Many K-12 classrooms are moving from only doing projects with classmates to doing projects with others around the world. How are they doing this you may ask. Well, with the help of technology, students can connect with others using many different platforms such as Zoom, Google meets, Google docs, Microsoft teams, Skype, etc. In this post, I am going to be talking about how schools used different platforms to collaborate with other students around the globe.
Chrissy Winske wrote an article explaining five different ways that different schools used technology to work with not only other students in the school/classroom but students in the world. One example that she discusses is about a school in North Carolina. The middle schoolers were given a science project and they collaborated with a classroom all the way in Sweden. Now, neither school had the tools to be able to videochat one another but with the help of Skype, Voice Threads, Crocodoc, and Wiki, the two classrooms were able to collaborate on this science project. Each teacher was able to upload the assignments on Crocodoc where the students could have easy access to them.
The students from North Carolina and Sweden were not just working together but they were able to get to know each other. Each of them created a profile page and gave some background about themselves. Using the profile pages allowed them to interact with one another on a personal level and not just talk about the science project. Doing this whole collaboration science project, gave the students a look into global collaboration.
