Implementation Proposal of Google Docs: A Supporting Aid for More Collaborative Learning

By Nur Abidin
A. Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and Education
The rapid growth of society and technology has been a great challenge for education. Education is expected to enable learners to be capable of solving problems, being personally productive and taking part in social development. These expectations unavoidably require teachers to be more ready in providing pedagogical practices which support learners to maximize their potencies. ICT advancement, which is viewed as a challenge, in fact, also allows educators to design more meaningful and engaging learning that is likely unable to do in other ways. It serves more problem solving activities which are more learner-centric and call on students to be more productive individuals (Newhouse 2002, p. 13). Altogether, ICT creates possibilities of educational practices that have never been considered before (Copolla 2004).

B. Institutional Background
Al-Izzah is an Islamic based-school committed to provide an alternative education at a secondary level. It tries to integrate the Islamic values with the national curriculum renowned as IHES (integrated and holistic education system). As a brand new school which was established in 2003, Al-Izzah has developed very rapidly both in terms of learning infrastructure and pedagogical practices. The students of Al-Izzah are spread over different territories both in Java and other neighbouring provinces. As an Islamic boarding school whereby students live in the school dormitory, Al-Izzah is challenged to offer learning atmosphere which is not only constructive and meaningful but also interactive and engaging for the students.

C. Pedagogical Strategies
As the students are engaged in a learning setting almost the whole day, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., students’ boredom is very likely to happen. To eliminate this issue, the school adopts active learning principles as the basis of learning activities (Imron 2007). In this approach, teacher’s creativity is deemed critical for creating an interactive class which calls on high student participation and at the same time attractive for the students. Moreover, the school executes moving class system in which classrooms are split into different learning centres including science, math, language, social and Islamic studies. In addition, in the afternoon session, from 12.30 to 2.20 p.m., students are required to attend a tutorial class consisting of less than 10 students for each learning discussion.

D. Current IT Application
To achieve the designated purposes, the employment of ICT to support teaching and learning practices is viewed essential by the school. Accordingly, ICT instalment among the units becomes a priority after the basic infrastructure is fulfilled. Presently, the school subscribes unlimited internet service and both teachers and students are equipped with a personal notebook. To support the teaching, LCD projectors are available on reserve and teacher willingness to use ICT is encouraged and highly appreciated. However, as an initial stage of ICT embracement, in this school the ICT application is restrictedly associated with powerpoint slides and videos (Copolla 2004). The lack of ICT trainings may become the viable reason for the teachers’ limited ability when using the available sources and technology. In addition, it appears that the school still does not have a specific policy on the exploitation of ICT in school (Infodev 2005).

E. Snapshot on Google Docs
Google Dos (GD’s) is an online word processor, spreadsheet and presentation editor that enables its users to create, save, edit, collaborate and share their documents and ideas quickly and securely (Google 2008). It is a free service software officially released by Google on October 2006. At glance, it works in the same way as an offline office program, however since it is stored online users will gain a lot of benefits for they can instantly retrieve and communicate their documents to others. It helps users to work more efficiently and effectively.

To use the program users who do not have a ‘gmail’ email are required to freely sign-up to create a Google account. Using their already signed up email and password, created when signing up, users can log in and operate this useful program at no cost except the internet connection. There are four basic programs that users can easily deal with including document to process word-based tasks, spreadsheet to work with number and tables, forms to create online quizzes, evaluation or questioners, and presentation to manage a collaborative presentation (Google 2008).

The sharing features of GD’s make this simple program ingeniously impressive. A team member who works separately can directly join together in an online forum. They can edit in a real time and gain feedback at the same time. In addition users can decide and determine with whom they would like to share and whether the document is published online on web-page or not.

F. Google Docs in School: Benefits and Challenges
The existence of GD’s program has benefited to a variety of parties including professionals, students, writers, businessmen and in particular educators. In a pedagogic domain, GD’s has been widely utilized both for administrative purposes such as creating lesson plan, recording students’ attendance or grades, and monitoring teachers preparation by school administrators and for instructional assistant tool (Google 2008).

As a teaching aid, GD’s helps teachers to create a more collaborative teaching situation (Cassinelli 2009). The students are encouraged to vigorously involve in their learning process through online participation either with peers or teachers. Using ‘forms’ program, teachers are also able to conduct online quizzes or assessment which can be carried out either on or off class (Google 2008). Through GD’s, teachers have more opportunities to be involved in the process of learning and not only focus on the final products of their students (Davis and Anderson 2010). Another critical value is that the execution of GD’s in teaching practices presents long-life teaching and learning situation among teachers and students. The following indicates how GD’s contributes to collaborative learning in a variety of lesson.

Science Group project, individual assignment, collaborative presentation, on-going feedback, online quizzes, homework submission, class note, digital portfolio, online simulation, online search, data processing, creating poster

Math Group project, individual assignment, collaborative presentation, peer editing, on-going feedback, online quizzes, homework submission, class note, digital portfolio, online tutorial, online drillings

Social/History Group project, individual assignment, collaborative presentation, peer editing, on-going feedback, class note, online quizzes, homework submission, jigsaw, digital portfolio, online search, online survey, global village, problem solving.

Language Group project, individual assignment, collaborative presentation, peer editing, on-going feedback, online quizzes, homework submission, digital portfolio, class note, grammatical analysis, writing journal, essay writing, personal dictionary, personal invitation, speed reading, chained story.

Nevertheless, since firstly introduced GD’s has experienced a number of revisions to better its performances and convenience. As GD’s continues to evolve, its users including educators are also getting more critical and responsive to the viable defects accompanying the execution of GD’s in practices. Several users find out that GD’s is too risky in terms of security matter (Barkah 2010, p. 42). They argue even though security issue has been put on serious consideration by Google, several incidents have indicated that GD’s as ‘a cloudy storage system’ has a greater possibilities for security breaches. Other weaknesses is dealing with free-storage capacity and formatting matter (Webster 2010, p. 42). In the latest revision, GD’s is only able to freely store at around 1 GB per user which is seemingly not sufficient for expert users. However, it should be noted that GD’s storage capacity actually can be upgraded to 20 GB or more with specific cost determined by Google Corp. Regarding to fidelity issue, some users discover that GD’s has problems when users open up word document in GD’s. In addition, users also find problems dealing with graphics and file-merging especially when they are working with spreadsheet.

G. Conclusion
As an instructional assistant aid, Google Docs has contributed significantly to the enhancement of teaching and learning process. In spite of its viable minor deficiencies, GD’s offers a number of benefits which enable educators to make their teaching more collaborative and engaging. The GD’s contribution will be much greater as the teachers have better knowledge on how to exploit GD’s from the pedagogical perspectives. Willingness to employ ICT in teaching practices and ICT trainings are among other efforts that can support the success of ICT embracement in education particularly in Al-Izzah Islamic boarding school.

H. Source of Readings

1. Copolla, ME 2004, Powering up: Learning to teach well with technology, Teacher College Press, New York.
2. Dede, C 2008, A seismic shift in epistemelogy, Educase Review, May/June, pp 80-81.
3. DuFour, R 2004, Schools as learning communities, Educational Leadership, May, vol. 61, no. 8, pp. 6-11.
4. Elliot, A 2004, When the learners know more than the teachers, viewed 25 March 2010, .
5. Elearningeuropa.info 2005, The new learning paradigm in school education, viewed 4 April 2010, .
6. Hooper, S & Rieber, LP 1995, Teaching with technology, Teaching: Theory into Practice, Allyn and Bacon, Nedham Heights, pp. 154-170.
7. Infodev 2005, Knowledge map: Teacher, teaching and ICT viewed 29 March 2010, .
8. Newhouse, PC 2002, The impact of ICT on Learning and teaching, Western Australia.
9. Organisation for Economic and Co-operation Development (OECD) 2001, Learning to change: ICT in schools, Paris.
   10. Schmoker, M 2004, Tipping point: From feckless reform to substantive instructional improvement, Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 85, no. 6, pp. 424.
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   13. http://www.google.com/educators/weeklyreader.html, viewed 1 April 2010
   14. http://www.processor.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles, viewed 3 April 2010.
   15. http://www.lpmi-alizzah.com, viewed 25 March 2010.