True Collaboration In The Classroom

Students using Google Docs to collaborate.

A couple of weeks ago I started my Stop-Motion Animation Unit. Typically the work done in my class is individual, my classroom is a computer lab and I teach each class only twice a week (although students do help, teach, demonstrate and share their individual projects with each other). For the stop-motion unit I have the students in teams of 4 where they brainstorm, write a script, design characters, design and build sets and props, film and then work on the post-production aspects of their project together.
This year I am using Google Docs, I set up Google Apps for Education at my school this past fall, so now all students have a school email and access to the Google tools. In the past I approached this project in a very typical "group setup", assigning roles, using paper handouts where the students were to write up the scripts etc, encouraging them to use shared digital documents, but because of the time constraints I was never really able to figure out anything even partially successful.
This time round everything changed. The students have all been collaborating real time, using the chat feature to brainstorm with each other, and writing up the outline, script, planning their sets, characters, materials, in a very authentic and engaged way using Google docs. I set up a template that had an outline and basic writing prompts so each group had a common starting point. I am amazed at how much work has been done so far in the writing and planning aspect of this project while the sets and the props have also been built. Last time it seemed as if I was pulling teeth when it came to the writing and the planning and storyboarding.
The real highlight of this process is the participation of every group member. I have always had trouble with the idea of group work because I typically see group work in other classes being the "smart" or "motivated" kid doing the writing and the "other kids" in the peripheral, either contributing verbal suggestions or maybe just sitting there, knowing that the work will get done and the group grade will work to their favour.
I am excited about the energy radiating from the students so far as they work out their ideas together, in a truly collaborative way.
(more photos of their work in progress)

A Funny Thing Happened

...in my 12-1 class this week. We are working on Glogs, they are really enjoying it. Previously they had created some awesome animations using Animation-Ish and I wanted the students to have a place they could share their work online. They worked on creating their Glogs for 2 classes, and getting a feel for what Glogster was all about. We have extremely slow internet connection at school, painfully slow, dial-up modem-like slow. It is difficult and frustrating enough for these students to write and express themselves, without being challenged by slow loading graphics and delayed responses to clicks. It was hard for them to include the introductory text I wanted them to write.
Next class I told them that we were going to use Text-Edit to write the couple of sentences that described their animations, and explain to the viewer what they were most proud of in the work. I said it would be easier to type it here first them copy and paste to the slower Glogster page.
Then I watched them sit there, frozen, in front of the computers, there was so little work going on, no excitement, no motivation, for the rest of the class. After that class, where maybe a few complete sentences in all were written, I thought about what happened.
I thought about how discouraging it must be to not feel comfortable with the written word, to feel at war with writing, at expressing oneself in this way. Such a fundamental way of communicating with others. So I decided to ask them about it.
Next class (I see them twice a week), I asked them about how they felt about writing (they had negative feelings...) and what about communication (of course, everyone wants to communicate...). I asked them if they text their friends, (yes) and if that was the same as typing something for school, (no).
So I told them that the reason I wanted them to add some written work to their Glog was so they could share with others their excitement about what they had produced and explain it to their audience. I told them to pretend they were just "texting" their friends, to not care about spelling and grammar and mistakes, that was the easy stuff to fix later and the important stuff was the ideas and what they wanted to tell their audience about their fantastic work.
By the end of the class they had all written something, and funny thing was they didn't have horrible grammar or mis-spelled words at all, and they added that to their Glogs and we are almost ready to publish them to the world!!!

So what is my point here? This is a groups of students who have been at odds with school since they started attending. I have been watching them begin to light up when learning and producing includes more creative forms and less traditional forms of literacy (the pen and paper and worksheet). Each week I see them they arrive to my class more engaged and excited to be there. The power of many of these so called Web 2.0 tools is in getting students excited about learning, something many of them have equated with "schooling" for far too long.