Comments in Google docs

During lunch in conversation with a Geography teacher, she mentioned to me how she was becoming increasingly frustrated at not being able to keep her comments in Google docs after the students had resolved them.

With Parent / Teacher / Student conferences coming up she wanted to show parents the comments on the first draft and the work done by students after resolving the comments, which was inadequate. She wanted to highlight to the parents that their child was not adhering to the guidance given in the comments. and there was no way she was going to screenshot each and every students work.

I tried a few things with her docs but the comments would not show even after making a copy of the file on her drive. On researching this further and testing it with various docs the only solution was to download the file in a Microsoft Word format which would show the comments in a Markup format. The other alternative was to download the file in a web page format which would Zip the file and show the comments in the bottom of the screen as a footnote.

On showing the teacher the two different solutions she was thrilled that this was far more simpler than having to screen shot or go back to the paper version, though I did mention to her that doing this for the entire class on a regular basis is impractical. Google docs may not be the answer to everything but it does take the collaboration feature to a whole new level either as a whole class or on a one-to-one level with your student. Try the app, its awesome!