Your Students are Instant Messaging / Texting / Chatting using Google Docs in the Classroom

We love Google Docs. We first started playing around with this classroom technology in August 2008 and we’ve been using it ever since. We’ve even completed the Google Apps for Education Training to work towards becoming a certified trainer. Although we love Google docs, over the past few months, Google has rolled out some changes in the way it handles discussions and comments and this makes us a little hesitant to use Google Docs in our classroom.

• Things we like about Google Docs in the Classroom
• Google Docs in the classroom can be a distraction: IM / texting /chat
• How your students are chatting / instant messaging using Google Docs
• The challenge with Google Docs is keeping students on task and productive
• Two ways that students can get distracted using Google Docs
• Distraction #1: How to discourage students from writing inappropriate things in the body of a Google document
• Things that teachers should be aware of
• Distraction #2: How to discourage students from getting off task when using the sidebar discussion and chat windows
• So what’s the problem with using the new next-generation Google discussion system in Google Docs?
• Problem #1: Google Docs discussions (comments) are no longer recorded in the revision history. They used to be, but now they aren’t.
• Problem #2: You can’t turn off the discussion feature inside of Google docs.
• Solution: Teachers want to be able to switch off the discussion chat features in Google Docs

Things we like about Google Docs in the Classroom

A few months ago, we gave eight reasons why we love Google docs. Here are some more ways to consider using Google Docs in your classroom.

• It’s a quick and easy way for students to work on the same word processing file at school and at home because the document lives in the cloud.
• We’ve let students take notes in class using their iPod Touch and Google Docs over Wi-Fi. (Google Docs is one of the reasons why we would like to see more iPads / smart phones used in the classroom.)
• We’ve used Google Docs with students to revise and edit each other’s work. (The revision history lets you see who said what and it gives you an idea of which students are doing the work in a group project. The revision history isn’t perfect, but it’s still pretty good.)
• Students and teachers can simultaneously work on the same document, so you could use it to create online literature circles.
• Google Docs works great as a wiki. (Two years ago, our students felt that Google Docs handled simultaneous editing of the same document a lot better than wikispaces. We haven’t gone back to wikispaces since then, so were not sure if they’ve gotten any better at merging changes in the same paragraph from different students.)

Unfortunately, because Google Documents can create a truly collaborative environment, students can delete other students’ work if they are working on the same shared document. (Unlike a twitter feed or a comment thread in a blog where students can respond to each other but not modify or delete previous comments, a shared Google Doc is like a giant piece of paper and everyone is standing around it with a pencil and eraser.)

Google Docs in the classroom can be a distraction : IM / texting / chat

So, what’s the downside of introducing your students to Google Docs? Well, some of your students are going to use it to instant messaging / text / chat with each other instead of working on their class work. Now, let’s put this in perspective. Students have been passing each other notes, doodling in textbooks, and writing inappropriate messages on desks, since the beginning of time. Classroom technology simply makes it easier to do this. Google Docs lets teachers create an authentic, online collaborative environment with their students, but it’s also a high-tech way of passing notes in class. Here’s how your students are chatting / instant messaging using Google Docs:

• Create a new document,
• Share it with a friend, and
• Start chatting by writing in the document.

• When the teacher comes around, switch back to work.
• If you get caught, the teacher will be able to look through the revision history to see everything that was written and deleted.
• If you’re fast, you can delete the file before the teacher catches you. If you can’t open the file, you can’t see the revision history.
• Just make sure to delete the file again from the bin to remove it forever, otherwise it can be restored into your document list.
• We’re not sure what happens when you delete a shared document… Does it disappear from everyone’s document list? We haven’t played around yet enough to know.

The challenge with Google Docs is keeping students on task and productive

Students can create shared online notes, write comments, delete each other’s messages, invite more friends, and those friends (depending on the settings) can invite other friends to join in the fun. It’s like a giant post-it note that everyone is writing on, except students don’t have to be sitting beside their friends to get distracted. These are, in fact, the skills that we want our students to have.

• We want our students to know how to use these collaborative tools.
• We want them to know how to create documents, network with colleagues, and multitask.
• We simply want them to apply these skills to the assignment at hand.
• (Yes, we know there’s a counter point in here about creating more engaging assignments that your students will want to do…)
• (Yes, we know there’s also the idea that we need to give our students opportunity to develop strong work ethics to resist the temptation to IM / chat during class.)

The challenge with Google Docs (and any classroom technology) is keeping students on task and productive in class (although arguably, that’s the same challenge that employers face, and the same challenge teachers have regardless of what tools they use.) Last September (2011), Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty said that schools should be open to the idea of allowing students to use cell phones in class. McGuinty acknowledged that they can be distracting, but there can also be a right way to use them:

“If the teacher says, ‘Alright, we’re all going to go online right now. We’re going to access this information right now.’ That’s different than this gentleman who’s completely ignoring me here and doing his own thing,” Mr. McGuinty added, gesturing towards a texting cameraman. (Globe and Mail)

It’s part of the larger conversation about the acceptable use of technology in schools and in the classroom. The real concern is about keeping students focused in the classroom. Mr. McGuinty apparently doesn’t allow BlackBerries in cabinet meetings, presumably to keep people focused, and so it seems reasonable that teachers should want similar options to limit distractions to keep their students focused as well. There’s a reason why Facebook is blocked by many school boards.

Two ways that students can get distracted using Google Docs

There are two ways students can chat using Google Docs. (We’re talking specifically about ways to chat within the Google document, as opposed to opening something like Google Chat in a separate window because Google Chat is a module that can be disabled in Google Apps for Education.)

1. Distraction #1: Students can instant message / chat by typing text in the body of the document.
2. Distraction #2: Students can instant message / chat by adding comments (or discussions) in the sidebar.

Solution: Teachers want to be able to switch off the discussion chat features in Google Docs

The solution is for Google to add a feature that allows document owners to disable the discussion chat features. (Or, alternatively, a feature that allows the Google Apps for Education site administrators to disable Google Docs discussion entirely.) We’re not the only one to feel this way. People have been asking for the ability to disable the chat/discussion features in individual Google documents. Larrycot points out the following in the general Google Docs forum:

Just another plea from an educator: My school recently set up Google accounts for all our students. The potential for collaboration is incredible, but I’ve found collaboration is at a standstill if 8th graders have an opportunity to chat instead of work. I can mitigate the problem somewhat by requiring all students to share all documents with me. Then I can spot-check the docs each group is working on to make sure no buffoonery is taking place. But I find I spend an entire class session worrying about this single issue instead of helping students with their work. One of my colleagues has taken the draconian measure of “If I see an open chat window on your screen, you get a zero.” I suppose that will work, it would be better if we could solve the issue electronically.

MrsJMcG pointed out the following in the Google Apps EDU administrators circle:

As a teacher using Google Apps for Education through our school system, I find the chat function problematic when I have students working together on projects. For example, yesterday I did a collaborative writing project with 14 students. It was going well – until someone started the chat string going. After that, no one was paying attention to the writing. I talked about it with my class and they said that sometimes chat is useful when they were collaborating with one or two other people – but that even then, it often becomes more about IM’ing than collaborating. I’d like to have the option, as the document creator/owner, to disable the chat function for shared documents on a case-by-case basis.

Thank you Google for giving us this great discussion feature. It’s a great opportunity to address multitasking strategies, IM etiquette, and cyber bullying. Now please give us the option to exercise our professional judgement and turn this feature off for individual documents (or sitewide if you’re running Google apps for education.) Let’s not have every class that uses Google Docs constantly sidetracked by addressing students who are IMing instead of working. Perhaps monitoring software is the way to go.

Do you use Google Docs in the classroom? How do you use the comment/discussion/chat features of Google docs?

This post was written using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 Premium Wireless. This is our first post written using Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 (which was a free upgrade since we owned Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.)Student and teachers can get an educational discount off of DNS 11, but make sure you check out these 10 things to know before you buy the education version of Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11. There are 2305 words in this post (not including the quotes which were copy/pasted from the Google Forums and Globe and Mail article). Dragon made 67 word errors. So, we had an accuracy of 97.1% in this document. If you include punctuation and capitalization errors, Dragon made an additional 12 punctuation and capitalization errors. So, we had an accuracy of 96.6% in this document. Here are some examples of errors that Dragon NaturallySpeaking 11.5 made in this article: and it gives you = what it may give you online literature circles = online there’s circles using it in the classroom = using in the classroom handled = handle in our classroom ever since = in her classroom. Ever since about the acceptable use = about except the bull use students don’t have to leave their desks = students LEADER desks comment thread in a blog = common thread in a block