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Oct 10 2008
Unobtrusive Collaboration in Google Docs
We have been using Google Docs with our students for over a year now
and I have spent some time writing about
our experiences so far. One of the key questions that I
have been exploring for a while now is “How
do you mark and manage student work in Google Docs?” but
this simple question is applicable to most other online office tools. In this
post I explore a facet of this type of assessment that I would call “unobtrusive
collaboration”.
On a
number of occasions in the last year I have taken the opportunity to conduct a
“live marking” session with the children in my class. They are
working on a piece of work that is shared with me - I open it at the same time
and add comments and marking to the piece of work. I would often also back these
comments up by talking to the children involved, going over to them to reinforce
what I had commented on - actively engaging them in the collaboration.
In some of these instances I would just nip into the doc and take a quick
look around to check the progress, leave a comment if appropriate and leave them
to it. I think this is an interesting type
of quiet monitoring as the
children are working. In the online document I can mark, highlight and leave
comments without intruding on the flow of work that is taking place.
With paper based tasks or work that does not allow synchronous editing I
would have to interrupt what the children are working on to inspect their work
more closely. I might have to ask them to scroll to different sections or simply
to move their writing hand so I can see what they have done over their
shoulder!
Of course we must always find time to talk to our children face
to face about the progress of their work, and I am not disputing
the value of this, but often it does intrude on the flow of work. This sense of
passive collaboration offers us the opportunity to access all of the children’s
work very quickly and to quietly monitor progress and to add our comments.
I think that this sort of unobtrusive marking or
monitoring is especially useful when my children are working in a small group or
a pair. They are often busy talking about what they are doing or about to move
onto and I do not want to stop that communication, or break their train of
thought. Last Wednesday I quietly added comments and thoughts to my class as
they were busy working in pairs on an activity in Religious Education. They
picked up on those comments, adjusted their work, responded if they needed to,
but it essentially did not halt the immediate process - it was a tacit
collaboration.
What experiences have you had of marking and managing the ongoing
assessment of work in Google Docs or other online office tools with your
students?
