Printing comments on Google Docs

Or you could choose the Download as Microsoft Word and the comments will be there in Markup format

So where do I start?

Sometimes I come across reluctance from teachers to use Google Docs with their students. Usually the main reason why is because they don't know how to use them or what to use them for. So here are some starter ideas

Drafting
With a small group of children start them off on their own Google Doc.

1. Sign in
2. Go to the Writing folder
3. Click on Create - Doc
4. Click on Untitled Doc and rename the document
5. Start Writing
6. This could be printed out and edited and then marked in pen

or the next step could be
Teacher makes comments on student Doc and students edit on Doc

Collaborative writing
Set up an Edit only doc and share with all students or post a link to the doc on your blog or wiki.
Set small achievable tasks. If students have computers at home they do this as a home learning task.

Research Topic
Students can mindmap/brainstorm their ideas on a question and then they can add their ideas to a collaborative Class Document of shared ideas. (Post the link on your website, or share to all students)

 

Publish your story

Use one page of Presentation to publish your writing

• Choose a theme
• Change the Layout to Title and Body
• Type in your title
• Type or copy/paste your story into the body box
• Add a picture
• Change theme to see if it works better
• Print out

Coggle and Mindmapping

Coggle is not a Google app but it works with a Google Sign in. You can create simple mindmaps and share them with others. I can see students using this as a quick easy way of getting all their thoughts down, save as a PDF or a graphic and then uploading to Evernote, Google Docs or any other application. You cannot use it on an iPad in Safari but you can on the Chrome App. The Puffin app (Free or NZ$4.19 for iPad) will also allow you to add content on the iPad.

Add photos and videos to Google Drive with iPad

Google Drive: Free for iPad; Free for iPhone/iPod Touch
Store documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, photos and videos etc.
Access these documents from any device.
Share documents with others.

Click on the +
Click on Use Camera
Take photos and videos
Click Use
or click on Upload Photo or Video and store in Google Drive

Click on Uploads
This is where all the photos and videos will be stored, which can be accessed from all devices.

Turning your Print outs into Interactive Google Doc templates

I was working with Neil today who has a lot of Graphic Organisers, writing and reading templates that he prints out for his students. He wanted to know how he could 'recreate' them in Google Docs. When I looked at them most of them were in Word so could be uploaded straight to Google Docs and with a little tweaking make them more interactive.

He had also made some templates in Comic Life.

I suggested taking a 'screen capture' of these templates and paste into a Drawing box on Google Docs
Mac: Shift - Control - Command- 4 (click and drag around the part you want to copy)
Win: Open Snipping Tool (click and drag around the part you want to copy) click Copy
Go to your Google Doc
Go to Insert - Drawing
Ctrl- V or Command- V to paste
Tip: if it doesn't paste into the Drawing window, save and close and paste onto the Google Doc. Copy it again Ctrl - C or Command - C then go back into the Drawing Window and paste


 Students can then use the Drawing tools to add text boxes, change fonts, styles and colour, draw their own graphics in the Draw window or paste in graphics drawn in another programme.

This template is available in the Public Template Gallery if you search for 'Narrative Story Web'.

Book reviews in Google Docs

This post has been cross posted from iPads, iPods and Devices in Education

 I was asked to work with some Year 2 and 3 children today on writing book reviews. They had read the story on the school Kindles or the Kindle app on the iPad.
e-Books can be purchased from Amazon

Geronimo Stilton 'Lost Treasure of the Emerald Eye'

They had discovered how they could write notes.
I saw this as a great opportunity for writing notes myself and leaving 'Think about' questions and comprehension questions on pages for students to look at while reading the book. Students can then add their answers to the note and all of the group can share their understandings through the note feature.

All of these children have Google app accounts so I made a Google Doc template for them to work from. They used computers for the Google Docs as the Drawing elements cannot be edited on an iPad.

We talked about the book and some of the features of the story  and then I showed them the template I had shared with them. I took a couple minutes explaining how they could access the different embedded draw items and then we discussed what 'Synopsis, Review and Character Descriptions were.

I had intended them to use the Google Draw tools for their book cover but as we had access to iPads we used the Free version of Crayola Paint and Create. They drew their pictures and emailed them to themselves and then we pasted them into the Draw box. They then used the Google Draw tools to add their Book titles and Author names.
Below is Charlotte's work.

A lot of today's session was about getting used to writing and editing in the Google Doc. There was a lot of sharing of ideas and 'how to do things' amongst the group. The next time we work on this template with a new book we will look more closely at the content the students write.

Create Maths games and templates

Use the drawing tool in Google Docs or Presentation to make maths activities.
In the example below, the format of the activity has been made in one Drawing window and then it is copied and pasted and then edited with the new problem.

1. Go to 'Insert Drawing'
2. Use the Drawing tools to create your activity
3. Click 'Save and Close' to insert drawing on to your Doc page
4. Click once on the drawing
5. Press Ctrl-C (Command -C) click on the page where the next activity will go and  Press Ctrl-V (Command -V)
6. Click on the new Drawing, click on Edit and make the necessary changes to alter the activity

And in the example below created in Google Presentation, the slide in the left hand panel has been duplicated (Ctrl-D or Command-D) and then each object gets deleted or duplicated to create a new activity.


These activities can be used for

• follow up activity
• home learning
• e-Portfolio examples of learning 
• students can also create their own, ask them to duplicate a slide, make this number i.e 37, students have to remove/add tens and ones and then type in the answers

 To turn these into templates, go back to your main Google Docs window with all of your files. Select the file by clicking in the box to the left of the file name, click on More

Click on 'Submit to Template Gallery'

Type in a description
Choose a category
Click Submit Template