Technology to support collaborative teaching and learning

Video Transcription

Hello, and thank you for joining me for Technology to Support Collaborative Teaching and Learning. By the end of today's tutorial, we will be able to answer what technology is available that supports collaborative teaching and learning? Essentially, what we'll be doing in this tutorial is exploring different resources that can help assist teachers in the virtual collaboration aspect of collaborative teaching and learning.

We're going to start with Google Apps. So Google Apps include things like Google Docs, which I have on the screen for you now. Google Sheets, which is where you can create spreadsheets for your students. Google Presentations, which is where you can create slideshows.

Google Forms, which is actually really cool. You can create a forum for people to fill out. And then the results are automatically tabulated for you in a spreadsheet that you can then sort and organize in any way you need. And we can look at Google Classroom and Hangouts.

I use Google Docs a lot in my classroom. I keep my email username and password secure. And so I know that when I'm creating documents on Google Docs, my students aren't going to be able to easily access them, because they don't know my username and password. So it's essentially just like using Microsoft Word, except for it is cloud-based. So you can access it wherever you have a computer or wireless internet connection.

Google Apps as a classroom tool can be really useful because students can virtually collaborate on a paper. They can create the document, and then they can share it with whomever they want. And they can give that person editing privileges. And that person can go in and they can help edit the paper. The same is true for Google Sheets, Presentations, Forms, etc.

Google Classroom is essentially a learning management system. And it's free, as long as your school signs up. And this is just a place where you can post assignments, and the teacher really is able to take more control.

In that sort of setting, it's like a Blackboard or an Edmodo. And you can also have message boards on there. Google Hangouts is accessible through Google Drive. This is another great way to have virtual communication because you can actually do a webcam session through Google Hangouts.

Next, we're going to talk about different learning management systems. And I'm going to start by talking about Sophia, which is an excellent learning management system. I think it's really user friendly.

You can create tutorials easily. Your students can search for them easily. And it's just a great place for you to post the work that you want your students to see, especially in a flipped classroom.

It's also more than just posting work. You can post quizzes. You can post extra resources and more.

Other options include Edmodo, Schoology, Blackboard and Moodle. I've actually use all but Schoolology personally. Edmodo is free. It is user friendly.

I like the fact that they have message boards that the students can communicate with one another on. I think that that's a really great aspect of that. I've used Blackboard as a student, and I think that is also a very useful learning management system along the same lines as Sophia. It's a great place for you to post your lessons, to add quizzes, to give additional resources. It also does have a message board for students.

Moodle I have not used in a while. But it is along the same lines as Edmodo. So essentially, with these learning management systems, it's a nice place to post lessons and resources for flipped learning classroom.

Then we're going to talk about backchannel. And this is TodaysMeet. This is a really great way to have collaboration. And you don't have to sign up for anything.

The teacher doesn't even have to sign up for anything. You just go to todaysmeet.com and you create a room and you name your room. The room I've created on this screenshot here is Sophia_Tech and Collaboration.

In the classroom, I would then tell all of my students that they need to type in todaysmeet.com/sophia_techandcollaboration. It will then take you to the room. You can also determine how long you want to keep the room open. It could be one hour, one day, one week, one month, one year. It doesn't matter.

Then you type a question to the students, and they respond. And there's a Presentation view, so you can project it. And you can actually watching the responses tabulate on the screen. You can also then print the transcript of TodaysMeet. And this is just a nice way for students to collaborate virtually rather than in-person, because the teacher is asking them a question.

Then we're going to look at social media. A lot of schools, I think, are behind the times on embracing social media. We say you know you can't use Twitter, you can't use Facebook.

But in reality, this is how students communicate with one another. And so we need to embrace that and use this as an opportunity to help them become responsible 21st century citizens. But we do know that these are ways that students collaborate and communicate. So we need to try to embrace them and use them in our classroom.

Let's reflect. What tool are you most excited about using to enhance collaborative teaching and learning? And are you using any tools not mentioned here that assist in collaborative teaching and learning? What are they?

Let's review. Today, we talked about what technology is available that supports collaborative learning. As you reflect on how this new information can be applied, you may want to explore the additional resources section that accompanies this video presentation. This is where you'll find links to resources chosen to help you deepen your learning and explore ways to apply your newly acquired skillset. Thanks for joining me, and happy teaching.