Notes / Details From Monterey 2006 Presentation click here

Which one does not belong?

Discuss what audience found to "not belong". Talk about "problems" with the assignment. Finally, why did I start with this assignment - COLLABORATION

Goals of the session

Title: My Bill of Rights

Assignment: Students draft their version of the Bill of Rights

Deliverable: Link (and password) to the writeboard

Issue: Time / Space (hard to get group together at the same time, same place to create/edit document)

Technology: Writeboard

Follow-up: Teacher can review the progress (versions) and add comments (comments can be about the end result or regarding the process)

Title: Can I Borrow Your Notes?

Assignment: Students maintain a summary of the topics discussed in class resulting in a review sheet.

Deliverable: All is done on the same wiki, so no need to "hand in" anything.

Issue: Accountability (making sure everyone is doing their share)

Technology: Wiki

Follow-up: At the end of the year, students can review other classes / years work. Gets them to review the topics with a critical eye.

Title: "My friends agreed, I had the meanest grandmother in the whole world"

Assignment: Groups develop a character sketch. The deliverable includes a narrative that introduces the reader to the character followed by bullet-point list of the character’s characteristics.

Deliverable: Each team invites you to collaborate so you have access to the file.

Issue: Concurrency (if one person is working on a document, others must stay out. student can "lock" document)

Technology: Google Docs (Writely)

Follow-up: At the end of the year, students can review other classes / years work. Gets them to review the topics with a critical eye.

Title: Teenage Sleep Habits

Assignment: Each student (in multiple sections) records the time that he/she went to sleep and awoke for a week. Groups of students formulate hypotheses regarding sleep habits (e.g. boys sleep more than girls, or section A sleeps less than section B, or kids wake later each day of the week (Mon - Fri).

Deliverable: Participation - documenting the hypothesis; record sleep habit each night; evaluation of the data

Issue: Organization (keeping track of everyone's contributions and maintaining it in a central location)

Technology: Zoho - Spreadsheet

Follow-up: At the end of the year, students can review other classes / years work. Gets them to review the topics with a critical eye.

Title: My Dog Ate It?

Assignment: This is a teachers' issue.

Issue: Management (how to keep track of everyone's contributions without having to check sites every day.)

Technology: Rss & Google Frontpage

Follow-up: Collaboration is a process but in traditional collaborative project, only the end result is assessed. These online tools make it possible for teacher to see the process. Keeping track of all of the changes being made (work being done) by your students is difficult especially if you must go to each project and see what has changes. RSS to the rescue.