Fifth Grade Collaborators

Over the last two weeks,  I presented the first few lessons of our Google Docs. Pilot to a class of fifth graders.  When they heard about the “awesome” capabilities of inviting collaborators to work on their writing, the students were anxious to get started.  I followed the lessons plans I had written which included discussions about cyberbullying.  I also spoke to them techie-to-techie.  I explained that if their class could use the tools appropriately and successfully, then other students in the district might be able to use Google Docs. in the future.  They were trailblazers!!

The first assignment was to write a letter to a future 5th grader, explaining the fun and exciting events they should expect when they became 5thgraders in September.   The classroom teacher and I purposely chose a “light” topic that would be easy to write about because we are rapidly approaching the end of the year.  Also, it gave us more time to allow the students to experiment with Google Docs. to really figure out how it all worked. The students then invited a partner, the classroom teacher, and me to be collaborators on their document.  The partner left comments and footnotes within the document to help with revision.   Here is a  list of some of our successes and concerns so far:

• I posted some examples of students’ revisions on my Reflection page.  As you can see from the examples, the students used comments (within the body of the text) for one/two word revisions and footnotes for longer revision messages.  It worked very well except for the fact that some students viewed hash-tag-code after a footnote was inserted into their work.   I’m still searching for a cause/solution.  For now, we deleted it and reformatted the spacing.
• Given more time,  the classroom teacher and I could have done more coaching for students who were unsure what to suggest to their partner during revisions.  Overall, the comments and footnotes were helpful and appropriate.
• The first time the students invited collaborators to view their document, we had a handful of error messages. The kids needed to type the entire username (studentname@ kirbysmill.org) for each person they were inviting.  The text box is a bit small, and one typo caused the errors.
• We did have one student create a new document and invite his friends as collaborators to “chat” from home.  The students who were invited thought it was suspicious and told the classroom teacher.  The student erased the documents from his Google Docs., but they were still in the collaborators’ documents.  No harm was done, but it’s something to keep our eye on.  Unfortunately, not all parents monitor what their children are doing online, and although we monitor closely in school, students may choose to use these tools in an inappropriate manner from home.

This week, we will be asking the students to create a slideshowusing the presentation tool.  They are very familiar with PowerPoint, so I will do very little instruction on how to use the tool.  My plan is to give them 15 mins. to “play” and then share withthe group how to complete common tasks such as adding a new slide or inserting a picture.  Then the partners will work collaboratively  to create one “Best of Fifth Grade” slideshow.  More on this next week…