What: Zoo Poetry saved in a shared folder in Google Drive so students can read and respond to each other's writing.
Materials:
- Zoo Poetry written by students
- Google Drive with shared settings for entire class (Edit or View)
- Photos uploaded to a shared (View only) folder that students can use to illustrate their poetry (The photos used in this project were taken by the teachers on a trip to the zoo.)
Time: 1-2 weeks
Challenges:
- Show students how to find shared documents.
- When sharing a folder with "Edit" permissions so students can save their work in a shared folder, you will need to consider the amount of editing they may do on each others' writing.
Tips:
- Create a New Group in GMail Contacts for the entire class. This will make it easier to share files and folders with the entire class.
- Do not share Class folder as "Edit" until you have been clear about expectations of commenting on each others' writing. Let students "play" for a bit with commenting so they can understand the difference between informal and formal comments.
- Be very specific about what good responses look in academic work. (TAG, Tell what you liked, Ask Questions, Give advice---Be specific!).
- Teach students how to "insert" a comment, rather than writing directly on another student's document.
- Have students create a folder with their name and subject name. Then they should share the folder "Edit" with the teacher. The teacher will be able to collect these papers and comment on them.
- Teach students naming conventions so that it is easy for you to sort their work by specific document titles.
- Introduce formatting options like font size and style choices as well as color, but be specific about when students can begin editing the text--during or after they type their entire poem.
- This method might also be done easily through Google Classroom if a teacher is interested in learning.
Narrative:
We found out that when you share a folder "View only" with students, they can't put a file in that folder. Similarly, when students share folders with teachers, "view only" limits the user from filing the folder in his/her own drive. So teachers and students should share with "Edit" rights or students need to make copies of the teacher files to save in their shared folders.
Although a Google Drive shared folder sounds basic, there are lots of management issues to address.
The teachers have reported that once the shared folder has been set up, students know exactly where to find the folder in their own Drives. They have been composing and commenting on each other's work without any reports of "sabotaging" each others' writing.
We may consider blogging in the future. The shared Google Drive is a great way to introduced shared digital spaces.