Paperless Papers

I'm not exactly sure where this blog is going, but for right now I will share some of the ups and downs I experience in the classroom.


My students submitted their research papers by sharing them with me on Google Documents.  It was an ambitious project.  The learning curve has been...overwhelming interesting.


First of all, it has taken me about 30 minutes a paper to grade and correct their work.  I didn't post their grade on their paper, but they can see all the errors as soon as I finish grading their paper.  I'm turning back grades on a handout this week.


What have I learned?  It would be best to start this on a small project.  "The Perfect Paragraph" would be an excellent 1st attempt. 


To be honest, if the students had done some proofreading and peer editing, this assignment would have been much easier to grade.  (I finally decided that many of them had to believe that the word underlined in red meant that Google was complimenting them on word choice.  They obviously didn't think to check the spelling.)


I will use Google docs for paperless papers again, and I will be smarter next time in what I require of them.