Google Docs

Have you explored Google Docs (www.docs.google.com)yet? Not only is it free, but there are a lot of great things you can do with it in the classroom. You can create documents, presentations, forms and spreadsheets. You as the teacher are the creator and can allow as many or as few people access to the documents as you want. You can select the option of simply viewing or give them editing privileges. When you allow others editing rights you also get a record of who did what and when. This is a great tool for collaborative projects and a great way to share completed work with parents. The document option is very similar to the Word program and the presentations are similar to Power Point. Some ideas for creating forms include student, parent, or coworker surveys, or practice tests. These can all be posted to blogs and teacher web pages upon completion. Some ways to make the teacher's life easier include using the spreadsheet option to create your own grade book or creating a document for lesson plan templates. All of these things are stored on the internet "cloud" and can be accessed from any computer that is connected to the internet. Here is another link with additional information for educators: http://www.google.com/educators/p_docs.html