Using Google Docs to Aid in Collaboration

This year I am the luckiest teacher in the world. I get to teach at the best school ever – International School of Morocco, with some of the best, most creative, teachers ever. Each time I walk into someone else’s classroom, I get inspired and we just seem to spiral great teaching ideas off of each other. It’s a wonderful place to teach, and since we are all collaborating, it’s a wonderful place for our kids to learn – a teacher’s dream, right? I have tried and tried to convince the other teachers to create blogs of their own to spotlight and share some of their amazing ideas, but everyone is super busy. Instead, they have each agreed to let me spotlight some of their ideas right here on Raki’s Rad Resources. So, each Friday night, I will be posting an ISM Spotlight.

We are very busy at ISM right now, due to the fact that October is Heritage Month and tomorrow is our large, International Festival – World Fest.  All of the proceeds of our World Fest go to the charity Amis des Ecoles, which helps support schools in rural areas of Morocco.

So, today’s ISM Spotlight is a quickie.  At the International School of Morocco, there is a ton of collaboration going on every day.  Here is one small way that we are collaborating:

Those of us who teach math use videos, songs, games and apps both in and out of the classroom.  We share these resources with our parents to use at home, and assign them as homework.  In order to keep track of our resources, we have created a Google Document that we all have permission to edit.  As we find resources, we add them to the Google Document, so we keep a running list of what we have found.  This allows us to come back and use these resources again and again – plus they will be easy to find again next year! 

We’ve also shared this Google Document with our parents, so that they also have an easy way to come back to resources we have used and review them with their children.  Parents cannot edit the Google Document, but they can view and use all of the resources that are there.

One other thing that we add to our Google Document is the tutorial videos that our student create.  This way, the students can watch each other’s videos as well, allowing them to teach each other.

Feel free to peruse the Google Document, as you may just find something that would work in your classroom!

Come back next week to see what else we are up to at the International School of Morocco.