EDU80010 Collaboration: Teaching in the Digital Age

Members:

Maxine Khan: maxine.w.khan@gmail.com

Andrea Macleod: andreamacleod@me.com
Hayley Nasrawi: hayleynasrawi@hotmail.com

WEEK 7- COLLABORATION
Group Goals:
1. To present an argument for why you might encourage your students to collaborate.
2. To create a list of technologies that, as teachers, you can use to enable your students to
collaborate.
3. To apply one of those technologies to a range of classroom activities of the teams devising. This
week the focus of the classroom activity should be on collaboration.
4. To identify other tools you found that you can use to collaborate?

1. Encouraging Students to Collaborate:

Enhanced ideas through cognitive learning

Open discussion so as not to be blinkered to one worldview
collaborative learning can sustain engagement
To build personal and social capability - Melbourne Declaration highlights needed for

effective participation in the digital age

Collaboration provides joint problem solving and social support - collaboration
fluency a parallel fluency to solution fluency (Global Digital Citizenship Foundation)
To learn to respect the viewpoint of others
Gain and learn from other students ideas and knowledge on topics

2. List of Collaborative Technologies

Dropbox- Everyone working on single document

Edmodo- Customisable website used across Students\Parents\Teachers
Talkboard (app)- Collaborative drawing ipad app
Mindmeister- collaborative Mindmaps
Popplet -- collaborative mindmaps
Trello
Blogs (blogger, Weebly, Wordpress)
WikiSpace

 Padlet- Collaboration where students can add and edit work of other (similar to
google Docs)
Whiteboard: Collaboration Drawing App- collaboration in a fun way
Primary Wall- sticky note (Pin board) great for brainstorming.
3. To apply one of those technologies to a range of classroom activities of the teams devising.
Year three Humanities class investigating celebrations can use a class Popplet to
work in teams with each team investigating one commemoration and one celebration
and in particular why these are remembered or celebrated. Each student could take
a particular research role, such as primary or secondary. After initial research,
students work together in their group to discuss their findings and to identify
similarities and differences and different perspectives of a celebration and
commemoration. Once these similarities differences, and perspectives are
negotiated they are added to the class Popplet along with other groups inputs. This
creates rich data source in one location, which can be used for further discussion
and collaboration.

WEEK 8- EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Group Goals:
1.
2.

To present an argument for why you might encourage your students to communicate.
To create a list of technologies that, as teachers, you can use to enable your

3.

students to communicate.
To apply one of those technologies to a range of classroom activities of the teams

devising. This week the focus of the classroom activity should be on communication.
4. To identify other tools you found that you can use to communicate?

Here are some questions to ask yourself as you work through the activity:

What stage is your team at? Did you get beyond forming?

What actions have you taken to help your team move towards the performing

stage?
Do you feel any level of accountability towards your own and others learning?
Beyond the obvious (the difficulty in forming teams online), what other challenges

have you faced in contributing to your team?

How have you overcome those challenges?

1. Encouraging Students to Communicate:

Student communication should essentially start with classroom discussions this
doesnt single out students and allows for the whole class to gain a basic
understanding of the content. (Rika, 1996 v 3, n 4, pp174-79.)
Good communication skills better equip us to convey our ideas and representations
(Ewing, Lowrie & Higgs, 2010, pp.12-21)
Media fluency is essential in the digital age. We are now prosumers in that we
construct our own communications and can choose our medium, and reach a wide
audience. To be effective participators, students need to be taught how to plan and
construct communication for an intended purpose. (Global Digital Citizenship
Foundation)
Making students aware of different language registers and how to use these
effectively to communicate with a wide variety of situations
Communication supports collaborative activities (Global Digital Citizenship
Foundation)

Engaging students in effective communication could involve:

Role playing activities
Interviewing a guest speaker
Writing newspaper articles
Inquiry Based activities- researching a specific topic and reporting on findings
Class discussion on world issues and interests of the class.

2. List of Communication Technologies

Text to speech technologies

Tellagami talking avatar
Audio recording and editing: Garageband, Audacity, Soundbooth
Youtube iMovie, VideoStudio and other video editing/publishing software
Blogs and Websites

 Edmodo- student-teacher communication on homework, tasks and overall

achievement
My Big Campus- Student-Teacher connectivty.
Instant messaging- Whatsapp, Viber, Skype, Google Hangouts, Facebook

In addressing the third goal, ensure you give concrete examples of authentic tasks
that students might engage with. Remember to state a grade level, and a curriculum
area.
3. Application of learning technologies to a range of classroom activities of the
teams devising.
YEAR 5- ENGLISH
Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive print and multimodal
texts, choosing text structures, language features, images and sound appropriate to
purpose and audience (ACELY1704)
The project involves student writing up a news article for print (newspaper) and then
adjusting it to suit other media channels:

online article
TV news report
Radio
News show debate
Hence the emphasis being on how information changes with regards to the
communication channel. Students need to consider audience of each outlet as well
as the most effective way to present the information. Students will also be required to
possess a strong skillset in video and audio recording and editing and online
publishing.

WEEK 9- CREATIVITY and INNOVATION

Task: To use Google Docs with a small group of your peers to achieve the group
goals set out below.
Group Goals:
To present an argument for why you might encourage your students to be creative
and innovative.
To create a list of technologies that, as teachers, you can use to enable your
students to be creative and innovative.
To apply one of those technologies to a range of classroom activities of the teams
devising. This week the focus of the classroom activity should be on creativity and
innovation.
To identify other tools you found that you can use to be creative and innovative?

1. Encouraging Students to Be Creative and Innovative

Why encourage students creative thinking?
Creative thinking can lead innovative solutions to problems. Its a necessary skill for
effective participation in the 21st Century (ASCD)
To provide support for students natural curiosity, exploration and play, students
should be provided with opportunities to share their thoughts, ideas and feelings.
This occurs most effectively through, for example, a variety of art, music, movement,
dance, imaginative and role-play activities, mathematics, and design and technology.
(EYFS)
Creativity involves children in initiating their own learning and making choices and
decisions.
Childrens responses to what they see, hear and experience through their senses
are individual and the way they represent their experiences is unique and valuable.
To give students an equal opportunity to express owns imagination

How can you develop students creative thinking?

Using the five Is of Creative Fluency as guidance (Global Digital Citizen Foundation)
Identify - load brain with the data of the current problem and identify what you need
to create.

 Inspire - feed the creative hunger with rich sensory information

Interpolate - consistently analyse and find patterns in the data
Imagine - creation of an idea that brings something new into existence or reinvents
something
Inspect - evaluate to see if it has achieved a solution to the problem
Divergent thinking tasks can also support creativity and innovation, such as mind

mapping, brainstorming, freewrite, De Bonos six thinking hats.

Manage failure - make mistakes meaningful (ASCD) - learn and grow from mistakes
Modelling creative thinking in the classroom
(ASCD
When you are being creative, nothing is wrong - John Cleese (InformEd, 2014)
Encourage risk taking (Ed Tech Review, 2014) - group work can encourage this

2. List of Technologies that allow students to create and innovate

Youtongo https://www.yutongo.com/how-it-works this application is potentailly not
suitable for primary school students becuase it may put them into contact with
unknown adults. You can use closed groups, but Id have to check if that locks
students in. But the model is a great one, and a teacher could design a similar

approach by creating a network of international student collaborators

Popplet
Book creator
mind map software, coggle, bubbl Us
123D Design
Sculpt+
Whiteboard: Collaboration Drawing App
Heres a list of others from the blog post that Sharon just posted. I havent looked at
them, ive just dumped them in. I like the way they are sectioned. (this is awesome!
thanks!! -max)
Encourage observation

Evernote
GoodNotes
MomentDiary
Develop Questioning Skills
Popplet
Idea Sketch
Brainstorming
Trello

Spiderscribe
Edmodo
iBrainstorm
padlet
Freemind
iCardSort
Name Dice
Text2MindMap
Visualization Skills

123D Catch
SyncSpace
Paper by FiftyThree
Adobe Ideas
Whiteboard Pro
Pic-Collage
Brushes

Links and references

http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/educationupdate/dec08/vol50/num12/Developing-Students'-Creative-Skills-for-21st-CenturySuccess.aspx
InformEd, 2014. http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/divergentthinking/
Ed Tech Review 2014 http://edtechreview.in/trends-insights/insights/1155-how-topromote-creativity-in-your-classroom