How to use Commenting In A Google Doc To Encourage Collaboration

Published
20 February 2014
By mattbproadmin

This short video shows you how to use commenting in a Google Doc to encourage collaboration.

VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS

0:18 The 3-Rs of Collaboration

0:52 How to insert a Comment in Google Docs

2:04 How to manage your notifications

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Commenting System is the easiest way to collaborate in Google Docs [ClicktoTweet]

TRANSCRIPT

Mike: Hi. You’re with Mike Reading from GoogleAppsForEdu.com. In today’s short video, I’m going to show you how we can use the commenting system inside Google Docs to really foster collaboration.

To get a little bit of a context to this short video, I’ve written a blog post over at googleappsforedu.com/collaboration which talks about the 3-Rs of collaboration and that for collaboration to take place, we need to Read, we need to Reflect and we need to Respond. You can head onto that blog post and you can download the poster and you can read a little bit more about that.

So when we’re using Google Docs the easiest way for us to collaborate and to monitor that collaboration is to use the commenting system.

The easiest way to insert a comment is just to simply highlight the text, that you’re wanting to comment on, and just click right-click and then comment. There’s also a comment button just up here and you can also click on insert and then comment as well.

So when I click on comment, you’ll see that a little box opens up just here and I can type in my comment into this comment box. So I’ll just type in my comment, click the comment box, and you’ll notice that the comment sits there and this text remains highlighted.

Now, anyone can come along click on my comment, and they can reply to my comment just here as well.

You might notice that when you click on the comment there’s a resolve button. If I had left that comment and somebody had replied to my comment, if I was happy with the outcome of that comment thread I can click it as resolved.

Now, when I do that it ends up here in the comment section. So if I just click on comments here, you’ll see that it says that I wrote it, it tells me the date and the time, and it has the link there.

I can reply to that comment and I can re-open if I want to just there.

You’ll also notice that there’s a notifications button just here. If I click on that notifications button I can stop receiving emails when someone adds a comment, or I can just receive replies to comments that I’ve left for other people.

So the commenting system is fantastic. You don’t have to have all the comments opened up all the time. If you wanted to just have a real quick look at all the different comments inside the document, you just simply click on the comment button and scroll through those comments and see what people have written.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them in the comment section below this video.

If you’re listening to the audio version this video, then head over to the googleappsforedu.com blog and just do a quick search for commenting in Google Docs and you’ll find the video and be able to watch it there.

Lastly, would love you to head over to our YouTube channel which is www.youtube.com/teacherstraining. Just click on the subscribe button just here, when you do that you’ll be automatically notified of when new videos are created.