A great feature when working in the Google Apps environment (Documents, Sheets, Forms, Slides and Drawings) is the ability to email your collaborators straight from within your document - no need to go and create a separate email or gather a list of your collaborators' email addresses. Here's how...
Firstly, from the File menu, select the item "Email collaborators".
NOTE: If you have not shared your document with anyone, you will be prompted at this stage to add collaborators.
This step also requires the document to be named (also required when sharing the document with others).
Once you select this option, you will be presented with a dialog screen that lists those with whom you have shared the file and a message window.
"Send message" Dialog
In this screen you can choose to email all document collaborators or select only some. Simply type in your message and hit send. You also have a checkbox available if you would like to receive a copy of the email for yourself.
Whilst comments and chat are a great way to collaborate within a document, the ability to email your team (or parts of the team) reminders or updates is a great feature.
Well I have toyed with the idea for a while - but I have taken my first plunge in to preparing some video tutorials for my students.
Those who know me would say that this was NOT a first. That I had in fact done all kinds of tutorials about different technologies and uses in the classroom.
What makes this different is that I am setting about preparing videos around the course I teach - a subject in NSW called Information and Software Technology and I am sticking them "out there" for others to provide feedback on and use.
This for me is scary!
But based on my experience of over 30 years of working in high school teaching, I think its a fear shared by many high school teachers. Is what I am doing correct? Have I done this the best way? Is this going to best benefit my students? Is my style of teaching okay? Am I covering the syllabus correctly? Is everything factually correct?
As a beginning high school teacher many years ago, I was given my timetable, my programmes my students - was sent in to the classroom - and then the door was closed.
I was on my own.
And I have survived (somehow)
But what this tends to do for many teachers is force them to work on their own. They don't seem to collaborate in the same that I see my primary colleagues work together.
I would be very interested in hearing from anyone who reads this blog post as to their feelings/beliefs about collaboration between high school teachers - within a school, within a system, globally.
I know for me one of my personal challenges in recent years is to take the chance and just start putting stuff "out there". For me, personally this is a struggle because I do worry that its not good enough or might be wrong. But this process has taught me a lot!
At times it is reaffirming - its great to receive a positive comment or a remark that someone is using something that you have created.
But its also a way in which I can learn - that I can improve.
I believe as an educator that being prepared to take risks - being prepared to make mistakes (lots of them) is such an important part of learning and improving.
I could quietly create these resources for use by MY students in MY classroom - but I choose to share them because hopefully it will make someone else's work a little easier - just as I stand on the shoulders of others who have shared their wonderful work with me.
I think its a shame in this day and age - where there is so much talent in our schools - where we can all be publishers of all kinds of digital media - that we spend so much money purchasing text books that don't really meet the needs of a our modern classroom.
Take a chance today. Share with your (global) colleagues something that you have created for your classroom. A great learning experience. A collaborative project. A story.
