Google Docs & Spreadsheets (GDS), earlier known as Writely, is something I’ve used for close to a year after being introduced to it by Steve Gilbert of the TLT Group. I’ve found this to be an excellent collaborative writing environment and use it with student groups as well as groups of professional colleagues and fellow faculty. I wrote about this site briefly in an earlier post entitled Collaborative Writing Environments.

Essentially, your material (whether Word-like document or Excel-like spreadsheet) resides on a central server. The material can be created on the GDS site itself, or you can upload material to the site. You invite others to share the material with you and those other people are able to make edits in the document. Versions of changes to the material are stored and can be easily reviewed and compared. If needed, the material can be downloaded to your computer for final manipulation and distribution.

Bill Webb has done a great review of GDS, in far more detail than I, at Lockergnome. I’d encourage you to have a look at this review. I liked the Google Dachshund Spreadsheet name!

Here’s how I’ve used GDS with student groups. Students in a doctoral level qualitative research course are required to develop a qualitative research proposal about a topic of interest to them. Each student is a member of a 3-person group. Each student has a proposal site on GDS, with fellow group members and the course faculty designated as collaborators. The student uses GDS to develop sections of the research proposal as they progress through the 15 week course. Each week, the student’s group members are expected to access the site and provide comments, critiques, and edits on the developing proposal. The course faculty logs onto the site and can also make comments and edits. As well, the faculty is able to review the versions of the document to ensure that all students are participating as required.

In the same class, the student groups are conducting a critique of a qualitative research article. This project is a group, cooperative project that will result in an individual grade for each person. Using GDS’ feature of reviewing the versions of the document, the faculty can determine which students are contributing to the ongoing development of the critique and ensure that equitable work is done for earned grades.

I have used the GDS site in working on manuscripts with colleagues, whether in the next office or at a long distance. I have also used GDS in working on project development with distance colleagues. Once I used GDS to post a blog entry.

There are many potentials for the use of GDS in higher education. It is vitally important that we provide students introductions to the tools that will facilitate their scholarly work, while in school as well as once they graduate.

GDS also helps ease students’ fears about group work. While students often appreciate the opportunity to work in groups on a defined project, they are often concerned that even with investing significant effort on their own part, their individual grade will be lowered by the lack of others’ participation. Using the review function in GDS enables the faculty to review each person’s level of participation. Grades do not, therefore, need to be group grades, but can adequately reflect each students’ contributions.

One thing to know – since GDS came into being (from Writely), I had some difficulties – with documents closing quickly and arbitrarily. Once I upgraded Internet Explorer to version 7 (with tabbed browsing), this problem disappeared. GDS works on both PC and Mac platforms. The interface and system keep improving.

If you have used Google Docs & Spreadsheets in creative ways, leave a comment. Let’s consider how we can use this neat and free service to benefit our students and ourselves!