Setting goals at the start of the school year is never easy; as a Gr. 6 Humanities team my colleagues and I knew that during the year we would like to "trial" Google Docs for a grade wide assessment. It seemed the logical step, our tech department was investigating the possible move to Google Apps for Education for email and other functions, a trial google ed. page was created, pilot classes were identified and all we needed was the assignment /assessment.
The students had just begun a unit of study on Ancient Egypt - this was the ideal opportunity. Research on Pharaohs ~ answering essential and research questions, formatted note-taking with citations, creation of scripts all shared on google docs. Then finally an imovie to showcase their research and share with the class. During the school year the students had used blogs, wikis and first class so we knew beyond a doubt that our 90 digital natives would take to google docs with ease. Faculty members planned and collaborated on google docs; instructions, rubrics and documentation were uploaded and shared with all classes; teacher / student created screencasts for imovie in place on itunes. We were more than prepared.
Google Docs as a collaborative tool exceeded both student and faculty expectations. Students could share ideas with their partner, edit documents, upload and create documents. The autosave and sharing function allowed for continual feedback, students and teachers could track progress.
Student feedback on the assignment ? The biggest challenge, unaminously searching for quality graphics to showcase their pharoah and recording / timing narration.
Credits:
1. An interesting article and inspiration for the blog post title, from The offical Google Blog
2. Inspiration for the blog title ; David Truss; Pair a dimes for your thoughts.
3. Egyptian Pharaoh Image
