Tilting Thinking -Join the Technology Party

I've been working on Googledocs with my ELL's as part of NWP's Letters to the Next President project. These letters must be composed and collaborated on Googledocs. After the walk through and class playtime with Googledocs, my students thought they got the idea of sharing documents. I thought I got it too. We didn't. I realized we were relying on our previous frame of reference of what it means to write and share an email, send an attachment, craft a posting for a discussion board or blog, or even draft in a wiki. We needed to forget what we knew about writing with other technology tools.

I was stuck in "email attachment" mode for sharing documents. I didn't grasp the concept of one document is really one document until I sent the class one template thinking it would morph into mulitple single copies (reflective duh). Well each student renamed it and then I watched the storm of changes on the screen from the LCD projector. They were all renaming the same document instead of making their own versions. One person typed and then the next deleted. The actual demonstration of my misunderstanding made it click for me and my students. This was one document.(another reflective duh)

First, I learned not to skip steps in directions given from far more experienced Googledoc users. So much for trying to save time. Next, I needed to forget my prior experience and just go for a new ride. I was grasping for connections to understand how to collaborate on Googledocs so I didnt' get the point. My students just wanted to send emails so they sent new invites to collaborate with every draft they revised. I couldn't keep up.

Finally my students and I made the analogy that Googledocs is like a party. You invite others to your party and they come to your party and they leave the party but it continue to go on. We only invite someone once and they can always visit our party. If a colaborator (guest) is deleted, then the party is closed to them.

So far this is working. They like inviting others to their party and my inbox is under control.