Enseñanza & Teaching (Jan 2013)
Google Docs: an experience in collaborative work in the University
Abstract
The educational environment contains multiple reasons to make use of the new possibilities that Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) as an educational resource offer. The educational experience presented here has been realized in the subject of New Technologies applied to Education, which forms part of the study plans for primary school teachers in the University of Burgos (UBU), and which has as its main goal to facilitate the acquisition of generic competences of ICT to work online. To reach this proposed goal, we have cultivated active learning of the students, from individual to collective learning. At first, they were given a text to work individually, to read and review. After that, groups were created to work on the document cooperatively, online, through the use of the office tool Google Docs. After sharing and editing the document, every group made a multimedia presentation in which all of their contributions are bundled. Finally, all of the presentations made by every one of the groups were made public. When the practical part of the course was done, the students answered a short questionnaire in which they were asked about their initial knowledge, and the level of dominion and didactic usefulness of the tool Google Docs. It is worth noting that 75% of the class did not know the application before the course and that, after using it, 92% say they would use it in the educational and professional future. This educational experience has been very satisfactory for students and professors alike.
