Session+7

="7.1 Collaboration"= What is collaboration? What are 3 ways in which students collaborate in your classroom and are they successful?
 * My idea of collaboration is group effort resulting in shared problem solving, analysis, evaluation, discovery, and presentation. Collaboration is a convergence of ideas springing from the belief that individuals working together are more effective than an individual and is a valuable tool for leveling the playing field and helping each member of a collaborative acquire needed skills and understandings.


 * 1) Students have had to write group essays. The group decides together on the topic, works independently on body paragraphs to support the working thesis, and then works collaboratively to create the finished thesis, introduction and conclusion, and to revise and edit. Some groups have worked online, revising and editing each others work; this has been both good and bad. For this assignment, no single student is assigned a leadership role. The groups end by presenting their discoveries, thesis, new understanding, and take questions or field rebuttal. It is a great assignment from the teacher's perspective because students take their assumptions and curiosity back to the text, analyze and evaluate, come to new understandings, share their new found theories, and teach the class about one major theme from the text. It is also pleasant to watch the audience listen, agree/disagree. All seem to come to a new appreciation of the text
 * 2) Students have made pamphlets using publisher to advertise a literature circle/independent reading book each member of the group read. Here technology is used, although no videos have been included nor tech. based presentations made. The groups collaborated on preparing a handout and shared the information about the author and story elements within the pamphlet. This task was not as easy as it sounds because members of the group had varying levels of competence even using a computer; adding pictures and text was difficult for some. Yet, some students were very talented and creative and could have done the work alone. As with all group work, the hope is that those with few skills to bring to the project leave with more skills and better understanding when it is completed. The students did seem happy to have been able to be creative and have a product to show for their labor.
 * 3) Students have worked on text based posters similar to the pamphlet project. Technology is used for information, images, and text. The posters became tools for in-class presentations and teaching tools.

="7.2 Video Response"=


 * 1) == How can expanded use of technology help develop depth and breadth for our students? ==

The past practices within schools seem obsolete due to the dramatic realities technology has brought about in our eworld, in the job market, and for the individual attempting to transition successfully into the future. Schools are mandated to prepare students for the rigors of the future and technology; new ways of teaching and preparing students, made more obvious with Randy Nelson’s lecture on the need for breadth, depth, communication, and collaboration and assigning projects using technology are the best ways to prepare students for tomorrow. They need to link learning and activities to the environment and real world, real time experiences is dependent on technology. Technology directed assignments will help students develop the depth and breadth needed to succeed beyond the classroom. Each new experience within each of multiple courses will help develop a breadth and appreciation of all the different opportunities available. Working to problem solve will develop depth. Nelson really values the importance of breadth and depth and for helping individuals develop mastery in a number of activities. The more technology based projects students try the greater their breadth of experiences. Each new achievement using technology will help students develop a sense of their own potential and thus building their ability to persevere and succeed in any number of fields. This all seems to return to the idea of inquiry based learning which will provide students with multiple challenges and stretch each student’s academic breadth and depth. Without active use of technology, these types of meaningful and timely successes will not be possible.

2. What is the difference between cooperation and collaboration?
Although both cooperation and collaboration involve individuals working together towards a goal, Nelson clarifies the difference with simple examples. In a cooperative environment, one individual can complete a task alone and does not benefit from the expertise of his/her cooperative counterparts. In a collaborative experience, each member of the group brings to the project his/her breadth and depth communicating skills, ideas, experiences resulting in an amplification of each aspect of the project/product because of each participant. The end result is better built because of what each member brought to the process.
 * 1) == What are the challenges in getting students to collaborate rather than just cooperating? ==

First of all, the title of Nelson’s video Learning and Working in the Collaborative Age explains that the pressure is on to move students away from cooperative groupings which alone require many social and academic skills plenty of students are hesitant to risk exhibiting. Some students are self-conscious, others academically insecure, and a few resistant to putting themselves completely into group projects. Adolescence aside, many students have learned to resist group work because of bad experiences such as some members doing nothing, some unfairly taking charge, and others dismissing or ridiculing skills of other members. Working collaboratively requires teachers and students to rethink group work and move on to a new level of safe, inclusive, equitable collaboration. Teaching students to trust each other, to bring their knowledge and ideas to the group stage, and to share and grow collaboratively will be a worthwhile challenge.

=**"7.3 Voicethread Definition**"= Briefly define a Voicethread in your own terms, summarize your initial impressions of Voicethread and the various ways it might be useful in your classroom.

Define a Voicethread in your own terms:
Voicethread is an online tool for having group discussions about an image, document, or video. The website allows participants to share comments by recording or typing them and other group members can then listen to each other. It almost seems like all the participants leave either a voicemail or text message about a certain topic.

Summarize your initial impressions of Voicethread:
In sum, Voicethread is absolutely loaded with potential from the classroom to the workplace and the social network. It took me a while to appreciate what I was looking at, but then I could see how much fun any number of participants could have sharing and commenting. The fact that the Voicethread functions around images, documents, videos and presentations, that contributors can write on the page and that manipulating the site seems so easy basically all add to the allure of this tool. I loved the examples, the comments about the family picture and the dragon – so real, just awesome on many levels.

How useful in your classroom?
Immediately, it seemed that many of the skills and tasks focused on in English class could be redesigned and better executed using Voicethread. I imagined using a short passage of text and having students complete the varied reading strategies through Voicethread. Each student could ask clarifying/deep questions, make predictions/ inferences, add reactions/connections and make observations. The task could be simpler and continued on consecutive Voicethread pages, so that on the first page comments could be just questions, on the next page reactions, on the next connections, and so forth. Peer editing is also an activity that Voicethread could be used for. I like to hold silent discussions so that students are forced to come up with original comments without first hearing what others have to say; it seems that this would be possible with Voicethread and once everyone had contributed the page and responses could be shared with the whole class. There must be some way to use Voicethread for marking up the text and for helping with before, during, and after reading assignments.

=**"7.4 Immigration Voicethread"**=

__The positives:__
This example proved a great way for students to understand the importance of careful analysis of a difficult situation and of the value of their own opinion and voice. Students seemed to have weighed evidence and used details to support their positions. The conversation was calm, rationale, and informative. Students had time to discuss and prepare their comments in a supportive and open forum.

__Some aspects that you could see being improved upon:__
The sound quality was inconsistent. There seemed to be a fair amount of repetition. Some group members seemed either more prepared or more at ease, so more practice or familiarity would help. I liked having the audio paired with the text.