WPP - D Findings

Google Drive in the Classroom

For my WPP assignment I chose to address the issue of assigning group work effectively by using Google Drive. The goal ultimately was to find a way to conduct group work outside of the classroom since my school has the unique situation of drawing students from multiple school districts and, perhaps even more challenging, we do not provide any sort of transportation (students are either dropped off/picked up by parents or by city bus. This means that many of my students simply cannot find a common time/place to meet after school to complete a project. 

My plan was to first have my 10th grade World History students create a Gmail account so that they had access to Google Drive. This step was made possible from technology waivers that our school has all students turn in at the beginning of the year since. Once this process was done the next step was to have students work on a Google Presentation in small groups, the final product would become the compilation of each group's project. For the most part this went as planned. There were a few unforeseen problems that occurred but most of those were related to internet connectivity or slow computer processing speed. 

For all intents and purposes the project was implemented as planned. The true value of using Google Drive for collaborative group work however should be judged on student performance. Each group was assigned a topic and given a rubric of items that had to be included in their portion of the presentation. In addition they were to submit their slides to the overall class presentation so that it would truly be a class-wide collaborative effort. From a grading stand point, group did exceptionally well. Looking over the graded rubrics, the only significant points that groups lost were tied to the actual verbal presentation part of the assignment where they had to actually stand and present what they had contributed. Therefore, I would have to say that Google Drive was successful in addressing the issue I face with group work. The one caution that I have to remind myself of is that I did give class time for groups to work on the project since it was our first time using Google Drive and I wanted to make sure there were no issues. This means that students were not required to do as much at home as they will have to in the future.

I do plan on using Google Drive for several upcoming group projects. There are a few things that I plan on doing differently though to try and avoid some of the complications that occurred the first time around. Although I really like the idea of creating one class document that groups can post to, this process bogged the system down and left the opportunity for students to interfere with other's work. In the future I do plan on creating a class document but I will have each group create their own separate document, share it with me, and once they are done I will take their work and submit it to the class document. The other item that I want to change is how I check that all group members contributed. The first time around I could see that all students contributed, however Google Drive only makes group work easier, it does not solve the issue of individual student effort. I still will use some of the features provided by Google Drive, like the ability to track who has made various edits, but beyond that I am going to incorporate a group evaluation sheet where individual group members can discuss what they contributed and what others contributed. Adding this layer of accountability will help somewhat to avoid the free-rider effect. 

Overall, I really like the idea of using Google Drive in the classroom. I believe that I received better participation and a better product using this technology. Perhaps just as important, students now have another way to save files that will help them avoid the consequences of forgetting/losing a flash drive, or having their computer freeze/crash before they could save. There are a few areas as of right now that I will tweak in the near future, and certainly I will find other tweaks to make along the way that I have not thought about yet, but I am very happy with Google Drive. It definitely has a place in my classroom, at least until the next latest and greatest technology comes to claim its' place.