After determining that I needed to shift my focus toward more inexpensive, widely available technology tools, I was left with a huge array of possible options. To figure out what would best suit teacher needs, I decided to interview a group of teachers about a project that we had just begun working on.
This was the second year for them in a partnership between public and private schools. Through the Learning Technology Grant, the partnership schools are awarded software and hardware in exchange for their participation in a process called statewide Peer Review. Using the software and hardware, teachers develop a Learning Experience Outline (which is basically a very detailed lesson plan) and bring it to a collaboration session with teachers from all around New York state in order to receive feedback on their teaching and learning.
The Learning Experience Outline includes the following components: a description of the learning context; an assessment plan including checklists or rubrics; student work; procedures for both teachers and students; resources; instructional/environmental modifications; time required for collection of resources and actual execution; and reflection. The goal of the second year of the Learning Technology Grant participants was for students to create a web-based tutorial to demonstrate their knowledge of the connection between mathematical concepts and musical theory. There is a total of six teachers from the Church of God Christian Academy (COGCA) and I.S. 323 (K323) in Brooklyn participating.
At our initial meeting, I began our discussion/interview by asking how they had composed their Learning Experience Outline (LEO) in the past. Dxxxx told me that one person would type the notes as decisions were made about various parts of the LEO and then periodically email everyone the updated versions. From there we discussed the following options:
- Microsoft Word .doc in conjunction with email: Using the commonly available Microsoft software to create the LEO was an obvious option. We actually started typing the LEO - all of us on our own computers in a .doc - as we planned it. This quickly turned messy as teachers had to repeatedly stop one another mid-sentence to say, "Wait, say that again, I didn't get all of that..."! To solve this issue, we decided that we would have one typist. However, several teachers pointed out that doing it in Word would still require a great deal of saving, re-saving, emailing, and emailing again. In addition, when multiple versions of a document have been shared, it's always possible to confuse the versions.
- Projector: One teacher suggested having one typist and using a projector to display the LEO as it progressed. However, we discussed the fact that we would still need to email the document back and forth if changes were made between meetings.
- Google Docs: The next option we discussed was having one typist create a web-based document allowing real-time collaboration and editing in Google Documents. After the document was created and published to the web, the typist could email all other team members the link. This would allow all members to edit the LEO and see updates instantly and remotely.
After some negotiation and experimentation, the group ultimately chose Google Docs as its LEO site, therefore determining my first action for Cycle #3: facilitating the creation of their document in this web-based format.
