Collaboration is so important in the classroom, this is no surprise. However, the wealth of digital collaboration tools that are out there today can really help take classroom collaboration to the next level. In this class, I learned about and got to use so many of these tools.
One tool that I used in this class is Padlet. Padlet is a digital collaboration board that I had a little experience with before this class, but I had only previously used it with teachers for collaborative PD activities but had not used it with students. For our classroom connections project, a fellow teacher and I decided to use Padlet to connect our 4th-grade students with 1st-grade students in other districts. The 4th graders were studying keystone species and were researching them in science, writing about them in writing, and drawing them in art. Since a 1st-grade standard relates to asking and answering questions (and we know 1st graders love to ask questions!), we decided to combine the two into one awesome distance project. Our 4th graders took pictures of their keystone species drawings and posted them to Padlet. The 1st-graders then had the opportunity to ask questions about the keystone species back to our 4th graders and then the 4th graders responded using their research. The questions and responses were really cute and, at times, a little silly. However, seeing the excitement that this project brought to the 4th-graders was really invigorating and the teachers of our partner 1st-grade classes said the same thing! Having an authentic audience was really motivating for the students and it was fun to see the 4th-graders assume a "big kid" role and teach the 1st-graders.
Another tool that I became a lot more familiar with as a result of this course is Flipgrid. Again, I had dabbled in using Flipgrid in the past, but this course gave me a lot more opportunities to use it and discover some really cool features that I didn't previously know about. In helping some other teachers in our cohort with their classroom connection projects, I discovered the #gridpals feature within Flipgrid. This feature provides an easy to use platform to connect with other educators from around the world using Flipgrid. In the beginning of the course, one of my biggest questions with connecting globally was how to find other classrooms to connect with, but finding #gridpals was a game changer for this! I also helped a 5th-grade classroom in our district create a Flipgrid for their independent reading responses and the students absolutely love collaborating with their peers! Who knew independent reading responses could be so engaging?
Overall, this course really pushed me out of my comfort zone with regard to trying out new collaborative tools and even using ones I was already familiar with in a different way. Collaboration within a single classroom or beyond classroom walls has never been easier with all of the digital collaboration tools that are available. Taking the risk to connect globally is definitely worth it!
One tool that I used in this class is Padlet. Padlet is a digital collaboration board that I had a little experience with before this class, but I had only previously used it with teachers for collaborative PD activities but had not used it with students. For our classroom connections project, a fellow teacher and I decided to use Padlet to connect our 4th-grade students with 1st-grade students in other districts. The 4th graders were studying keystone species and were researching them in science, writing about them in writing, and drawing them in art. Since a 1st-grade standard relates to asking and answering questions (and we know 1st graders love to ask questions!), we decided to combine the two into one awesome distance project. Our 4th graders took pictures of their keystone species drawings and posted them to Padlet. The 1st-graders then had the opportunity to ask questions about the keystone species back to our 4th graders and then the 4th graders responded using their research. The questions and responses were really cute and, at times, a little silly. However, seeing the excitement that this project brought to the 4th-graders was really invigorating and the teachers of our partner 1st-grade classes said the same thing! Having an authentic audience was really motivating for the students and it was fun to see the 4th-graders assume a "big kid" role and teach the 1st-graders.Another tool that I became a lot more familiar with as a result of this course is Flipgrid. Again, I had dabbled in using Flipgrid in the past, but this course gave me a lot more opportunities to use it and discover some really cool features that I didn't previously know about. In helping some other teachers in our cohort with their classroom connection projects, I discovered the #gridpals feature within Flipgrid. This feature provides an easy to use platform to connect with other educators from around the world using Flipgrid. In the beginning of the course, one of my biggest questions with connecting globally was how to find other classrooms to connect with, but finding #gridpals was a game changer for this! I also helped a 5th-grade classroom in our district create a Flipgrid for their independent reading responses and the students absolutely love collaborating with their peers! Who knew independent reading responses could be so engaging?
Overall, this course really pushed me out of my comfort zone with regard to trying out new collaborative tools and even using ones I was already familiar with in a different way. Collaboration within a single classroom or beyond classroom walls has never been easier with all of the digital collaboration tools that are available. Taking the risk to connect globally is definitely worth it!
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