Starting with DOcs

In This Lesson:

Creating a Google Doc is easy, but there are some things that you should keep in mind as you get started.

In this lesson you will learn different places to create a Google Doc, when to use a template or a blank

document, and how to organize your Docs.

Key Vocabulary :

Google Doc - An online word processing app.

Template - a pre-made document.

Starting in Docs or Drive

The two main ways to start a new Google Doc are to go the Docs page (docs.google.com) or to your Google Drive (drive.google.com).

Neither one is better than the other. You can create a new blank document or a document from a template from ether one. Try them both and see which one works better for you. Two things to consider are if you are working on something that will require you to open different types of Google Apps such as Slides or Sheets, you might save some time by starting in Google Drive. Another thing is if you create a Doc in docs.google.com, you will not be able to create it in a specific folder. You will have to move the file by clicking the folder icon next to the title, or go to drive.google.com and manually move the Doc to the correct folder.

Templates vs Blank Doc

Google has a small selection of Templates for Google Doc from whence to choose. If you know the kind of document that you are going to use, but are not sure how to format it, these templates can be a real time saver. The downside of using templates is that you might become reliant on them and in so never learn how to format them for yourself. You may also find that the template is just different enough that by the time you have formatted it to your liking, you really haven't saved any time then just doing it from scratch.

Naming and Moving your Doc

Naming your Doc is CRITICAL if you want to stay organized and assign or share documents with students. Untitled 42 isn't going to tell you that document is the template for your research project. Here are some ideas for how to keep your docs organized:

Create folders in Google Drive to keep similar documents together. Ex - Assignment Templates, Chapter 4 Handouts, etc.

Number your assignments. For the first assignment for chapter one you could put the number 110 in front of the title of the doc. Your second assignment could be 120 and so on. The reason you leave the last number as zero is in case you need to do a followup activity. If students struggled with 110 then you may have them redo it and name it 111.

Video Recap

Assignment 110: Creating Google Docs

For this assignment you will creating some Google Docs.

For the first Doc you will:

Create a folder in your Google Drive titled Assignment Templates.
Open the folder.
Create a new Blank Google Doc titled Assignment Template Portrait .

For the second Doc you will:

Go to docs.google.com.
Create a new blank Doc.
Title the Doc Assignment Template Landscape.
Move the Doc into the Assignment Template Folder in your Google Drive.

Click the image above to go to the assignment on Google Classroom. If you are not in the Online Basic Assignments Class, click here to request the passcode.

In the Next Lesson:

Now that you have created a Google Doc, you will learn how to format the document and the fonts.

Home Next Lesson

Report abuse