacy Policy’” ( Strickland ). This is saying that Google has the rights to any of the documents you produce through Google Docs, this is definitely a downside. When using Google Docs you get a good amount of storage space, but unfortunately it is not unlimited. However, the storage of Google Docs has become to Google Drive.

The main advantages with Google Docs are being able to share and to collaborative with others. From the Google Drive website, besides creating a text document, Google Docs also allows you to “upload a Word document and convert it to a Google document, add flair and formatting to your documents by adjusting margins, spacing, fonts, and colors, invite other people to collaborate on a document with you, giving them edit, comment or view access, and view your document's revision history and rollback to any previous version.” (Docs, Sheets, Slides).
 * Advantages: **

Google Docs is an extremely valuable tool for students, especially for working on their writing skills. They are able to allow their peers, and teachers to be collaborators to help edit their papers. It also allows them to be able to work on their documents in any place without having to carry a jump drive. The program also instantly saves any changes you make, and allows the collaborators to see them immediately. Not only does it allow others to see the changes immediately but there's another program called WatchDoc that you can download with it that alerts collaborators that changes are being made. This can be helpful to teachers so they can follow the progress of their students (Green).

In April of 2008, Google created a feature of Google Docs that allows people to work on their documents even when you are unable to be connected to the internet. Then once you are able to get back online you simply sign in to your Google account and it uploads the changes you have made. Google Docs are wonderful for group projects, because it allows everyone to work on their own but together at the same time. Since everyone can work on the document at once they can all be working from home on the same document instead of having only one person being able to type while the rest watch.

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While Google Docs is an excellent tool for sharing and collaborating work, more and more students will consider using this tool as a communication resource in their schoolwork. Using Google Docs in the classroom can save paper and teachers can also just look at the reversion history to see how individual student’s work. Teachers can easily provide feedback to students. Mostly, Google Docs is a free online tool and anybody who has gmail account can use it. Google has not let out a lot about the future of Google Docs but it is a good assumption to have that they will be adding more features to their program. They are going to be working on the offline aspect of Google Docs. Make it easier for multiple people to upload offline changes they had made.
 * Future Direction: **

Nowadays, students can get the information they want online as long as they can access the internet. Many people rely on the technology. Everyone needs to adapt, to learn and to work with a new technology tool. As future educators, we would like to bring Google Docs into the classroom. It is a very effective tool that allows students to interact with their classmates and teachers. This tool can guide students work collaboratively and it can also save students work automatically so they do not lose it. In addition Google Docs is not only a useful tool for high school students, but it also used by teachers to communicate with their colleague.One of the best aspects of Google Docs is its ability to allow students to collaborate on projects. Collaboration is a very important life skill, and with the use of Google Docs students will be strengthening this skill. Google Docs is a program that will be very beneficial to everyone in the school setting.
 * Conclusion: **

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Docs, Sheets, Slides (n.d.). In <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//Google// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from https://support.google.com/drive/answer/49008?hl=en
 * References: **

Google (2008). Teachers and Principals Talk About Google Docs [Online video]. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from __ [] __

Google Docs (n.d.). In //Wikipedia//. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from <span style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 36pt;">[|__http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Docs__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Green, N. (2012, February 4). The Advantage of Google Docs in Education. In <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//Ed Social Media// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from http://www.edsocialmedia.com/2012/02/the-advantages-of-google-docs-in-education/

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Jordan, T. (2009, July). Useful Tips for Collaborative Writing with Google Docs and Google Sites. <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline;">In ict-km. Retrieved October 12, 2013, from e-sites/ <span style="line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 36pt;">[|__http://ictkm.cgiar.org/2009/07/03/useful-tips-for-collaborative-writing-with-google-docs-and-google-sites/__]

<span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Strickland, J. (n.d.). How Google Docs Works. In <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">//howstuffworks// <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">. Retrieved October 12, 2013, <span style="background-color: transparent; color: #000000; font-family: Arial; font-size: 15px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.15; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt; text-decoration: none; text-indent: 36pt; vertical-align: baseline;">from http://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/google-docs4.htm

Wessling, S. B. (Presenter). Google Docs in the Classroom [Online video]. Retrieved October 12, 2013,

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