Using Google Docs to Learn French

I'm excited to talk about something I'm fooling around with right now as I take an intro French course at the University of Manitoba. Let me summarize my idea:


+ = Parlez-vous francais?


My question I'm asking in doing this "experiment" is this:

Can I use Google Docs sharing capability, to create a class-sharing community of fellow classmates who will help update a spreadsheet of vocabulary, and other important terms for our class?

So far, the results are hopeful:



The above is a screen-capture of the current "Vocabulaire" for my French class. I've only added about a dozen terms to the list. The rest, have been added by other classmates who I've "shared" this document with using Google Docs. It's very exciting seeing such an early implementation work so well. At the moment there are four of us adding new terms to help each other out with homework, quizzes, and tests.

The best part about this implementation, in my opinion, is the power to organize vocabulary by Chapter, Type (noun, adjective, verb), French, and English. Overall it's quite powerful and helpful to know about all the vocabulary we have covered so far -- instead of resorting to a huge dictionary that has way too many words than we need right now.

Actually, this could turn into a great P.D. idea if I can expand on this concept. Hmm...

And with that, bon nuit!