Developing Online Collaboration Skills in the General Chemistry Laboratory

Online collaboration is a vital 21st-century technology skill. So how can online collaboration be incorporated into general chemistry? We are using Google Drive spreadsheets and forms to develop online collaboration skills in students. The forms capability allows easy collection of data for class comparison and student feedback. The information collected in a spreadsheet can be projected for class discussion, or can easily be downloaded and analyzed in Excel. This is an effective way to gather class statistics on experimental data. We have started to use the Google chat feature to promote discussion in the laboratory of class data, such as looking for uniformity in data or analyzing errors across groups. This is done by posting a link to the form to enter data for student groups and then the link to the spreadsheet of data (which only instructors can edit) and having students open it in the lab. With multiple openings the chat feature is enabled. Any discussion is anonymous unless students or lab groups identify themselves (students are not signed into Google Drive). These mock online collaborations are a valuable start and demonstrate the ease and power of the technology. Collaborative group projects or reports are a logical next step, which would require students to have a Google account.