Thing # 20 Can Somebody call the Google Docs?

Google docs to the rescue. Someone in Mesquite has been trying to get me to use google docs for the longest and I have refused to do so. Actually, the entire reason that I have a gmail account was to start using google docs. But, initially, I felt the instructions were not simple enough for me to gather a quick understanding of it's purpose and useful tools. Well, thanks to the common craft video (I need to see creative demonstrations to be engaged) I felt compelled to give it a shot finally. Funny thing is, I had been looking for a tool to use for my extra-credit project that my students have been working on. I tried Zoho Office at first, but when embedded into a blog, our district restricts the use of this Web2.0 tool. However, since google is mostly wide opened I tried Google Docs and I was excited about how easy it was to use, especially since I had spreadsheets and documents already created. I simply needed a way for the groups to be able to collaborate off site while manipulating by adding to the travel budget sheets that were created for their use. Here is an example of one of my groups travel budget before they began using it online: Cows In Traffic Travel Budget
Before we were using a flash drive to keep track of the budget and that worked wonderfully, until someone left the drive at home and the group couldn't get access to their budget thus halting their research progress. With their budget being online, this issue can be avoided. Prior to the realization for the budget sheet use, we used Google docs to keep track of the progress of each project. The students set their own time lines and used their documents to check off when each city was blogged about. This format found itself useful when the Parent sponsor of each group needed to get an update on where their groups were according to the deadline.