Garth and I recently allowed our students to collaborate in creating an online textbook. The differences in technology between our two classrooms created an interesting problem: How do we allow students to collaborate? This is how we solved that problem...
Garth's students create a GoogleDoc that was broken into all of the different "big idea" topics that were studied throughout the school year. These topics were based on the standards: Agricultural Revolution, Ancient Greece, Middle Ages, etc. Students in Garth's classes filled in this GoogleDoc with the most important key words, phrases, ideas that they could think of for each topic. At the same time, in my classes, I used butcher paper to create the same type of list. Then, I projected Garth's GoogleDoc on my front board. My students were able to watch, in real-time, as Garth's students added to their list. I had my students write information on index cards that Garth's students did not have on their list. Then, we Skyped Garth's students and told them we had been watching them work. My students would come up to the computer, one-at-a-time, and tell Garth's students concepts that we had thought of that they did not have on their list.
Our classes used these lists to help them decide what they wanted to research to add to the online textbook. As students were creating digital content in Garth's classroom, my students were in the computer lab doing the same thing. The result was that our students participated in a year-end review of our World History course together, via GoogleDocs and Skype, and were able to create web pages, PowerPoints, images, cartoons, podcasts, etc.
-Mike
Garth's students create a GoogleDoc that was broken into all of the different "big idea" topics that were studied throughout the school year. These topics were based on the standards: Agricultural Revolution, Ancient Greece, Middle Ages, etc. Students in Garth's classes filled in this GoogleDoc with the most important key words, phrases, ideas that they could think of for each topic. At the same time, in my classes, I used butcher paper to create the same type of list. Then, I projected Garth's GoogleDoc on my front board. My students were able to watch, in real-time, as Garth's students added to their list. I had my students write information on index cards that Garth's students did not have on their list. Then, we Skyped Garth's students and told them we had been watching them work. My students would come up to the computer, one-at-a-time, and tell Garth's students concepts that we had thought of that they did not have on their list.
Our classes used these lists to help them decide what they wanted to research to add to the online textbook. As students were creating digital content in Garth's classroom, my students were in the computer lab doing the same thing. The result was that our students participated in a year-end review of our World History course together, via GoogleDocs and Skype, and were able to create web pages, PowerPoints, images, cartoons, podcasts, etc.
-Mike
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