Exploring the Range of Possibility of GoogleDocs:Some Ideas and Practices from My Writing Classroom

By Jarret W. Krone / Twitter: jarretwkr Email: jkrone@mail.csuchico.edu #NCWPSI14 / Summer 2014 Nor

My essential questions:How can we use GoogleDocs to support a range of literacy practices in our classrooms? How can we use GoogleDocs as a way to effectively collaborate in the process of composition, creation, and revision?How can GoogleDocs add to the complexity and robustness of our students’ compositions?

Let’s read for a minute…

http://cognoscenti.wbur.org/2013/11/12/teaching-collaborative-technology-mike-kalin

Quick video.“GoogleDocs in the Classroom”https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/fostering-student-collaboration

Activity 1: A moment to write and discuss

So, I understand that this type of technology isn’t available to every teacher and classroom. But I implore you to consider how technologies and methods like this could improve your pedagogies when it comes to reading, writing, and discussion. Write for a moment about how you could imagine using GoogleDocs in any of your classes. Think about your curriculum and brainstorm how GoogleDocs could alter or improve literacy practices in your classroom. Consider the collaborative nature of the tool, the sharing function, the opportunities for feedback and revision, the multimodal capabilities, etc.

- Share out.

The Ways I use GoogleDocs in my

Writing Class:Easily share documents

Respond to student work at each step in the inquiry process -- drafting research questions; first, second, and final drafts (I ask them to bold any new additions or revisions so it’s easy to track the evolution of their work)Read and annotate texts together *

To encourage the creation of multimodal texts *

The Ways I use GoogleDocs cont’d

To enhance the process of co-creating texts. Multiple students working together on one composition.To create opportunities for students to have a say in the types of writing activities and assignments they want to engage in. *To easily track the evolution and development of ideas and writing.

To create more ways for students to participate.

Reading and Annotating Texts Together

From University 202: “Reading Writing Assignments”

Activity 2Bringing “Traditional” Essay Writing Into the Digital World

As you respond to the text, think of the margin comments as a way to ‘have a conversation’ with the ideas in the text and with each other. Questions to consider as we read and annotate together: 1. Which part(s) resonate for you in terms of reflecting literacy practices you currently use in your classroom, or literacy practices you’d like to build-in or try out? 2. Identify and call attention to “hotspots” in the text – moments that intrigue, excite, or even frustrate you.

- Talk with a partner about what you wrote and the experience of reading and annotating together.

Inviting Students to Revise and Re-imagine our Writing Assignments

If we put our assignment descriptions and expectations into GoogleDocs, students can enter the document and point to parts that need to be clearer, parts that need elaboration, parts that don’t make sense, and parts that need to be changed altogether. In doing this, we invite students to have ownership over the assignments they’ll be soon tackling. If we give them opportunities to re-imagine the assignment, then we offer a chance for them to become more invested in the project at hand.

Inviting Students to Revise and Re-imagine our Writing Assignments

From University 202:Inviting Students to Revise, Reimagine, and Critique our Writing Assignments Let’s try it out:

Activity 3In the margins, annotate the text and point to parts that are unclear, confusing, or problematic. Is this assignment description as clear as it can be? Would you be comfortable starting this writing assignment with these guidelines in hand?

From English 130 – Academic Writing: Digital Culture Inquiry Paper Assignment Description

Activity 3: Quick Group Discussion

How do you feel about allowing students to revise or modify a writing assignment that you created? Would you be okay with this, or does this idea make you a little uncomfortable? Why?

Building Writing Assignment Rubrics Together (

Student-Generated Rubrics)Create a blank rubric only containing categories – INQUIRY/RESEARCH QUESTION(S), CONTENT, LANGUAGE, ORGANIZATION/STRUCTURE, FORMATTING. In groups, students enter the GoogleDoc Rubric, discuss, and contribute to the rubric for their Digital Culture Inquiry Papers. This helps to make the requirements/guidelines of the assignment much more transparent because they play a major role in developing the assignment. Through discussion and research, they identify and call attention to the most important elements of that genre of writing.

An Idea for Adding Depth and Complexity

to Texts: Hypertext Missions!

Some background: I got this idea from reading a lot of blogs and digital articles. For example, I especially loved Cyborgology’s aesthetic for their blog and how they incorporate multimodal elements to strengthen and support arguments. From Cyborgology, “The Faux-Vintage Photo” by Nathan Jurgenson

Our Hypertext MissionPreface: THIS is a hyperlink. So, the idea of the “hypertext mission” is to move throughout a text as a group and hyperlink parts of the texts we want to know more about, ideas that remind us of something else, provide definitions to words or phrases we don’t understand, link to examples, to videos, images, etc. Hypertext provides a sort of ‘back story’ to what we’re reading, and adds another layer of knowledge and understanding as we read.

Our Hypertext Mission cont’d

Activity 4Excerpts from “Hipsters and Low Tech”

By PJ Rey, Cyborgology

Quick Group Discussion How could you imagine using or modifying the Hypertext Mission practice? Could you see this practice being useful in your classes? What might you do? What would you change?

Any last questions or comments?

Thank you!Email: jkrone@mail.csuchico.eduTwitter: jarretwkr