Thing 8 Collaborating, Connecting, Sharing

I have used both Skype and the “Skype an Author Network” on several occasions and always had a great experience withi it. As the K-12 Library Media Coordinator, part of my duties are to arrange author visits for students in all grades. Of course, budgets are tight, so the Skype an Author Network is a great resource. It did take a fair amount of time to go through the alphabetical list and match authors to books I already had in the school libraries, but if you have an author in mind and can search for them directly, it would be quite easy to use. Keep in mind of course that big name authors probably won’t be found on this site.  Authors I have Skyped with include Jean Marzollo, Garth Stein, Michelle Knudson, and Caroline Starr Rose to name a few. I highly recommend!

For collaboration among students, I’ve actually had success using a tool not listed on this site - so I thought I would mention it. Prezi has a great “share” option that allows users to edit the same Prezi project simultaneously from different locations. Each person can see where the other(s) editor(s) are working with little “Mii” type characters. My 6th graders loved this feature, and it allowed for extra work progress to be made outside of class time.

I am part of a Google Classroom pilot project through my school district and BOCES this year, and have had a couple of training sessions on it. It seems intuitive, but I have not actually used it with my classes as a means of project grading… Google Docs shared documents/folders seem to be sufficient for my classes - but students do like the accessibility that having their work saved in Google Docs provides, and I can see my District moving in that direction in the future. 

I thought it’d be helpful to use the Calendar feature, and set up a system for my family’s schedule of after-school activities and special events. I shared it with my husband in hopes of it being a dynamic and useful tool, but it turned out that I still rely on my iPhone, so I didn’t find the calendar something that “took” with my family, and don’t see myself using it in a collaborative manner. HOWEVER - I plan to look into using it in school as a reference for teachers. I'm hoping I can set it on my library webpage and use it as a dynamic calendar that reflects library closures (for class use, etc.). Teachers can quickly look and see which periods the library is available. I think this would be very helpful!

Lastly, I further investigated Google Drive and LOVE it - particularly for the accessibility features (makes life easier when I can access work files normally stored to the District server while at home!) AND for the shared documents feature. I set up a folder for each of my classes and have had students share classwork with me via that shared folder. So easy and the kids love it, too! This allows me to provide guidance and feedback more efficiently than just relying on in-class conferences.

Thanks for some more great resources!