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Using
Google Docs in the classroom
“Where’s
Andrew?” It was Ashley from the other Year 5 class, he seemed a
little disgruntled. “Mr Barrett how is it possible that
Andrew’s resting pulse is 256 beats per minute?!” A good
question. Ashley continued, “I wanted to see if he was
sprinting around the classroom because that data just doesn’t
seem right!”
Wow,
this impromptu interruption to my afternoon proved to me the immense
power in sharing simple data between classes or groups of children.
In this article I outline how I have used Google Spreadsheets (part
of Google Docs) in my classroom.
Today
we explored resting pulse rates and we used an online spreadsheet to
share our results, hence the title of the post. (This work is similar
to some online
spreadsheet action we had last year with my Year 6
class) I decided to use a Google spreadsheet as I have been using the
Google Docs application for a while - but you could have easily used
EditGrid
as an alternative.
I
set the spreadsheet up so that all of the children’s names from
both classes were present in the first column. Then 10 other columns
were labelled, “Resting Pulse1, Resting Pulse 2…”
It was in these cells that the kids added their resting pulse after
counting for 30 seconds and doubling.
I
then accessed the same spreadsheet through my Google login on all 8
laptops (per class) that I put around the room - so in effect I
logged in 16 times (plus my PC and SMARTBoard, so 17) to the same
document from different locations.
We
talked a little about how to find our pulse and then asked the
children to record 10 readings of their resting rate into the
spreadsheet.
It
was great! With the live update feature we were able to see
individual results popping up all over the place and even from next
door in Rick’s class who were doing the same. Google
Spreadsheets has an Auto Save option which makes life
much easier and gives you the opportunity to see the live data. Not
only did the hardware hold out fine, but accessing the spreadsheet
was excellent - even with 17 simultaneous users on a single login.
The children really enjoyed seeing each other’s work and it
gave them a great overview of not only the class
year group working together, but also to the sorts of data people
were adding. With the IWB on I could see at a glance who and what was
going on in different groups. Children from the other class were
nipping across the corridor and questioning the validity of results
from children in my class.
Within
the space of about 40 minutes, perhaps less, we collected
approximately 600 individual results all in one file. No doubt they
will be quicker next time. This method of data collection also allows
us the ability to then manipulate the results afterwards, working out
averages of the whole year group etc. I would highly recommend doing
this if you have the reliable kit in your classroom, we have already
said that it will be an excellent data entry method for our maths
lessons on data handling.
Further
Steps – Data from beyond our classroom, from beyond our school.
The
sharing functionality was proven in this activity and the next step
for our year group is to share a similar data pooling task with other
schools. With this success very much in my mind I woke on a recent
Saturday morning to find an email from a teacher in a British school
in Muscat, Oman. He had seen a past post on my blog about using
EditGrid and sharing science investigation data. I emailed back and
before long he had created a Google spreadsheet with my EditGrid work
in it. I received an email from him to collaborate and before long I
was sipping my second cup of coffee whilst chatting and live-editing
a spreadsheet for our classes to work in!
From
email and eye rubbing to collaboration: less than 10 minutes. I have
never met, spoken to or emailed this teacher before but here we were
2000 miles from each other editing a spreadsheet together.
“Are
you any good at graphs?” he asked.
“I am OK,” I
said clicking away. “How is that?”
“Great! Do we
want the graph on the same page as the data so the children can see
it all updating at the same time?”
Sharing
and working collaboratively has never been so easy. Google
spreadsheets has a discuss/chat window allowing for a simple
dialogue, as you see above. This will be excellent for children to
use to communicate as they work. Along with a third school in
Scotland we will be collaborating on a simple exercise / pulse rate
investigation using the spreadsheet. I am in no doubt the children
will be able to better understand the importance of multiple sets of
data for accuracy when we share our work and hopefully continue to
question what they see.
The
walls of the classroom tumble much easier these days. However I don’t
think Ashley can just nip across the corridor to the school in Oman
to see what is happening?
About the Author
Tom
Barrett
http://tbarrett.edublogs.org
ICT Subject
Leader
Assistant Headteacher
Priestsic Primary and
Nursery School
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Using Google Docs in the Classroom by Tom Barrett, Guest Columnist 
