In my school I'm trying my best to push students away from using Word. If they're making quick notes, I ask them to do it in a text editor. If they're presenting work for review I ask them to write it in markdown. This is only for my CompSci classes, but it's a start. My next mission is to break the stranglehold that PowerPoint has on my students.
I thought that might be the direction that you were moving in, and I think that is a really good idea for your particular students to get used to a source code repository and version control quickly.
One thing I have not looked at yet but may do in the future is git-annex [1] and the associated GUI [2]. I'm hoping I can use git-annex to sync folders between laptops just using an external drive.