Currently, I am undertaking developing a trans-pacific book club with Springer Elementary’s 6th grade class in Los Altos California. Being at a global international school, my students in Korea need to be able to learn how to interact with people in other countries using technology.
With a husband who freelances for US companies doing programming, I am well aware that no longer do you need to work in the same location as your colleagues. Thus, I want to prepare my students with the understanding that they can communicate with people who are very far away.
The other teacher in California and I have put together small discussion groups using the small group feature on Edmodo as a way for students to post their literature discussion questions and have multiple people respond to them.
In addition to Edmodo, we have created a Google doc where all members of a book club group will add information as they read. Information will relate to the main events, inferences, vocabulary, discussion questions, theme and more. Using the comment feature, which both she and I have taught our students how to use in a constructive way, students will be able to add onto what others say as well.
Today, students took time to use Google spread sheets to create a rubric on which they will grade themselves. By allowing students to be able to self assess, they will take more ownership over their own work since they know exactly what they will be assessed on. Normally, I would give this rubric out, but having students create one gives them a deeper understanding of the purpose of using them.
During this time, my students will be blogging about their novel as well. We will then take their blog content and create a digital newspaper as one of our final projects using paper.li. Additionally, we plan to have two to three Skype, face time or Google hangout sessions so groups can discuss their novel face to face.
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