Ideas for Shared Documents

Further to my discussion on using Google Docs, I would envisage a letter being sent home to parents asking that they guarantee access to the Internet on the three days that I have lessons in Psychology and Biology. During access students will have to:

• read certain documents that I publish. For example, course outlines and assignments given out in class. This is a fairly passive process but I could ask students to comment on the publication - ask for clarification, suggest some resources of their own etc. This would be a document that I publish. I wonder if there was a way to ensure that they have read it?
  
• work individually on a document. At this stage, I am looking at formative documents only that they would work at online so that I could monitor their progress and give immediate feedback. I am not sure about summative work as I could not guarantee that it was student work (not coerced friends or even parents) but maybe some of the research notes and plans could be done online. This would be a document that I would collaborate with one student.
  
• work as a group on a collaborative project. This would involve me setting up the document name and then inviting groups of students to contribute. This could help me monitor their progress and check to see the quantity and (more importantly) the quality of each students contribution to the project. This would be a document that I would collaborate with a group of students.
  
• work on a document as a class. This could include posting aspects of the syllabus and asking them to explain it in their own words, or posting a question that they need to answer and discuss with others. It could include a class revision resource where collectively they try to understand the key points of the course at the end of the year. This would be a document that I would collaborate with the whole class.

The idea, then, is to ensure that students have access to the internet all the time - including having a back up plan if things go wrong at home. They would have constant access to the document (no more excuses like "I've done it but left it at home") and, in theory, I could have constant access to what they are doing (Big Brother-like).
The other aspect that this opens up is if parents complain that students are not doing homework or say that they have no homework. There is the possibility that I give parents access to the sites as well! What about Subject Coordinators? Hmmm. The possibilities look endless.