Collaborative activities pack

Collaborative Learning Pack Web Quest, Dyads & Blogs

Josmar Borg

COLLABORATIVE ACTIVITIES WEB QUEST Subject

Computing

Audience

Form 3 boys students

Topic

Computer Memory & Storage

Mode of Delivery

A 15min presentation to be done in class. Material to be displayed can vary from interactive posters (using Glogster) to PowerPoint Presentation using Prezi , Slideshare and more

Task

...through a WebQuest (ZUNAL)

Mode of Work

Group work of three students each group

MANAGEMENT OF THE ACTIVITY The activity will start with a brief introduction about the topic, i.e. Computer Storage. The teacher will make sure that the students have understood that Computer Storage is classified as Primary Memory and Secondary Memory, together with their subsections. A video about this topic (from YouTube) is shown and a discussion will then follow. The aim at this point is that students have an overview of the whole topic.

An online polling exercise (being prepared by the teacher) will then proceed so that the students will vote according to which part of the subject they prefer to research. According to the final polling results, groups are formed in terms of subject preference. In the event that forming the groups happens to be not so simple as planned, then the teacher will put the ball in the students’ feet so as to fairly and suitably they join groups of three members each. However, the teacher should make the final decisions considering the different abilities of the students present in the class.

The students are then directed to the idea that the work they are expected to do should be online and in collaboration with the members of their group. Three different web quests are shown to the students and explained to them so as to be clear to everyone what are they expected to do. Each group is given a web quest according to the area of preference and the members in that group have to work in parallel with the web quest assigned to them.

It is important to note that each web quest has a context to which the students can basically assume a role for solving the task as explained in the Web quest. For instance the web quest about Magnetic Storage as the students being IT experts.

Roberto Cavalli, a professional clothes designer would like to store his data onto his computer system for efficient and fast retrieval of his designs. On your first meeting with him he was so fascinated about how computers can store thousands of his designs that he asked you to make a study about the concept of storage in computer systems and which technology is the most efficient for his situation.

By the end of completing this Web Quest you should be able to: 

Understand why storing information in computer systems is necessary.



Learn how data is stored in hard disk drives, floppy disks and magnetic tape.



Distinguish clearly between serial/sequential and direct access.

The Web quest will provide the students with specific roles such that everyone has a piece of the task under his hand. The web quest directs the students with certain checkpoints where they should present the work to the teacher while continue their online and collaborative work during the theory sessions. Other than that the students should work from home and so they are encouraged to use certain online tools such as Skype for chatting and Google Docs for formulating the information to be used in their presentation. During this process the students (on individual basis) are expected to post a weekly small self evaluation paragraph on the class blog about their work role and the work they produced.

This whole exercise will be planned to take 4 weeks, meaning 2 double lessons for the explanation of the topic, the Web quest, the task expected by them, voting exercise and formulation of the groups. Then another 4 double lessons for presenting the work as directed in the checkpoints and another double lesson to make their presentation and feedback time.

PROS AND CONS OF USING THIS ACTIVITY Web Quests are tools that help students discover facts and knowledge in an active way. This means that the students will become active participants in their own learning process. Web Quests generally involve other online tools and involve a group of students to collaboratively work together.

Through a web quest the concept of scaffolding is elicited as students are directed to search for information and produce work as background and foundational work prior providing the challenging tasks. Also, students can learn from one another since web quests provide the means to apply collaborative learning opportunities in the classroom. To complete the quest, students must work together and use each other’s resources to successfully meet the objectives.

However, as with any other teaching tool, web quests have their drawbacks too. The fact that students become dependent on the internet to finding information, this may reflect badly on their ability to analyze their own work. This may in return mitigate the ability that students present their own conclusions.

EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT The Web quest will contain specific and detailed assessment rubric of how the student will be assessed for their work. Practically, all the components during the whole process is valued together with the students’ weekly evaluations and the final presentation. An example of an assessment rubric is shown below:

Needs more effort

You can do

Well Done

Exceptional

Score

Very good research done

Research done as expected

20%

better Online

Few

data

gathered

Good research

Research

through the resources

done but not

and information analyzed to

provided

well used

suit the Task

Questions

Not

all

Answered

answered!

questions

Not all answers

Very

well

presented

are correct!

answers but limit the

Answered

all

questions

40%

correctly in your own words.

copy/paste feature Suitable

Few resources are used

Suitable

Resources

and

resources

are

adequate and of different

resources

Used

suitable

found

but

type

initiative to created new ones

some

are

not

Resources

such

used

as

are

videos,

limited to one

pictures, animations and

type

more...

of

Innovatively

used and

different

also

15%

took

(not found online)

resource Creative

&

Innovative Presentatio

Presentation basic

is

very

Good presented

Very well presented and

Exceptional presentation, easy

work but lacks

interactive presentation

to follow and fully interactive

interactivity

n Finally 10% are given for the self evaluation

15%

BLOGS Subject

… during the Computer Club

Audience

Students joining the Computer Club

Topic

Video Editing and Photo Manipulation

Mode of Delivery

Periodic projects.

Task

Videography

Mode of Work

Group work

MANAGEMENT OF THE ACTIVITY At the beginning of the scholastic year students can choose to frequent a particular club during the break time such as Table Tennis Club, Chest Club, Drama Club, Computer Club and more.

The activity chosen here does not evolve during an actual lesson but instead during the Computer Club organized for those students who enrolled in this club.

Every year I try to organize different activities that will engage the students in learning new software, IT skills and online tools. This year Videography was chosen. The aim is that the students learn how to make a movie script and storyboard (as part of the Pre-Production phase), use the camera and be aware of certain techniques to shoot the clips needed (Production phase) and finally use various software to edit the video (post Production phase) to produce a movie. A context should be chosen so that the video will be based accordingly.

The teacher would group all the students who will be working on this project and a face to face discussion is done. The teacher takes note of the most common themes being discussed by the students and creates an online voting poll which is then embedded in the Club’s Website. The students are instructed to vote at home and then the result will be further discussed in order to come to an agreement about the themes chosen. Bullying, drugs, teen’s bad habits, education and studying, working careers and other such themes are exemplary topics to be encouraged.

After that the themes are chosen then the students are grouped in groups of 4 members each.

The groups are created according to the students’ theme preference so as to ensure that each group is composed of members with the same preference. These groups should then work collaboratively and finally produce a video of ten minutes to be shown during the school morning assemblies. When all the groups are chosen the teacher explains the use of Blogs and

how to create a Blog. Each group should create a blog at school and so this way the teacher monitors the whole process to ensure the successful creation of this Blog. It is important to note that the groups have no access to the other groups’ Blog, since each group’s blog is set to Private.

Every member in that group will then post on a weekly basis. The posts should be both descriptive, stating all the work covered during that particular week and what they are intending to do during the next one and also some reflective writing about their experience so far. This will serve as a portfolio showing what the students have done and all the process they went throughout this project. Moreover, students are encouraged to specify online links and resources that they have found useful during their project development. Also, they should give their feedback on others’ posts.

Apart from using a Blog, the students are also encouraged to use Skype for chatting together in order to collaborate together while working at home and Drop Box to share video clips, scripts, storyboards and other resources to be used in this project. Students are given small objectives to reach within an established deadline. The teacher will assess these parts and guides the students accordingly and if needed.

From time to time certain sessions at school would involve some theory explanations and also practical sessions for the students to learn new skills and techniques that are needed so the students will be able to continue as scheduled.

PROS AND CONS OF USING THIS ACTIVITY Blogging is a tool that helps students to create online journals and to share their opinions and reflective work with other peers. It is important to note that as any other online tool one should consider the pros and cons of using blogs in their teaching process.

Blogs can be a good way to engage students to read and write. This is because students will be curious to read what others have posted and then they make courage to write back or write new threads as they will be have the time to check for vocabulary and correct spelling before posting. This is a good way to enhance literacy skills. Also, blogs engages those students who are shy and lack participation during face to face discussions and this will help such students to give their contribution during the learning process.

However, blogs are difficult to assign. Teachers should create assessment rubrics so that the students know on which criteria they are being assigned. This should also be monitored frequently because during the process certain criteria might need to be altered or changed.

Another drawback is that to monitor a blog might be a time consuming process, especially if the Blog is the only source for the students to hand in their work.

EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT Blogs are sometimes a bit difficult to assess. So the teacher should create specific criteria so that students will know what are they expected to post on the Blog. Since the project mentioned here is an extracurricular one, thus it is even more difficult to assess since the students are not expecting a formal assessment method. So formal assessment is omitted this time but the students are made aware that the teacher will evaluate their blogs and final product and a feedback comment is given to them to emphasize their strengths and pinpoint where they could have done better. Also, students should be made aware that the whole project and teachers’ comment will be included in their school leaving certificate as an educational extracurricular project.

DYADS Subject

Computing (optional)

Audience

Form 5 Students

Topic

Multimedia

Mode of Delivery

Dyads

Task

Website Development

Mode of Work

Group work

MANAGEMENT OF THE ACTIVITY This activity focuses on the topic of MULTIMEDIA which is covered during Form 5 in the Computing subject. Collaboration among two classes is to be done and this requires that the teachers concerned work together, are following the same syllabus and are working within the same scheme of work. This is because for this activity students have to join with other students from the other class.

Before even starting introducing the topic it should be noted that, generally, students have a good idea of what MULTIMEDIA is, considering that the students are digital natives who have been raised with technological gadgets and multimedia as a normal aspect in society. So at this point the teachers should prepare some brainstorming activities in order to evaluate what the students know and take note of the students’ knowledge. Dyads should then be formed and such a task is to be done by the teachers. This is because, while considering that the syllabus is vast, thus it can be difficult to allow extra time for the students to form dyads by themselves.

The teachers should decide on which criteria to group the students. A strategy should be adopted to choose either student sharing the same interests, choosing students of mixed abilities so one helps the other or else choosing same ability students to mitigate the frustration in completing the task assigned to them.

The teacher could then introduce the topic by showing two videos from YouTube that would actually explain, to some detail, all the information needed for the students to start working on their own. Also, the teacher should explain the task that each dyad should produce.

The task involves two parts: 1. A website with a minimum of 4 pages (using Jux.com or Wix.com) 

Home page: contains a ground definition of the gadget they have chosen,



Technical Details: giving specific details of the gadgets technical specification



Multimedia Details: the type of media used and/or projected by such a gadget.



Reviews: Feedback of people and technology journals/companies about this gadget, stating the pros and cons and/or comparison with other similar competitive gadgets

Students are encouraged as many different resources as possible in order to promote further multimedia. Resources may include, text, pictures, animated web banners using online banner generators, audio, embedding of videos and more.

2. Self Evaluation 

Each student should post a self evaluation on the classroom forum at the end of this project.



They should also give their views on others’ posts so as to learn from each other a whole class now that the project is concluded.

The students have four weeks in all to finish this project. This means that while they are working on the project at home and during the practical sessions at school, other topics from the syllabus are covered during the theory sessions simultaneously. This way students should collaborate together by using emails, telephone, social networks, Google docs, Dropbox and other online tools, to decide on the gadget to base their research on and eventually finalise and their website. In case of difficulties, the students can always make his queries to the teacher during school sessions. Other than that the teacher would just monitor the students’ adaptation in order to refrain from biasing them and leave the students to expose their ideas and creativity.

PROS AND CONS OF USING THIS ACTIVITY The larger the group is the more chance there is that students mix their roles and there might be a dispersion of ideas and some of the members may feel excluded. For this reason, Dyads may be beneficial as members form partnership and so the students would feel more confident to work together. However, this is not suitable for large projects as the restriction of having only two students per group may produce little resources to successfully complete the task expected.

For this reason one needs to plan ahead and use Dyads for projects and tasks that are not too complex. Otherwise, a different approach should be considered if CL is to be used.

EVALUATION AND ASSESSMENT The assessment is done in a summative way, meaning that students are monitored at school and the work they are presenting during the lessons. Emphasis on creativity is given. This way not only the final product is assessed but also the cumulative work done from week to week and the roles and work share of each member in the dyad. Moreover, the teacher monitors the class forum so as to evaluate the students’ posts to have extra cue points before concluding the assessment for each group.