What is it?
What does collaborating online for both teaching and learning mean? It's quite simple really, it's using tools such as Skype or Google Meet to interact with other groups in places where you normally couldn't communicate or work with. This other group could be from the town over, to someone around the globe!
Why Should You Care About This?
It's an amazing opportunity to open up learning in your classroom! It allows students to see other perspectives on issues/items, that they might not see because of group think mentality.
I believe that the biggest bonus to online collaboration, and the reason I'm most excited about is just the ability to interact with and learn from people of different cultures!
What does collaborating online for both teaching and learning mean? It's quite simple really, it's using tools such as Skype or Google Meet to interact with other groups in places where you normally couldn't communicate or work with. This other group could be from the town over, to someone around the globe!
Why Should You Care About This?
It's an amazing opportunity to open up learning in your classroom! It allows students to see other perspectives on issues/items, that they might not see because of group think mentality.
I believe that the biggest bonus to online collaboration, and the reason I'm most excited about is just the ability to interact with and learn from people of different cultures!
How Will I Use this as a Teacher?
There are a couple ways to do this! Below I'll go over three different ways I plan on using online tools to collaborate between other classes, or even within mine! (Yes, you can collaborate online even within your own classroom!)
Padlet
Padlet is a wonderful app that is built for online collaboration. If you are not familiar with it, it's similar to an online tack-board where people can add things. So, let's say you want students in your class to research a place and you have them split up into three groups or something. But, now you need a place for them to share the findings on their research, this is where Padlet comes in. Padlet is great for combining research in easy to read and follow pages. An example of something like this is below inside of the sample COIL project.
There are a couple ways to do this! Below I'll go over three different ways I plan on using online tools to collaborate between other classes, or even within mine! (Yes, you can collaborate online even within your own classroom!)
Padlet
Padlet is a wonderful app that is built for online collaboration. If you are not familiar with it, it's similar to an online tack-board where people can add things. So, let's say you want students in your class to research a place and you have them split up into three groups or something. But, now you need a place for them to share the findings on their research, this is where Padlet comes in. Padlet is great for combining research in easy to read and follow pages. An example of something like this is below inside of the sample COIL project.
Google Slides
Google Slides you say? Why yes! And it can be very easily done as well, even more so than say a boring Google Doc. A really easy way to have your students collaborate online using Google Slides is to build a set of slides that each have a purpose. Have the students split into groups to research certain things (These options would be whatever you wanted them to research and would be the pages you created in slides), then have them fill in what they have learned on their respective slide. Here is a sample Slides to show you what I mean; Research about Minnesota.
Google Slides you say? Why yes! And it can be very easily done as well, even more so than say a boring Google Doc. A really easy way to have your students collaborate online using Google Slides is to build a set of slides that each have a purpose. Have the students split into groups to research certain things (These options would be whatever you wanted them to research and would be the pages you created in slides), then have them fill in what they have learned on their respective slide. Here is a sample Slides to show you what I mean; Research about Minnesota.
Skype
Let's say you want to take your class on a fieldtrip somewhere, but it's not logistically possible to go there. Say this place is a long ways away from where you teach.
This is actually the one way to use online collaboration that excites me the most. Really, this is the time where you tie in one of the previous project, or at least something similar into a truly online collaboration project. But wait, what exactly is COIL? COIL stands for; Collaborative Online International Learning. This is where you find another cooperating classroom from somewhere else in the world and work on a project with them! What an awesome experience for your students and actually a glimpse into the future for some of them who will be using these tools to work on projects in their future careers.
In fact, Skype actually has a program to support teachers in this way! The link here will take you to a site that is filled with resources to help you if this is something you would like to do in your classroom!
Link to Microsoft's Skype in the Classroom website
Let's say you want to take your class on a fieldtrip somewhere, but it's not logistically possible to go there. Say this place is a long ways away from where you teach.
This is actually the one way to use online collaboration that excites me the most. Really, this is the time where you tie in one of the previous project, or at least something similar into a truly online collaboration project. But wait, what exactly is COIL? COIL stands for; Collaborative Online International Learning. This is where you find another cooperating classroom from somewhere else in the world and work on a project with them! What an awesome experience for your students and actually a glimpse into the future for some of them who will be using these tools to work on projects in their future careers.
In fact, Skype actually has a program to support teachers in this way! The link here will take you to a site that is filled with resources to help you if this is something you would like to do in your classroom!
Link to Microsoft's Skype in the Classroom website
How I Will Have Students Complete a COIL Project
So how would I have my students go about doing a COIL Project? Remember, COIL stands for Collaborative Online International Learning. First of all we need to figure out a project and subject.
For this project, let's say we are wanting to learn about the U.K. Just in general actually, like culture, habits, schooling, things like that.
So how would I have my students go about doing a COIL Project? Remember, COIL stands for Collaborative Online International Learning. First of all we need to figure out a project and subject.
For this project, let's say we are wanting to learn about the U.K. Just in general actually, like culture, habits, schooling, things like that.
The Plan
Well, first you are going to need a COIL partner. This is easiest if you know someone teaching in another town, state, or country and give you an in. If you don't have someone, a site like ePals can help you find someone for the other end. The previous link to Skype's education website can also be a help with this. For this project, we need a classroom in the U.K. that is roughly the same age group as our class, and is willing to participate and learn more about maybe say, your state or whatever.
The purpose of our project, as said before, it to learn about the other country. We want to learn thing like what do they do for fun? What are their favorite foods? What is their favorite music? We just want to learn about them!
So how are we going to go about doing this? Well, it can be relatively simple actually! There are roughly three steps to doing this project after you have a partner.
The purpose of our project, as said before, it to learn about the other country. We want to learn thing like what do they do for fun? What are their favorite foods? What is their favorite music? We just want to learn about them!
So how are we going to go about doing this? Well, it can be relatively simple actually! There are roughly three steps to doing this project after you have a partner.
- Find out what you can about them on your own! Come up with some topics for your students to research and see what they can find on their own. Using something like Padlet to combine all of their research is a good way to do this
(The above is a sample of what your Padlet could look like, with students answering the questions as they do research.
- Come up with some questions to ask the other classroom! You want to learn about this other place, so have your students come up with questions to ask the other class. You can be as creative or straightforward here as you like really, but keep it withing reason for the age groups.
- Now, you would swap research and questions with each other and and answer them. This can be done by sharing Padlets or using a Google Doc or Slides that is then shared with your cooperating peers. Or maybe you use something like Skype and directly asking the other class those questions.
- Well, for one, you probably want to separate your students into groups so that everyone can participate in creating a video. You probably want to have groups smaller than/equal to 5, but more than or equal to 3.
- After you split the students up, I would have them be brainstorming how they are going to create their videos. You don't want your students just looking into a camera speaking at it. That is boring. Bleh. Encourage them to think about things like illustrations, acting out certain things, singing popular songs from where the other class is from! Think outside the box and have fun with it! You want the students to really think about how they express what they have learned.
- If you have iPads for your students, then the built in camera is very nice. Then using something like iMovie to make the video works well.
- After the videos are created, you're going to want to put them into a Google Drive folder, or upload them as a private YouTube video. Once that is done, you can share the videos with the cooperating classroom. If you go the YouTube route, then creating a shared Google Doc with links to all of the videos would make it easier to share them.