Today I showed the fourth grade students in Ms. Cousins’ class at Davis Elementary how to log into their new Google accounts. They are preparing for the writing SOL test so I wanted to show them how to use Google Docs to help with editing and revising their writing. We created a new document and gave it a creative title. I told them to write a plain boring sentence, like “I have a cat.” Then I showed them how to use the Research Tools to find a picture to represent their sentence. When we dragged it over into our document, I pointed out that Google automatically generates a citation for the photo. Next we discussed the need for revising our writing. Using my example, we can’t picture this cat in our minds. We don’t know what it looks like or any details about it. So sometimes it helps to get someone else’s input. I showed them how to share their documents with a neighbor by entering their neighbor’s email address and then how to find those shared documents in their document list. Each student picked a new color and typed suggestions to their neighbor for writing a better sentence. Then the original author selected a different color and, incorporating their peer editor’s suggestions, rewrote the sentence. That’s all we had time for today, but now they are equipped to use Google Docs to help with the revision process. If you’d like to look at some student examples, I listed the links here.

Ms. White’s fourth graders at Davis Elementary have been writing different forms of poetry such as limericks and cinquains. Today I showed them how they could publish their poems using their new Google accounts. Since this was their first time, I helped them sign in and change their passwords. They created a new document and used the Styles button to write a title and subtitle (their name). Next they typed their poem and I showed them how to change the font and size of their text and use the Tools button to check their spelling. I also wanted them to know how to use Google Docs for research so we clicked the Research Tools and searched for a picture and a fact about something in their poem. They dragged the picture from the built-in search box to add it to their poem and a citation was automatically created! Then they rewrote their fact in their own words and clicked the “Cite” button to create another automatic citation. Finally I showed them how to publish and share their poems. I posted all their poem links to a Google Doc that you can explore here.