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Building teams, and encouraging students to work together, is part of our role as teachers.
Getting learners to communicate and collaborate together.
Teaching them to work in teams by physically working together, learning how to work with different personalities, while at the same time using technological tools to work more effectively, efficiently, saving time and developing greater accuracy.
By using the technology, learners may assist each other by doing peer evaluations of content, grammar and spell checks, accurate referencing.
By developing these skills, and taking ownership of the group task, each individual learner can truly be engaged in the entire project or task.
The tools which could be used by learners to achieve this,
Google documents which are shared in editing mode. This would mean that when various tasks are assigned to different people, all can work on the same document and everyone can be checking each other team members work.
Before the sharing of technology existed often one learner was given the task of collating the entire project, whereas now everyone can take responsibility.
Tools to use:
Google Drive (the green, yellow and blue triangle) The storage space for all your files and folders.
You can share your files and folders with others!
You control who has access to information on YOUR Drive!
Others can only see what you have shared, and only the people you have shared with!
Collaborate and share using all Google Productivity Suite apps
From the left: Google Text Doc, Google Spreadsheets, Google Slides for Presentations, Google Forms and Google Drawings
People could have editing rights, commenting and suggesting rights or a view only.
You decide!
Sharing a project calendar, for project deadlines, team meetings both physical and online meetings.
By sharing a calendar for the project, means that all team members have all the deadlines, meetings and activities easily available, reminders can be setup so tasks can be completed timeously.
Using Google Hangout Meets, for online meetings, would be beneficial as learners would not need to meet at one of the team members' homes, but rather continue the discussions and work, even when physically not at the same venue.
The digital tools, if used by the students could save them time. The tools could assist them in planning project timelines and provide them with organisational skills.
If as teachers' you collaborate in a similar way, think of the time you would save for yourself!
Maybe even have time in the evenings to chat to your partner, instead of doing school prep and marking!
I would love to hear your thoughts and ideas, please contact me, Karen Walstra. Explore the Courses for You page, or complete the expression of interest form.