G-g-g-google Docs!

Google docs would be such a fun way for my students to be able to express themselves through writing. I like that it allows them to work in groups and share their ideas.

I'm still not sure which grade I want to teach. I am definitely leaning more towards the younger grades, but for the sake of this I am going to go with 5th grade. I feel like at this age they will be more computer savvy.

With google docs, my students can collaborate on different ideas. They could write short stories, poems, and conduct research together. As each of them find information on their topic, they can post it to their google docs and help each other with the information that they need. The only problem I can think of is that there may be some students that do more work than others. At the same time, children like using computers, so it may be motivating enough that they would all contribute. Another way around this problem would be to assign each child in the group with a different sub-topic that they are responsible for.

All in all, I think that google docs would provide a positive learning experience.

As far as contributing to the Utah Core Curriculum, it allows them to:

• work and present with various forms of media
• practice their spelling
• practice comprehension as they work with others
• identify author's and reader's purpose
• relate prior knowledge to text

...and many others!!