I am a big fan of collaborative documents. Having all students in the class on the same spreadsheet allows you to collect student ideas and crowdsource information. Once concern about collaborative documents is students accidentally deleting each others work. If a spreadsheet is explicitly shared with the students, Google Classroom does this automatically, the student can protect their contribution.
Right Click
After selecting a cell or a range of cells, the student will right-click to reveal a menu of options. Students choose “Protect range.”
Name Range
Students can name the range they wish to protect and click the blue “Set permissions” button.
Customize Sharing Permissions
The next screen reveals who has editing permissions on that range. Students should click on “Custom.”
Students should choose the option “Only you and the spreadsheet owner.” While students can lock other students out of editing portions of the spreadsheet, they can not restrict the teacher (owner).
Tips
- Students can click on the row indicator to highlight the entire row. Right click on the row indicator to protect the entire row.
- Students can create a tab in the spreadsheet and protect the entire sheet by clicking on the arrow on the tab and choosing “Protect sheet.”
- Use alicekeeler.com/rostertab to create a sheet in the spreadsheet for each student. Students can protect their sheet from editing.