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Classroom Communication and Collaboration
Classroom Communication and Collaboration
Today's students are preparing for a world that is always changing. One way that has changed dramatically in our lifetime is communication and collaboration.
At the end of the twentieth century, there were only a few ways to communicate with others. Talking on the phone, handwritten letters, and email were the most common ways to communicate. Most people did not check their emails daily and were practically unreachable if they were not home. Today, we are bombarded with ways to communicate with others. From multiple social media apps (and accounts on each app!) on smart phones, to text messaging, video messaging, emails, and making phone calls, the internet and smart phones have changed the ways we communicate in our personal and professional lives. One can be reached anywhere in the world that has cell service or internet access. As educators, we should also teach and adapt the ways we communicate in the classroom to match the way we communicate in the world.
Collaboration in the digital age has become streamlined and simplified. Teachers and students can share access to documents and assignments with others instantly. For example, through Google Docs and Google Drive one can share access to files through adding an email address or sharing a link. One can even choose how those access the file (view, comment, or edit). These files can be accessed on multiple types of devices at the same time, allowing for real-time collaboration. Students and teachers can receive feedback and make changes to their work as they are working, allowing for the best possible demonstration of learning possible.
Modern students are digital natives, and think of using technology as a birthright (Garland, 2012). Students are using Web 2.0 tools from an early age, and want to see those skills reflected in the classroom. Our students already have 21st Century skills, let's teach them how to harness their skills and use them to communicate their learning.
Doing so, we can incorporate ISTE Standards in our practice, like 4C: Use collaborative tools to expand students' authentic, real-world learning experiences by engaging virtually with experts, teams and students, locally and globally.
Seesaw is a resource I love to use in the classroom with my second grade students!
Seesaw is an online learning journal for elementary students. Teachers can create assignments, or search the community library of free assignments, to share with the class. The teacher can assign the task to all students in the class, or just a few students, easily allowing for differentiation. The teacher can also assign multiple students to a project, so that the students complete the work together. Teachers can tag the assignment with different learning standards and assess each students' performance. The scores are recorded in a color-coded grid, so that the teacher can refer to this later easily to create small groups.
The students can use many tools in the app to communicate their thinking. Students can type, use finger writing, or leave a voice memo in order to describe their thinking to the teacher and other students. The teacher and other students can "like" and leave comments on the student's work. The comments can be typed or voice comments, which is helpful when using with reluctant readers. Students can read and review the feedback, and make changes to the assignment to include these suggestions. For privacy, the teacher can change the settings so she and the student are the only ones who can see the student's work.
The teacher can also post announcements to students and parents in Seesaw. The announcements can be photos, videos, text, or voice threads. Parents and teachers can send private messages to each other, and when using the app these messages appear on your device like a text message.
One improvement I would like to see with Seesaw is the ability to send private messages between students and teachers. During remote learning in the spring of 2020, I had students who wanted to ask clarifying questions, but had to use their parents account to ask the question. If the parent was at work or didn't check their phone, the student had to wait for the answer.
Here is a lesson where students communicate with each other about what it means to be a digital citizen.
Class Dojo is a great tool to help build a classroom community that includes families! Class Dojo helps teachers and parents communicate with each other through messaging. When using the app on a smart phone, the messages come through like text messages, and can even come through on Apple Watches. This allows parents to communicate with the teacher throughout the day without interrupting the class with a phone call.
Teachers and school leaders can share updates about school and class activities through the feed on Class Story and School Story. The stories also host a calendar feature, where teachers can create reminders for families about important incoming events. Dojo hosts student portfolios, where teachers and students can upload student work or pictures and videos of the student during the day. These features help create a classroom community with teachers, students, and parents.
Class Dojo has created lesson plans to help teachers communicate ideas on social emotional learning. Students are encouraged to communicate their thinking and learning in these lessons through turn and talks and creating videos or drawings for their portfolios.
An improvement I would like to see in Class Dojo is a revamp on the student portfolio features. Many updates have been made recently, but it still lacks many of the features availible on Seesaw or Google Classroom.
Here is a list of lesson plans from Class Dojo that helps students understand social-emotional concepts like empathy and growth mindset.
Soundtrap is a site and app hosted by Spotify that helps students and teachers create their own podcast. Students can record their own sound, learn how to edit the sound, and then publish the podcast to the world. Soundtrap has many features that allow for easy editing, such as viewing your sound as text and editing the sound as you edit the text.
Students can work together in collaboration to create the podcast. Students could create skits, conduct an interview, or host a conversation among a group of peers.
For some elementary students, specifically primary, Soundtrap may be overwhelming with the amount of options availible that allow for editing and producing your podcast or music (Common Sense Media. 2020).
Here is a lesson that encourages students to communicate their personal reflections on their own reading in a podcast.
Many of today's students say they prefer to watch YouTube over watching traditional television. I have even heard students end conversations by saying "don't forget to like and subscribe!".
YouTube is a free platform where one can host videos. YouTube is owned by Google, and if you are a G-Suite for Education district, you already have a YouTube account! The perks of having a G-Suite account, is that the students are limited to "approved" videos, and teachers can find and approve videos for use in the classroom.
Students can create videos that demonstrate how to do something, or a performance of something they have learned.
Many people are concerned about the privacy and safety and students on YouTube. You can keep your students' video private by making them "unlisted" in your privacy settings. This means that only people with the link have access to the video. I used this feature frequently when creating videos for remote learning in the spring of 2020. I don't want random people watching my video of reading Junie B Jones! The link can be shared with parents, other teachers and admin, or whoever the student wants to share the video with.
Teachers and students can also use sites like SafeYouTube to remove ads, sidebars, and comments from videos.
Flipgrid is a tool that allows students to communicate with each other through video. It is easy to share the Flipgrid link with other teachers and other classes, so that multiple students and classes can participate. It would be a great way to communicate with a class far away like a pen pal!
The teacher posts a starter video that introduces the topic at hand. Students respond to the prompt with their own video. They have to know what they want to say before they post, as a time limit is enforced! Students and teachers can respond to student posts with another video, My students like to edit their videos with filters and stickers.
Here is a Flipgrid my students did earlier this year. This was when we were first learning how to use Flipgrid and wanted to practice the tool and its features.
This page created as part of the requirements for TEC 530: Ethics, Culture, and Equity with Technology.
References
Common sense media (2020). Soundtrap review for teachers. Retrieved from https://www.commonsense.org/education/website/soundtrap .
Garland, V. E., & Tadeja, C. (2012). Educational Leadership and Technology: Preparing School Administrators for a Digital Age. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.
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