English 10.4: Digital Yearbook Publishing
Part 1: Google Docs and Research Collaboration
Overview
For this section of the Digital Yearbook Course, students use Google Docs to gather and compose information about YouthBuild. The format will be similar to a research paper, but with more emphasis on personal response to the history of the organization.
Deliverables for Google Docs Portion
During 5 Class Sessions, students will work together to learn skills in online research and formatting with Google Docs.
Each student will find three online articles related to the history and programming at YouthBuild McLean County
Each student will write 1,500 Words (approximately 6 pages) of research writing about YouthBuild.
Outcomes
By the end of this section, students will learn to:
Organize Research information from a variety of research sources.
Cite Quotes to acknowledge sources.
Format the Text to meet academic expectations.
Add Visual Materials to heighten audience interest.
Collaborate with classmates using Google sharing.
Session 1: Collaboration with Google Docs
Session Goals
Session 1 is about establishing the groundwork for digital collaboration. In particular, we'll focus on sharing and organizing documents to help students work together.
By the end of Session 1, each student will prepare a Google Drive folder with a Google Doc for their future YouthBuild research article.
Each article will be shared with classmates in the cohort.
All the folders will be in the larger cohort folder. Within that folder, students will work together on a planning document for the research articles.
Preparing Folders
First, we'll put together folders in Google Drive. Most students are likely familiar with this process, but we'll go over how to organize folders to provide each student with a personal folder while having a separate folder for collaborative material.
Sharing with Instructors and Classmates
Many students are familiar with sharing links, but in this session we'll pay particular attention to the privacy and notification settings for Google Drive and Docs. Working together in real time, we'll see exactly how a Google Doc can grow with input from multiple individuals.
Exporting and Publishing Online
Sharing a link to a Google Doc is simple, but we also need to cover different ways to share documents professionally. For e-mails, Docs often need to be exported as PDF or Word files — for the internet, we can also publish a Google Doc so that it appears as a webpage rather than document. A key advantage with these approaches is that they protect the editing of the document, and this can prevent accidental edits and deletions.
Teaching Note: Digital Collaboration
Collaborating online is a particularly important skill in today's information-driven world, but it has added benefits for our YouthBuild students. The workshop model we use here leads to an inherently asynchronous curriculum at YouthBuild — since different students will progress through the course at different rates, students need to be able to work together outside class time or across class meetings that meet on different dates.
Session 2: Conducting Research
Session Goals
By the end of this session, students will have found 3 online sources that help us understand the mission and purpose of YouthBuild McLean County. From these sources, they'll have selected 5-7 quotes that best represent these articles, and then written appropriate citations for their sources.
Finding Articles
The first step here is to find resources related to YouthBuild McLean County. Each student will find three sources, and then share those links in their Google Doc. Some suggestions include (but are not limited to):
The YBMC.org website
The YouthBuild USA website
The U.S. Department of Education and Department of Labor homepages
Articles from the Journal of Vocational Education & Training
For these articles, the emphasis is on finding stories. What's the mission? What does YouthBuild do? How do people take part? What's the heart and soul of the organization?
Choosing and Citing Quotes
The next step is selecting information from each article. For this step, students will read over their individual sources, and then choose which information is the most important.
For each article, find 1-5 quotes.
For each quote, provide an MLA in-text citation. This should include quotation marks for direct quotes, plus the author's last name.
For each source, provide an MLA works cited entry. The end of the entry should include a URL link to the original source.
Formatting Quotes
Direct versus Indirect
Block Quoting
Integrating Quotes and Analysis / Personal Response
Spacing for MLA Works Cited Page
Teaching Note: Research
Research skills are a key part of any well-composed paper, but many of today's students are confused by the expectations of academic research. I've noticed that a number of students today will look up multiple websites, copy over paragraphs of interest, and then paste these materials together into a coherent paper. Unfortunately, this is plagiarism, especially when students fail to quote this information or acknowledge their sources.
To prevent this, my goal is to have students do their main research in class, and then to begin the work of quotes with direct supervision to illustrate the difference between research versus plagiarism.
Session 3: Formatting the Text
Organizing Quotes
Once the quotes are gathered, the next skill is to organize them into a meaningful structure. Here, it's important to decide which sections you want for the paper, and then to use multiple sources for each section.
Headings and the Table of Contents
Once you've chosen an order for your information, now's the time to create sections for your paper. For each key section, write a placeholder title and then change the text style to a Heading.
Once you have three or four headings, then go up to the Insert menu and add a Table of Contents. Notice how the Table of Contents includes all the headings from the paper — this whenever you add a new section to your paper, you can refresh the Table of Contents to keep it updated.
Headers, Footers, and Page Numbers
To help your reader navigate your paper, it's important to add page numbers. Again, you'll go to the Insert menu, and you'll see options to add the page numbers to the top (header) or bottom (footer) of the paper. For MLA, you'll add page numbers in the upper right corner.
Once the page numbers are in, you can add your name to the header or footer. In MLA, your last name goes in the upper right with the page number.
Line and Paragraph Spacing
Google Docs makes paragraph spacing very, very straightforward. Once you've started you paper, you can go to the spacing button and set all your spacing to Double Spaced. If you see an extra spacing before or after the paragraph, go ahead and hit Remove on that spacing in the line spacing button.
In an academic paper, every paragraph needs to be indented a half inch. To do this, go up to the ruler just over your document and then drag the First Line Indent from the zero mark to the half-inch mark.
Session 4: Arranging Visual Materials
Tables
When sharing data or placing images, tables are extremely helpful. Again, go to the Insert menu — once you rest the cursor on Tables, you'll have the option to add a table with a variety of cell sizes. Decide how many rows and columns you need, drag to select them, and then click — that will give you the table you need.
Images
Images can be placed anywhere in a paper, but it's best to use a Table to control exactly where the image will appear in relation to the text. Again, use the Insert menu, and from there choose if you want to add images from clipart, Google Drive, or an upload.