Taking a Walk on the WILD SIDE....Paperless Paper Submission
Early in the school year, students were asked to write a short two paragraph paper on Density and Buoyancy. This time however, they created it via Google Docs (for the first time) and had each other peer edit before turning it in. Some of my students took advantage of sharing it with me early to get feedback on it prior to turning it in. Students found that this was very advantageous in their grade.
One of my special ed students that really struggles with writing took advantage of some writing work time from home. She would send me an email when she was online and ready to work. I have never seen a student this excited to write. One Friday afternoon, at about 3:45pm (I hadn't even left school yet) I got a message saying that she was online and ready to work on her paper. I wasn't ready to work on that paper (at the end of an exhausting week), but how can you tell a student NO? I was able to collaborate with her and prompt her on what to write through the use of Google Docs.
Note: We did take some class time to create "shared folders" in their Google Drive so that they could share their papers with Chad (team teacher) and I. I'm glad we took the time to do this, because students were very unfamiliar with Google Docs and Google Drive, as students were just given access this fall.
Students shared their papers with me and submitted them via a Google Form so that I could give back electronic feedback. Their feedback was then shared with them and a message was sent to their email letting them know that their paper was graded and that their feedback was available. We also set up shared folders in which students could just drag and drop their work in it, so that it was shared with me and my co-worker that team teaches with me.
During the paper writing process, we did a mini lesson on Google Searching and talked about how you can minimize the amount of search results by using quotes and other symbols, as well as talked about what does it mean to be a credible source. We evaluated a few sources and questioned their credibility. Chrome has an EasyBib extension that can evaluate the credibility of a source with the click of a button. I showed students how to do this as well.
Reflection:
There was a lot of resistance from students about turning their paper in online. Students just wanted to hand me a printed copy of their paper, but I felt it was important to stress and teach 21st Century Skills, while eventually, all students were able to turn their papers in online. One particular student that resisted, put up a good fight. He commented that he hated technology and that he just wanted to write it on paper and hand it in. I asked nicely for him to follow directions and he did. While writing his paper, something happened to his browser while writing in Google Docs and he lost it. He was very upset and responded with, “See this technology doesn't work.” The beauty of it was, I had him pull up his Google Drive, and his paper was right there, just as it was before the web browser closed. It was a success, he was sold on the power of Google Docs.
One of my special ed students that really struggles with writing took advantage of some writing work time from home. She would send me an email when she was online and ready to work. I have never seen a student this excited to write. One Friday afternoon, at about 3:45pm (I hadn't even left school yet) I got a message saying that she was online and ready to work on her paper. I wasn't ready to work on that paper (at the end of an exhausting week), but how can you tell a student NO? I was able to collaborate with her and prompt her on what to write through the use of Google Docs.
Note: We did take some class time to create "shared folders" in their Google Drive so that they could share their papers with Chad (team teacher) and I. I'm glad we took the time to do this, because students were very unfamiliar with Google Docs and Google Drive, as students were just given access this fall.
Students shared their papers with me and submitted them via a Google Form so that I could give back electronic feedback. Their feedback was then shared with them and a message was sent to their email letting them know that their paper was graded and that their feedback was available. We also set up shared folders in which students could just drag and drop their work in it, so that it was shared with me and my co-worker that team teaches with me.
During the paper writing process, we did a mini lesson on Google Searching and talked about how you can minimize the amount of search results by using quotes and other symbols, as well as talked about what does it mean to be a credible source. We evaluated a few sources and questioned their credibility. Chrome has an EasyBib extension that can evaluate the credibility of a source with the click of a button. I showed students how to do this as well.
Reflection:
There was a lot of resistance from students about turning their paper in online. Students just wanted to hand me a printed copy of their paper, but I felt it was important to stress and teach 21st Century Skills, while eventually, all students were able to turn their papers in online. One particular student that resisted, put up a good fight. He commented that he hated technology and that he just wanted to write it on paper and hand it in. I asked nicely for him to follow directions and he did. While writing his paper, something happened to his browser while writing in Google Docs and he lost it. He was very upset and responded with, “See this technology doesn't work.” The beauty of it was, I had him pull up his Google Drive, and his paper was right there, just as it was before the web browser closed. It was a success, he was sold on the power of Google Docs.
.JPG)
Comments
Post a Comment