So, I moved on to using Google docs, creating a new doc for each class I teach and opening it for editing by anyone with the URL, which I conveniently link to my LibGuide for the course (see the “Areas of research – educational reform” link on this Education 111 courseguide). In this case, I had students list areas of educational reform they were most interested in exploring; we then looked over the list together and thought about how we might locate resources for particular topics. The list also served as a way for students to see what their classmates were interested in exploring and perhaps get additional ideas for their own research. An unexpected benefit is that students were able to use the doc after our session — their professor asked them to post their research questions and thoughts to the class doc as they continued their research on their own.
