Google Docs for Teachers

Let's learn the basic layout and options available to use when using Google Docs.

We will learn the key components of the Main Menu of Google Docs.

At the conclusion of this lecture, you will be able to identify and use the features within both the Edit and View menus.

After this lecture, you will be able to apply various formatting options on the text and layout of your Google Doc files.

Tabs and Indents are an often misunderstood and underutilised components in any word processing software. We will learn this useful skill that will help you improve the formatting and presentation of your documents.

We will learn several techniques by which we can add an image to our document.

Now that we have inserted an image the fun has only just begun. The lecture takes us through the possible adjustments and enhancements we can place on images.

Unlike many traditional word processed documents, Google Docs allows you to include hyperlinks from inside the document itself. Adding links make our documents "live" which is particularly useful if we embed the document in an existing website page or other place.

On occasions adding a sketch, diagram or equation is necessary. While certainly not something you will probably do regularly, a useful skill all the same.

Adding Headers and/or Footer can really give your documents a much more professional appearance. We will learn how to add images in either place as well as page numbering. If you've ever printed a large document, dropped it and scattered all the pages randomly around you, you'll appreciate the latter.

By customising some of headings and sub-heading we can create an accurate, hyperlinked Table of Contents in just a few seconds. Extremely useful for reports and larger documents.

This lecture looks at the remaining insertable items that have yet to be covered.

An opportunity to practise Inserting items into our Google Doc.

The ability to create, edit and professionally arrange a table in documents is critical in any work environment.

At the conclusion of this lecture we will be able to modify the structure of an existing table. Skills learnt include merging cells as well as adding, removing and adjusting rows and columns.

While a plain neatly arranged table can be appropriate at times, we will learn how to add various features to improve the visual impact of both the table itself and the data contained within it.

Time to make some tables and edit them to fulfil a user requirement.

Sharing is a great thing (unless of course, you have the only doughnut left!). Sharing a documents allows others the simultaneously work on our Google Doc and bring genuine collaboration to life.

Reviewing the work of a colleague, or the work of a student, has never been easier. Commenting on and making adjustments can be done with all changes tracked, and reversible if necessary. Never again need to receive an email, download and then open the attached document, make some changes, resave the document and then respond the email including attaching the modified document including your amendments. Heaven help you if more changes then need to be made . . . the whole process described previously would need to begin again. If you draft or edit documents regularly as part of your work then you will instantly fall in love with Google Docs.

As a bonus to you, I've included this video to demonstrate a Google Docs Add-On called Kaizena. This add-on allows the document reviewer to highlight sections of text or images and then record a voice comment regarding their suggestions. Used extensively by many of my colleagues when drafting student work. They find that they can give better quality and more in depth feedback verbally than by using purely typed comments in the document margin as we learnt in the previous lecture. Speaking is also more personal and faster than typing. Well worth a look.

In Google Docs Boot Camp #3 we will utilise our new Doc editing skills.

Google Docs allows use to go back in time and go to older versions of our document if necessary. Useful if you heavily modify a document and then wish you hadn't changed the document so dramatically - simply go back to a timestamped version and you're right to go again.

Revision History is also a great asset when working with "shared" documents. All amendments by various users are tracked so you can follow which users accessed the document and when they did it. If one of the users accidently, or intentionally, removes document contents then it is possible to see who deleted the material, when it occurred and of course, recover the version of the document prior to the issue occurring.

Google Docs can become your very own secretary. Speak clearly and Docs will type as you speak. Where was this when I was going through university?!

Once we make a Google Doc, it doesn't have to remain in that format forever. It is possible to export a Google Doc as a Word document (.docx), OpenDocument format (.odt), Rich Text format (.rtf), Portable Document format or PDF (.pdf), plain text (.txt) and web page (.html) depending on your requirements.

For the majority of us, Microsoft Word has been our long term word processing preference. These existing Word documents can be converted into Google Docs relatively easily. The Word document is never actually replaced and therefore lost, just a alternate version of the document is created in Google Doc format. While there are often some minor issues after converting these tend to be limited to formatting and not the text. Over time, improvements made by Google software engineers, file conversion is becoming more and more accurate.

Various 3rd Party organisation allow their software to work in conjunction with Google Docs. In this lecture we will learn how to add these to your Google Docs portfolio and explore some of the ones that I have found useful.

A final Boot Camp before you complete the course.