I have used Google Docs in a very limited manner previously, but on the recent TSM course I was shown the real power of using them. All you need is a Google account, and you can then create documents, spreadsheets and presentations in the Google Drive area of your account. My initial understanding of this was that it was a bit like every other cloud based storage system: you can access you documents from anywhere, and share them with certain people.
But Google Docs goes one above this. Using Google Docs you can all edit the same document at the same time! No more "read only" copies because somebody else is working on the document. And you can also instantly see the updates that others have made.
Now clearly Google Docs has huge potential for the admin side of things in teaching (as in any other profession). For example, a shared scheme of work will continue to grow and adapt as all teachers in a department (or indeed between schools) can easily add items and resources they have found useful (and if needed the HoD can remove editing writes for a period as well).
But Google Docs can be used for so much more than this. You can have students collaborate on projects easily, submit work by sharing a document and so much more. A few places for more information are given below:
In this post though, I am going to focus on using Google Forms, and how we can simply edit them to make them even more powerful. There are several elements we shall discuss:
the Default Scale button will adjust the scale to fit the graph as best as possible.
the Whiteboard Mode setting, which makes all the lines a little thicker, and allows you to select multiple items by just clicking on them one at a time.
the onscreen Keyboard which pops up and allows you to not only enter equations from the board, but also has symbols for many common mathematical symbols which can be used in any program. This can also be opened independently of Autograph from the Start menu.
the Slow Plot function, that can be used to plot a graph slowly, starting from negative x values.
the Constant Controller which allows you to adjust constants in equations to see what happens.
the Scribble pen which allows you to write all over the Autograph screen, and easily mark predictions.
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