Google Docs allows teachers to organize classroom materials, customize content for different student levels and interests, and optimize lesson planning. Teachers can create an online workbook in Google Drive to store all class resources in one place, including student contributions and additional material. Google Docs enables file sharing, oral feedback recording and annotation, and collaborative class projects. It provides a way for teachers to curate online content from various sources and make it accessible for students.

1. ASPI
Practical Issues, 2015
Google Docs: Time optimizer for our classes
Maria del Carmen Colussa

2. What´s the situation here?
I have several adult students.
Different levels.
Different needs.
Different interests.
I have a wide range of options.

3. But....
Lots of options often mean...no option!
Organization Challenge.
PLUS
New things appear all the time.

4. Eureka!
Google Docs!

5. 1. Install Google Drive
2. Click on grid on top right corner.

6. Creating your personal resource bank
This is my drive:

7. Important features of Google Drive
You can customise your drive.
You have a fairly good storage space.
You can delete and modify files as needed.
Your documents automatically generate a
shareable link.

8. The e-workbook

9. Why an online workbook?
Organization: everything in one place
Customization: differentiate interests
Optimization: allows file sharing after class (eg.
homework tasks, students´contributions,
additional material)

10. What does it look like?

12. What other things can I do?
Oral correction
Eg. Using Soundcloud

13. Working with Oral Production
Use your smartphone to record your student.
Upload the recording to google drive. (Use: Share via
Google Drive)
Annotate different areas to work with in class. (Vocabulary,
grammar, pronunciation,etc)

14. Students` Contributions

15. To continue exploring
Russel Stannard´s Teacher Training Videos

16. Collaborative projects

17. Class Challenges
Photo and Video challenges. eg. “The best part
of your day”, (Idea by Shelly Terrell)

18. Criteria for designing tasks
What: Content
How: Technique / Tool
Why: Purpose Ask yourself: Is this really
practical?/ Will this motivate/engage my
students? Will their voice be heard? Who will
be their audience?
(Idea from Sylvia Guinan)

19. Google docs to save interesting material
or the art of content curation
Bookmarking tools or where did you get that from?
Flipboard
Try: Clearly to “clearly”
read only content.

20. Twitter Search,
the power of # (hashtags)
How I heard about
“Microfiction”.
The amazing
Taylor Eaton and her
flashfiction
(I used No Swimming and sent a thank you
email to the writer with a photo of my
students working with her stories!)

21. Videos, videos, videos!
Room 8 (An award winning short film)
Seeds, by Glass A commercial
This I recommend!: Film English
I worked with: The Gift in a 4th course public secondary
school.(while substituting) One of the students suggested:
Feast, by Disney
No wifi? No worries, use: ATube Catcher
Check: Adblocker (clears adds from You Tube)

22. The potential of online material
The visual elements in E-books should have the purpose of inspiring production of content and have potential to trigger
interaction among students. A powerful tool to achieve this could be pictures, after all they are worth a thousand words, right?
They could trigger all sorts of associations and we could also use our students photographs and why not video material as well.
A minimalist design will help us focus on the tasks at hand. Icons could be useful for signalling different skills or moments of the
class or learning channel involved.
The reason I explore Google docs is not because I think textbooks will disappear. I LOVE textbooks, I was taught to teach with
them and they have made my life easier. (I still remember pages of my early days as a learner when “Arthur” introduced me to the
English language when I was a zero beginner!) However I also consider that the amount of material based on the web with
potential for classroom use is immense and not making use of that is staying away from what our students do on a regular
basis. Plus I´ve found really good things out there to liven up my classes! There is also another side, where new technologies
allow us to give our practice a different twist. Now we can make our classes as personal as we want.
That´s why I´m here:
To explore how to make better use or how to implement a system so that I can get all this material and technology and the
teaching ideas that they inspire organized.
I only see positive things in web based material: they are multimodal, fun, dynamic, (re)usable with multiple levels and age
groups.
The future will see us checking our students`productions through our mobile phones and making online material available for our
students 24/7 in the cloud. I am already overwhelmed by the amount and the creativity of materials available in any given online
webinar and I really like what I see! It´s a great time to be a teacher!

23. Remember
Work to improve your personal scenario,
if you don´t, who will?

25. Photo credit: Maria Colussa
Slide 16 Students´contributions
Slide 19 Flipboard magazine, retrieved 25th
June, 2015
Slide 20 screen capture from Taylor Eaton´s
blog: LittleWriteLies