ICT in my Classroom

As our summer term Google Docs project drew to a close I asked the children in my class to reflect on what we had done. I asked them to record the one thing they found the biggest challenge about working together with Google Docs and the aspect they enjoyed the most.

No I didn’t set up a Google form with a spreadsheet to pool our thoughts - I just asked them to write them on some paper speech bubbles. Some of their responses formed part of our Geography display.

Below I have transcribed them as they are, which provides a revealing picture about the project.

Biggest Challenge when working together in Google Docs:

• When everyone gets a laptop and everyone delets stuff.
• The hardest thing for me is when were in groups and we are all sharing the same document.
• Delite stuff what we need.
• My biggest challenge is problems happening on google docs like things what I cants solve for myself.
• Putting up with arguing with other people.
• The thing I find hardest is when two or more people are on the same document and are writing in the same space.
• When we are all not talking and people move stuff and people shout.
• I find it difficult when the whole group work on the same document.
• It is hard to work with other people.
• The biggest challenge is to stop arguing.
• The thing I find hard would be the working together.
• When thay move things around.
• When you are trying concentrate on your work.
• I think it has bin a tough challenge getting use to working together because you have to talk then work and then talk etc.
• Probably if somone eles deleats your work.
• It is a challing when other pepole are writing where you are,

Most enjoyable part:

• The most thing I enjoy is that we work as a group.
• What I injoy the most about Google Docs is being able to see what other people are doing.
• I’ve enjoyed it because I like doing research about india becasue there is a lot of things about india.
• I like working this way because we can chat on the computer.
• The best thing is that one person has a laptop.
• I like the fact that we can chat on google docs.
• I have enjoyed working in this way because it gives us a chance to use the laptops more and get to work in partners more.
• I’ve enjoyed it about google dogs like researching and doing a presentation.
• I enjoy working as a group.
• That we get to talk and wright on the same doc.
• I like the chat.
• We get more ideas down.
• I enjoy working on google docs and wth other people.

It is very important that these comments help to define what we do with Google Docs in the new academic year.

The children have clearly told me here that the biggest challenge is working as a group. Before we began using Google Docs the class struggled to participate collaboratively in group activities, I knew this. Working on a document at the same time as someone else is new classroom behaviour and in my opinion needs to be modelled. Just as we would model the correct way to use a hacksaw or modelling how to write in a particular style - we can facilitate the group dynamics by modelling collaborative authoring in Google Docs. But the tool is not a magic answer to communication and working in a group as you can see from the children’s comments. When you undertake a Google Docs project, if you are working on a shared doc between a group, communication and talk must be the most important focus - not the tool.

The chat has been a popular part of the work we have done, although it is only in the presentation tool that you can instant message. This did prove a very powerful learning activity and I would recommend a reflective backchannel that collates feedback to be part of future presentation projects. Comments about seeing what other people are doing and getting more ideas down are interesting as children perhaps become more accountable for their contributions in a group - reminding me of the way Voicethread allows you to see the efforts of others.

There have been many positives from this project and I have been really pleased how Google Docs has performed so reliably under classroom conditions (30 laptops 1 wireless access point) and I would strongly recommend the two following elements to focus on if you are undertaking a similar project with your classes.

1. Model good practices - much of what the children will experience with synchronous document editing is totally new. They may have never done anything like it before and it is a new way to work in the classroom. We found that the children had a better understanding both functionally and socially/collaboratively when we modelled good practice, and gave a commentary about what we were doing as we worked together in Google Docs.
2. Communication is key - beyond learning about the functionality of Google Docs (which they picked up very quickly) the children need to understand why communicating as a group is so essential. Spend time talking with the children about what to expect and how best to approach different situations. Troubleshoot groups going off track and work as a class to help solve and suggest solutions. I asked my children are you making your work C.L.E.A.R - Communication with your team, Listening to what is going on around you, Eye contact when we are talking, Ask about problems or issues and Review what is going on in the team. (Once again number 1 can apply a great deal here)

I wish you success with your own classroom Google Docs projects and hope that some of these insights help you to better use the tools to impact children’s learning. Please drop me a line to say what you are up to.

Other relevant posts:

• Google Apps in School - Week 1 , Week 2 , Week 3 , Week 4 , Weeks 5+6
• Creating an emotion graph using Google forms
• Marking work in Google Docs

Other relevant posts:

• Google Apps in School - Week 1 , Week 2 , Week 3 , Week 4 , Weeks 5+6
• Creating an emotion graph using Google forms
• Marking work in Google Docs

• Teachers TV
• Tutpup.com
• Voicethread
• Google Docs

We have been using spreadsheets from Google quite considerably this year. The main strength over Excel is the ability to share the data that is generated and benefit from a pooling of efforts and results. One of the most recent uses in my Year 5/Grade 4 class was during a History lesson, in which we were exploring why the River Nile is so important to Egypt. I posed the question quite openly and asked the children to explore some climate data about different world cities in order to refer it against some of the major sities in Egypt. I have embedded the spreadsheet below.

Each child was given a few different cities to explore and using our class laptop resource they independently investigated average rainfall, temperature etc. They added the results into the correct sheet and as we all worked we were able to see the other results popping up.

At the end of the session I posed the main enquiry once again, “Why was/is the River Nile so important to Egypt?” I asked the children to use the “Discuss” tab (top right, next to “Share” and “Publish”) and to write their answers in the instant messaging tool. Once they had added their response I asked them to join me in front of the SMARTBoard to finish the session.

The “Discuss” tool allowed me to quickly collate all of the children’s thoughts into one place and display them on the IWB to discuss. It proved to be a good focused activity to finish the independent session and it generated some interesting points to discuss in the plenary. Here is the unedited transcript of what they responded with.

year5tb: because it dosen’t rain much.

me: the river nile

year5tb: so they can drink beacuse they can drink and stay healthy. So they can drink from in it. ? Hi J.C!

Because they don’t realy have much precipitation to live on.

They hardly have any precipitatoin and the River Nile is the only water they have

year5tb: because theres no fresh water to help there land stay moist. Becues it is the most hotist and driay and that is the only warter. Because it’s the only river in eygit. That the only river. We think that the river Nile is important because the weather is so dry and hot. It is the only wet river they have.

Why is the river niel inportent becuase the river is dray and it is not so wet. So they can keep fresh.

me: Because they hardly have eny rain fall

year5tb: Because its hot and dose’nt rain much.

So egypt can have water from the river and then take it back to there village.

As you can see in the text there is plenty to discuss with the children and we referred back to the spreadsheet as we talked and justified some of the ideas. It brought all of their thoughts into one place and became a clear focal point for closing the lesson. I think that the idea of a simple message board service / tool would be really useful for a laptop session whether in GDocs or not - perhaps something to explore, it would have to be something light, with no login so children can just get in and add their response.

(If I were to ask the children do something similar in the future I will ask them to add an initial to the post so that it becomes more useful for assessment purposes.)

I was pleased to discover that Edublogs now has the functionality to embed iframe, javacript and most object code into blog posts and sidebars. Below I have embedded the two different Google presentations on sharing good practice in Google Earth and using the IWB.

If you would like to contribute to the ongoing development of these two presentations just let me know you have a tip to share.

In order to embed a Google presentation into a post, like I have done above, just follow the screenshots.

If you have any other ways you have used javascript, iframes code etc in your Edublogs let James and the rest of the community know.

A little while back the EdTechRoundup team had the wonderful opportunity of interviewing the Google Applications Edu Team in the UK. We asked our networks, via the blog, wiki and Twitter, to contribute their questions.

Over at the EdTechRoundup blog the serialised answers are being published, as the title suggests, one per day. Please take some time to head on over and read the three responses so far and if you had submitted a question perhaps yours will be up next.

We would particularly appreciate any comments left there that continue the debate, as I know the Google team are watching!