Melissa wanted to move student writing to Google Drive for a number of reasons - get rid of the stacks of paper journals, ease of drafting and rewriting, convenience of commenting; and most of all, to give students a wider audience for their work.
Students were taught how to give quality feedback and to comment properly. This process was modeled using a fake document. The teachers used a simple technique called TAG:
- Tell something you liked
- Ask a question
- Give a compliment
As both teachers and students became comfortable with the process the projects grew in length and rigor. Some of the projects included:
- Spooky story starters - a way for students to begin collaborative writing (example - notice teacher comments for the students on the right side).
- Personal narratives (example)
- Using Google Draw to create simple layouts to demonstrate text features of non-fiction (example)
- Poetry writing
Looking back over the transition to use of Google Drive the teachers had the following reflections:
- Start at the beginning of the year
- Student writing increased because the students liked using Google Drive
- Composition and expression improved
- Mechanics are improving more slowly
- Drive allows for more efficient, quality feedback and comments
- The need for more structure in the form of checklists and notes sheets (hard copies)
- No carrying notebooks and papers home to grade
- The need for more front end organization - organizing teachers' Drives to handle all the student work being shared - set up folders, color code, mini-lessons to show the students computer skills needed.
- Use Google Sites to create student portfolios
