G+ Communities for In-class Collaboration
Design Pattern Tags : Google Communities/online communities, Online Collaboration
G+ Communities for In-class Collaboration December 2015
#G+ Communities allow real-time collaboration, sharing and engagement while creating a repository of artefacts.
Rationale Online tools that support collaboration and communication can enrich students’ learning in face-to-face classes. Tools like Communities can help to seamlessly support students, and blend their in-class and personal study time for courses. (In blended courses, it is especially important that these two environments aren’t isolated from one another.)
Group work done in class typically concludes with the groups sharing their ideas back to the group. Using a G+ Community is a more tangible and efficient way for students to share their work with others. By capturing and sharing their work using text, images, and videos, students create artifacts that their peers and teaching staff can access, and which they can refer back to in future. Students can also use the Community as a presentation platform for live sharing.
Learners/Context Eloise Thomson teaches future teachers, and looks for ways to integrate technology into courses so that students can see examples of how to integrate it into their teaching. In “Geography in a Social Context” the in-class time is spent in workshops where students do group work and small projects. G+ Communities are visual, easy to use space for staff and students to share within the classroom, making it a useful resource as it becomes a repository for projects, learning materials, students’ questions and ideas, etc.
Instructions/Processes Set up your Community
Get students and teaching staff to opt-in to G+ at RMIT
Ask students to join your G+ Community
In class, demonstrate how to use the Community, including the different types of posts available and how to mention others (type +Name), comment, and like (+1)
Set a specific group task, including the types of resources you expect students to share back with the group
Ask groups to include the names of all group members (using the +Name format) in any post related to their groupwork
Ask people to review the work of other groups in class or before the following session
Resources/ Technology
