Teachers shared their projects and ideas

Back in September we asked teachers to send us some examples of how they used Docs in their classrooms. Teachers are some of our most avid Docs users, so I knew we would see some pretty creative ideas.

Once again, I was impressed by our teachers' creativity, ingenuity and ability to use Docs to solve every day challenges. The submissions we received ranged from forms that students use to provide peer feedback for group work or write a book review for their class to spreadsheets used to conduct science experiments. Some teachers, like Sallie Hill, even used Docs and Google Sites to run a history project with students around the world. Now that's what I call collaboration!

To see some of the best of the ideas that were submitted, check out our Docs for Teachers page. Thanks to all of you for sharing your ideas and your work. We look forward to seeing what else you come up with.

Posted by: Ashley Chandler, Docs User Operations

Access Google Docs from your Desktop

If you often work with Google Docs, you probably want more ways to access your docs quickly. A recent example is the handy Docs gadget in Gmail that shows a list of your recently accessed Google Docs right from within Gmail. Today, we'd like to introduce a desktop-based, better looking cousin.

The Google Desktop team is pleased to release a Google Docs Gadget for Google Desktop. It allows you to search and open your Google documents right from your desktop. And as an added bonus, we've included drag-and-drop uploading for documents.

We all use Google Docs here at work, which shouldn't surprise anyone. Speaking personally (though with a slight bias), we think Google Docs works well in a fast-paced work environment because you can create and share documents freely without worrying about saving them to your machine, passing around email attachments, and of course, finding them later. However, there are times when we just need to bring up the same few documents continually throughout the day. Some examples are a data entry spreadsheet, a technical manual, or that steamy romance novel you've been secretly penning during work hours. You can instead bring up the gadget and, in an instant, search and open your Google documents (hint: pressing the shift key twice brings up all your hidden Desktop gadgets).


Another handy feature is drag-and-drop uploading of files. Let's say you have a dozen documents you'd like to upload and convert to Google Docs. We'll make the claim that it is easier and faster to drag the files onto the gadget, rather than uploading them one at a time.


If you like to look at actual code, the gadget has been open sourced and can serve as a basic demonstration of how to integrate desktop applications with Google Docs using the Google Documents List Data API.

The gadget works with Linux and Windows versions of Google Desktop Gadgets. For those who use Google Apps at work, the gadget supports your work accounts as well. We hope you'll enjoy and let us know what you think. Please also send us advance copies of any romance novels you happen to write (we are both big fans of the genre).

Posted by: Ronald Ho, Product Manager & James Yum, Desktop Engineer

We've launched a new Google Docs Help Forum

As some of you may have already noticed, the Google Docs Help Forum (in English) has undergone a makeover. Here's what we've added:

• Question & answer format to help you find answered threads quickly
  
• Profiles that allow you to associate a picture with your username
  
• Ability to subscribe to threads by email or RSS feed so you can get updates
  
• Votes for the best answer to a question, and the ability to tag an answer to your question as the 'Best answer.'
  

Your feedback proved invaluable when designing the new platform. Thanks in advance for your patience as we work to build a community in the new Google Docs Help Forum. We hope you'll come check it out.

Note for non-English Docs users: if you participate in the Help Forum in another language, rest assured that our engineers are working on making this new platform available in additional languages, but we don't have a date at this time. 

Posted by: Stephen Drennan (AKA Google Docs Guide 'Steve')

Start a new document from Gmail

Last month, we announced a Google Docs gadget as a new feature in Gmail Labs. Today, I wanted to let you know about another Docs feature in Gmail Labs called "Create a Document". It gives you the ability to 1) turn an email (with all of its replies) into a Google document and 2) create a new blank document using a keyboard shortcut: 'g' and then 'w'.

Read more about this new feature on the Gmail blog.

Then try it out by going to the Gmail Labs tab under Settings, selecting "Enable" next to "Create a document" and hitting "Save Changes" at the bottom. Oh, and if you want to use that new keyboard shortcut, remember that you'll need to have keyboard shortcuts turned "on" in your General settings in Gmail.

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

It's a girl... and her name is Athena

Last week, Jason Morrison (a Google employee) and his wife Ann had their first child, the beautiful baby girl pictured above. The baby's name is Athena Marie Morrison. What's cool, fascinating, and crazy (all at the same time) about Athena's name is that Jason and Ann asked family, friends, co-workers and even random strangers across the Internet to help them name their baby.

In early September, Jason posted a simple request on his personal blog "Hey Internet, Help Us Name Our Child!" Then over the next few months, over 10,000 people all over the world voted in the baby name poll. Jason was even interviewed on Australian TV about this naming experiment.

We followed the developments intently because Jason used a Google Docs spreadsheet form to collect the votes, analyze the data, and display the results on his blog as the votes came in.

Congratulations, Jason and Ann. And welcome to the world, Athena!

Posted by: Andrew Chang, Marketing Manager

Spreading holiday cheer...Google Docs style

In addition to our initial set of holiday templates, we've just added some new holiday-themed forms to help you organize your party guest lists, Secret Santa's and more.

In the spirit of the season, we also thought it might be fun to show a more playful side of Google Docs, so here's a short video to celebrate the holidays -- enjoy!


Happy Holidays from all of us on the Google Docs team!

Posted by: Vivian Leung & Andrew Chang, Google Docs Marketing