Transitioning to an iPad classroom

It's been two weeks since iPads have been in the hands of the students in my class, and the focus of the work we have been doing can be summed up in one word: transition.  Much of the work of my class has been carried out through various free web tools accessed via netbooks, so for my students and I, moving from pc to Mac and one device to another, we have focused on becoming acclimated by using it for processes and tasks that were already familiar.  Here's a quick recap of what we did and how it went:

Writing spaces

We use Google Docs regularly for drafting and collaborating, and Kidblog for our blogging platform. While both of these tools can be accessed from the web browser, they both also have apps for the iPad.  Overall it seemed that students had very little trouble at all moving from using these cloud-based tools on the netbook to the equivalent iPad app. Though the apps did not look the same as the interface students were used to, they were simple and user friendly so students didn't have much trouble making the change. 

The Kidblog app was a little buggy, as a couple of students lost posts that they had started writing, but the Drive app worked smootly, was reliable, and eventually most studnet who were using their blogs to draft theri writing switched to Drive, then copied and pasted in their blog to publish.  The Drive app was missing some features available on the desktop version that my students had come to love (like the ability to chat and post comments), but the writing we were working on this week didn't necessitate collaboration, so this didn't come up as an issue. I'm interested to see what happens when students do come back to writing collaboratively.  I asked one class if they were concerned about loosing this feature, to which they replied that they would find a way to make it work.  I'm sure they will.

Browsers and Bookmarking

Recently our school had made Chrome available as an option for internet browsing.  The experience of using it in my classroom has been a huge success. It was faster than the version of IE we were using, worked seamlessly with all of the Google apps, and had a Diigo extension that was awesome for bookmarking.

The mobile version of Chrome, while a great app to have, doesn't have near the features of the full version.  I do like that with Chrome you can view bookmarks and history across browsers, but not having that Diigo extension available was a huge drawback for the research that we were getting into.  My students were familiar with Diigo, and while bookmarking in Chrome is fairly simple, it doesn't offer the handy annotation features of Diigo, features that we've built our research process around.

The solution: installing the Diigo web highlighter on the iPad Safari browsers.  To do this, I had one of my classes go through the steps of installing it as directed by the app.  Of course, what I thought would be a five minute process ended up being about 30.  I eventually figured out that I could save one iPad, whose browser I already set up, as the back-up in Configurator, then when I applied this back-up to all devices the web highlighter would show up in Safari.  I've got to remember that for next time.

Students didn't seem to have much difficulty using the iPad web highlighter to bookmark and annotate, though with the touch screen it did seem to take them a bit longer to select the text on the webpage they wanted to highlight.  And as for the actual Diigo app, I ended up deleting it from the students' iPads.  About the only thing that the app was useful for was making the process of installing the web highlighter a bit easier.  The web-based version of students Diigo libraries seemed be fully functional and more user friendly.


Learning the basics of iPad navigation

I assumed that since the iPad was fairly easy to use students wouldn't have a whole lot of trouble figuring out how to use it.  And for the most part, that has been the case. iPads don't have the same ability to multi-task, but students seem like they are figuring out how to use the gestures features to swipe between different apps they are using.  For example, when when created annotated bibliographies, students had to move in and out of their Diigo library, the Bibme site, and their blog, while also occasionally referring back to model and requirements that I had posted for them on my website.  This was a bit more time consuming than what they were used to, but it was also a good exercise in learning the multitouch gesture feature, and most students when I asked them didn't seem to mind.


Next steps....

The transition from working in spaces where we had already been has thus far gone pretty smooth.  What I'm most excited about is venturing into tasks that take advantage of capabilities that are specific to the iPad.  As I'm finishing up this post, I've got some of my students in a reading class experimenting with using the apps Flipboard and Zite to create personalized magazines around topics of their choice.  In class we are also working on creating documentaries with iMovie and Explain Everything.  I'm also getting acclimated with Apple TV.  It's been a pretty awesome experience, and I look forward to writing and thinking more about it in my next post. 

In preparation for a class set of iPads...

I was excited last week when I opened an email from my technology director, letting me know that I would soon be getting a class set of iPads. A huge part of what makes this news so awesome is that I have spent the last two years engaged in an iPad pilot set up through a professor at a local university. With a single iPad, I explored the potential benefits and limitations of the device, which was in both my and my students' hands daily.

Since my students were already immersed in a technology-rich environment (most days I had my students use net-books--  researching, collaborating, and composing), the direction of my inquiry took shape around both comparing the two technologies and examining how the iPad could be integrated into our existing (PC-based) digital writing workshop.

Though the greatest limiting factor was that I only had a single iPad to work with, I learned quite a bit, and it will be this learning that I will build from when my class set arrives. But now, before that day gets here, I'd like to use this post as a space to share some of the conclusions and realizations I've made over the last couple of years about the use of iPads in my 8th grade ELA classroom. These are points that I've discussed with colleagues, shared in professional development, and presented at conferences. I'm not sure why I'm only now posting them here, but I know that I need to.  This will likely be the first of many iPad related posts.

What I've taken from the single iPad pilot: 

• One of the greatest strengths of the iPad was its physical properties...long battery life, portability, and quick boot time. It can easily be moved from student to student, and I did not have to plan around the time that would take to turn on and be ready to use, as I do with my net-books   Since there were no moving parts, I also feel like the device will undergo less wear and tear from everyday use. 

• Since my starting place was the tasks my students carried out on their net-books  many of the apps I first searched for were those that could carry out equivalent tasks to what my students were doing on websites accessed through the net-books. Many of the web tools I had my students use were not accessible to on the iPad or could be accessed on a limited basis. So, for example, since a student couldn't use the Piclits website on the iPad, I had to download an app like Instant Poetry to carry out a similar task. I discovered that most apps I found were inferior to the equivalent free PC web tool that the rest of the students were using. 

• What I am most interested in learning more about are apps that allow students to carry out tasks not possible on a PC.  This is an area where I feel lies the greatest potential for understanding how best to integrate the tablet into teaching. And also, as it true with the web-based tools I have learned to integrate, I am interesting in learning more about how different apps and functions can work together in particular learning situations. 

• The iPad was great for web browsing, media consuming. As for producing, it's great for taking quick photos and videos, and editing with iLife package apps, like iMovie and iPhoto.  

• Most of my students initially claimed that they didn't mind typing on the iPad for writing pieces of longer lengths. Almost every student who made this claim changed their minds after a couple of days of typing on an iPad during writing workshop time; touchscreen typing was slower and more labor intensive. Students who wrote on the iPad, while they were able to use Google Docs as a drafting space with the Drive app, were not able carry out digital conferences through using the chat and comments features not available on mobile devices.  These are functions of Docs that many of my students have come to appreciate.  Not having this access is what I have come to believe will be the greatest constraining factor when integrating iPads into my class, at where our digital writing workshop is concerned.  *And by the way, I shared my concern with the students today, and they assured me that they would find a way to make it work out...and I am sure they will. 

So, I guess if I were to sum up what I had discovered through the last couple of years with toying with an iPad would fit into my classroom, I have learned that:

1.  An iPad is not a laptop
2. Thinking about iPads from netbook/laptop paradigm hinders their learning potential. 

I'll more easily transition to this new iParadigm after I have a class set of these devices up an running, and I am looking forward to getting that process started.  I think that ideally, though, the best learning environment for students is one where they will have access to multiple types of technology. Where students are able to use iPads for some tasks and laptops for others.  I know that this is what it's like for me in my own daily use of technology   Since I began using mobile devices in my personal and professional life, I have been in a continuous process of experimenting with which device is most ideal for particular situations.  I'm still figuring this balance out, but it seems to me that finding this balance  deciding which tool to use and when, is an important skill that we ought to give students the chance to develop in school.  I hope to explore this area is well.

I can't wait to get started...

The literacy of the image search

The last several classes I have had my students spend quite a bit of time searching the web and learning, doing informal web research to find out just what is out there about a topic they may know little about.  In our case the subjects of our googling have in some way connected to the context of Night, by Elie Wiesel  a novel that we'll soon start reading together.  Last week we inquired into the Holocaust and World War II.  Today our lesson focused on trying to learn a little more about how the concepts of Jewish Mysticism mentioned in the first three pages of Night connected to each other, so that we could better understand Wiesel's childhood and background.

I have used this time to teach students a little about how to search the web and also a little about website evaluation. Actually, I imagined that I would be writing this post today as a way of reflecting on the process of how these mini-lessons on digital skills have gone. I'll have to hang on to that idea for another time, though, because I noticed something today that I'm feeling needs more thought.  I noticed how many of my students, while searching for information on the internet, do an image search.  It's a habit that I'm seeing become more common among my students, and I'm wanting to think more about value of it.

My first reaction as a teacher is to say, "Hey, were doing research (even as light-weight as these mini-research assignments have been)! Those pictures aren't going to give you the information that you need.  Stop being lazy and read some complex text or else you wont be college and career ready." But I don't feel like that's the right reaction.  Partially because I do the same thing sometimes....actually a lot of times.  I am reading or watching television and something sparks my interest.  I go to the web, and depending on the topic, I usually end up at some point doing an image search. Having those pages and pages of images from the web help me "see" the concept I'm trying to know in a way that searching blogs or news articles don't.  Of course, there are other times when I specifically search for blogs, journal articles, news articles, or even tweets.  Usually I'll end up meandering through several of different genres of web text, and at some point stumble across something that gets me thinking about something that makes me feel like I need to do an image search to better understand what I want to know.

By the last class of my day today, after I had the first three classes to observe and wonder about students internet searching habits and the value of image searching, I was a little more conciseness of my students' internet search habits.  I noticed that most of my students didn't begin with searching for images.  I noticed that at some point most students at some term that they searched in images. They were basically doing the same thing that I did when I sat on the couch at home and wanted to learn about something.

Both my students and I understand that there is value in having a visual reference to a concept that we want to know more about, especially one about which we are unfamiliar. Image searches are worthwhile, I don't doubt that, but I'm wondering about the place the practice has in the context of literacy instruction in my classroom.  Should I incorporate lessons that guide students in doing image searches, and what would such lessons focus on? I'm not sure exactly what the guidelines are for being an effective image searcher.  Maybe we could create some. It could also be interesting to "read" pages of images, examining the story they collectively tell, and looking at this story critically. Maybe even looking at the results as augmentative texts.  Perhaps even students' findings of image searches could work their way into the more formal research papers that we'll write later in the year....

Caught by suprise by Kidblog

I found my self in a bit of a bind this week as my school's process for issuing students their school email addresses has been hung up.  I was planning by now to have all students set up blogs in Blogger and begin composing and publishing there.  Any account that students make online through my classroom is supposed to be created with a school email, so without them, I had to put the plans for the Blogger and Google setup on hold. 

I decided that as a temporary solution I would have students create blogs using Kidblog.  They are excited about the writing that's been happening (right now we are creating narratives), and I felt that making sure they had the space to share and respond would be important for both students' sense of audience and also for the community that we are building.  Today is my second day with using the platform, and I've got to be honest, I'm starting to reconsider just how temporary this Kidblog fix is going to be.  It seems to be working pretty well for all of us.

The set up was a breeze.  I decided to create a separate class for each of my classes, and all I had to do was share the codes that the site generated for each class, along with these simple instructions, with students.  Within minutes they had created user names and passwords, and were part of the class. On that first day, I gave students very little background about the site or it's purpose other than telling them we would be using it to compose and share our writing.  I gave a overview of how to get around the dashboard, and within 10 minutes, all of my students were writing from daybooks into their first blog posts.

Between our workshop time yesterday and today, we have had very few problems, and yea, I'm impressed. Here are a few reason's why:

• Kidblog's user-friendly interface makes it incredibly easy for students to navigate.  It's lay-out is logical and includes the most important components that bloggers need to compose.
• The administrative controlls makes it easy to adjust student accounts.  The number of forgotten passwords when kids logged on today was on par with what I usually see (a handful in each class), but the fix took very little class time.  I opened their profile on my iPad, let them type in their new password, and the student instantaneously was able to sign in on the netbook at their desk.
• I could see student drafts as they were automatically saved while they typed.  As students worked I would flip through the posts they were writing and then approach individuals for a conferences as I saw appropriate. In the past (when not writing on Google Docs that they shared with me), I accomplished this by reading over students' shoulders as they wrote for a bit then initiating a conference.  The conference process today was one of smoothest I've experienced.
• On the same note as the point above, being able to open the most updated version of their draft from my device didn't require the student and I to share a screen, a task not possible in Blogger unless a student had published the post.
• Students could see the posts of their classmates as they were published without having to take the additional step of following each others' blog or learning to use RSS and a feed reader. Kidblog combined the benefits of a class blog while still letting students have individual blogs.
• I was able to see comments as students posted them. Actually, I was surprised to see that students were even posting comments, since our commenting day wasn't until tomorrow. But, as I pointed out with the point above, students know immediately when a blog gets published.

I'm excited about Kidblog, and I wasn't expecting to be.  It's not new.  I've played around with it before.  I've introduced it to other teachers in my building, and led pd sessions for teachers using it in other schools.  I knew the site and its capacities well, but I made the decision last year to have my students use Blogger.  I wanted them to use the same site that real bloggers use.  To have the freedom to customize, not feel policed, and develop a sense of ownership of their digital composing spaces. I wanted them to feel like their words were on the same playing field with others in the global blogosphere.  And I thought that using a "big-kid" (not made specifically for school) blogging site, I would then have more possibilities for teaching students the real-world lessons in digital literacy. 

I still believe in the value of all of these initial reasons I had for using Blogger, but my two days with Kidblog as got me thinking if, when, and how I'm going have students make the transition to Blogger when students' emails become available.  I'll have to keep thinking and writing about that.  But in the meantime, feel free to check out what my students have been posting and leave them some feedback. I'm sure they'd love it!

  My student's blogs by class:

    Block 1

    Block 2

    Block 5

    Block 6

Dear John --my response to your inquiry into fostering student bloggers

Like I often do, I was sitting up tonight past my bed time reading some blog posts that I subscribe to in my Reader. I came across this post by John Spencer (if you don't follow him, you should) about some thinking he was doing about getting his students blogging.  I've spend quite a bit of time thinking and blogging on the subject, so I had to respond.  But as I wrote my response, I noticed a new strand of my thinking about sustained student engagement with blogging come up, and because of that (and the fact that my comment was getting a little lengthy), I decided to post it here and leave him a link to it on his blog.  So John, in response to your post, here is what I'm thinking:

Hey John, I got my students into blogging a couple years ago, and I thought (and still think) about many of the questions that you're asking yourself here. I like how you pointed out that the blogging your students were doing bared little semblance to the blogs you write and read.  I've thought about this difference between school blogging and real blogging before also, eventually deciding that if I want my students to blog like "real bloggers," then I need to rethink the conditions in my classroom that support or inhibit the motivations of people who blog.  That seems reasonable, right?

The approach I eventually decided to take in my class was for students to all have individual blogs, use them as a space to publish writing assignments (often fairly open) produced in our writing workshop, and set class time aside for students to read and respond to each other. Over the course of the year, kids began to take ownership, create amazingly thoughtful and creative writing pieces, build off of ideas they found in others' writing, and value this space.  If you'd like to read more on this process, I blogged about it here.

Considering the context of my students' engagement and the tightness of the blogging community we had formed, I thought that for certain my students blogging practices would continue well after school was out.  And I had reason to believe it, too.

The day after the last day of school, one student emailed me this:

Wow.... I can't believe everything is over. I was in your class and now I'm going to High School, but the legacy for me to write is still on!!!! You taught me so much!!!. When you said write what is on your mind, I basically wrote everything that was on my mind. . I hope you and the little ones have a great summer and know that I will be writing on my blog for the rest of my life!!!!!!!

Another student amassed a following of student bloggers from outside of our class because of the amazing writing she was doing.  In response to a comment she received on this post, she stated:

 Thank you! It's a really sad poem, but I felt the need to publish it. I'm glad that you do check my blog. I try to post something at least every Friday, so you can always count on a new poem then.

The first student had not posted since the school year ended.  The second posted a blog post the week after school got out.  It was the last post she has written to date, and she was the only one of my students who had returned back to her blog.

But even with this engagement with blogging and the tightness of the blogging community we created,  I've only seen a handful of students' posts come across my Reader since school got out.  I've been thinking about this, why not more of my students have been blogging when during the school year they seemed so into doing so for their own purposes....like you and I do.  Maybe it was because the blog started in the context of school, as an assignment.  That's one possibility.

Another explanation, which I'm thinking is more likely, is that the blogging my students were doing was not entering them into the larger "conversations" that were already taking place in the real (rather than k-12) blogosphere.   During the school year, my students knew their words were heard by classmates, and they knew that students around the world may come across their blogs through the blogging communities I had them enter  into, like Comments 4 Kids and the Student Blogging Challenge.  But these spaces for audiences had limited existence outside of school.  Maybe that's the problem. 


So now, I'm wondering....
I'm wondering now about how to guide my students toward blogging into the existing real-world, conversations.  I'm wondering if there are other communities of student bloggers out there sustaining their blogging practices.   I'm wondering what that would look like and how to go about it.  I've only just begun to think about it, and I'm open to any ideas. 


So John, that's what I got for you.  I'm not sure if this is the response that you were looking for.   I'm certain that you're content, school, and students are all much different than mine, but it is for these reasons, though, that I decided to respond back to you with my story and thinking, rather than suggestions. 


I hope you'll continue your inquiry in the public space of your blog.  I enjoy being part of that conversation.

A year in the life of an 8th grader--A digital end-of-year project

It seems like every year after the first round of EOG testing, the learning community we have created throughout the first 170 days of school begins to lose shape.  Remediation and retesting takes center stage, schedules change, kids get shuffled around, and for many students, particularly those who passed their tests, the time spent in regular content classes becomes and exercise in passing time.

I've never considered such an end to the school year desirable.  After a year's worth of building connections and knowledge, the end of the year should serve as a point to celebrate a year's worth of achievements.  It should be a time to look back and reflect on all that had happened with new eyes, realizing the value of our time together and the effect it will have on the rest of our lives.  

I've been thinking throughout he second semester of school about the idea of doing such a reflective final project, contemplating what it could look like.  One that was was intellectual and reflective, while also flexible and engaging.   One that would enable students to refocus their attention from standardized tests and the summer break around the corner, to celebrating and sharing the the amazing transformations that had occurred within them this year. 

Going into the last week of school, I felt like I had pretty good idea of what this project would be, and I was hopeful that it would be awesome.  So, on Tuesday after my students and I were back together in class after a long weekend, we dug in.

Writing into ideas for our project:

To begin the process, we opened our daybooks, stretched out our hands, and wrote for a few minutes in response to the following questions:

• Describe yourself as a writer at the beginning of the year.  You can talk about your attitude, likes, dislikes. 
• What are some important events that have occurred in your writing this year? 
• How have you noticed your writing change this year?
• How has your writing changed you?
• What other important ways have you changed this year?

With some thinking fresh in our heads, I presented students with three possible directions their projects could take.    Below are the directions I gave:

    

A Year in the Life of an 8th grader--Digital Reflective Project 

         Pick one of the following options for the focus of your project:

1. Show the path of your journey as a writer/reader this year

2. Retell one of your writing pieces with images or other media

3. Explain lessons you learned about life as an 8th grader

        And use one of the following tools to create it:

        Animoto, Glogster, Prezi, Photostory, Movie Maker 

I gave students brief demonstrations of each of the digital tools, adding that if they knew of another tool in they would like to use, they could, and I encouraged them to use one that was new to them for the purpose of learning something new.  I also told students that they were more than welcome to do more than one project option, combine options, or, if they wanted to, come up with their own option for a reflective project.  

Students took the next 10 minutes or so to write in their daybooks about their plans, then took a few minutes to share ideas and get responses from classmates.  I gave students the last 15 minutes to either plan in their daybooks, experiment with possible tools, or dive into their projects.  

From what I could tell, it seemed like just about all left class with a sense of direction and, importantly, motivation. Students seemed excited and engaged, and I could feel a level of energy in the room that, like I had hoped, would make this last week we had together powerful and productive. 

We were all excited to begin. 

The best laid plans.....

My plan for the week was to use the next two days as workshop time, and Friday for presentations.  Two days wasn't a lot of time to work.  I knew it was going to be tight, but if students used their time productively, a couple full class periods should be enough.  Motivated 8th graders can accomplish just about anything. 

Students arrived at class chattering about their projects.  While they logged on to their computes, I reviewed the project they would be working on, explaining that they would have two days to work and that Friday would be our presentation day.  As computers logged on, daybooks opened to yesterday's planning, and the class grew quiet as students eagerly dug into their projects.

Right away, I noticed something wasn't right.  Some students noticed that the internet was slow.  Others began loosing their network connections.  And some were not even able to log on.  I couldn't figure it out.  It wasn't the wireless connection.  I was connected and so were about half of my students.  Not knowing what else to do, I instructed students that if they experienced problems with their computers, they should try restarting, and while they waited should use their time to continue their project planning in their daybooks.  Restarting worked for some, but was incredibly time consuming.  But having more time to work ideas out paper proved to be a good thing, though.

Our first work period wasn't a total loss, but we couldn't afford to lose another day.  Motivation is hard to come by in 8th grade during this time of the year, so I spent my planning period in our technology facilitator's office.  Eventually she figured out the cause of the problem.

It turned out that, while nothing was wrong with our school's network, many other classrooms in the school

were streaming movies and videos from the Internet, using up quite a bit of bandwidth.  

Teachers were instructed to stop streaming, and while our web connection was better the next couple of days, many of my students were still not able to finish their projects.  A few barely had the chance to start. 

Presentation Day

We went ahead and presented projects anyway, even though for many students this presentation consisted of them talking through what they were planning on doing.  It wasn't exactly what I had planned, but even so, what students had made or were wanting to make was pretty impressive.  Here are some examples:

• Jacob created this Prezi, showing how he had transformed as writer this year.  And indeed he has.  Check out his blog to see the amazing work he produced. 
• Diana created this Glog.  It didn't turn out exactly as she wanted it to, with some parts being cut off, but it was an awesome idea.  In it she reflects on her growth as a writing and includes quotes from the writing of her classmates and comments that people left on her writing.  
• Josh created this photostory reflecting on his writing and life as an 8th grader.  In it he includes screenshots of his writing and writing of his classmates that he found particularly powerful.  He ran out of time in class and recorded this presentation from home. 
• Alycia's project took the form of a letter to next year's 8th graders that she posted on her blog here.  In it she addresses subjects such as work, principals, teachers, and cliques, writing in a way that is sure to capture the interest of her audience.
• Weston created a Prezi and embedded it in his blog here.  In it, he describes the growth he experienced as a writer this year. 

It's rare that a project my students and I take on for the first time goes as planned, and, of course, this one was no exception.  The technology problems that we ran into were out of our control, but with respect to what students could control, the directions they took with the freedom they had was awesome.  They carved out ideas for what they would create based on their own experiences, taking directions that I hadn't considered.  It was fascinating to watch their process as they experimented and worked with different mediums for creating.  Many took me up on my challenge of learning to compose with something new, and many also thought considerably about the possibilities and limitations different tools presented with respect to how their message was conveyed.  

The presentation day, regardless of the projects' stage of completion, was indeed a celebration.   Students were eager to share just how far they had come this year and were supportive of their classmates.  I think I was the most excited though, as many students highlighted elements of  learning and growth they experienced in my class of which I was completely unaware.

This was how the school year should end; it didn't go as planned, but it was exactly what it needed to be. I'm sure that I will build upon this project next year, but without question my students and I will again head in this direction during the wild time that is the final days of school.  


I'm excited to be able to share my experiences here.  Perhaps I will inspire others, and next year bandwith loss will be less of an issue. Perhaps.

*In the meantime, I'd love to hear additional suggestions for end of year projects.  I'm also all about collaboration, so if you're interested in heading down a similar road with your students next year, please get in touch!

Opening New Spaces in the Digital Writing Workshop with Google Docs

 Writing workshop is, and always has been, where some of the most powerful learning has taken place in my classroom.  Last year, I made the move towards a more digital writing workshop, mainly though the incorporation of blogs as a space to compose and publish.  I noticed that this move drastically changed writing instruction as I knew it.  Technology provided a new space and a new way for students to create, share, and develop ideas.
Three weeks ago I added another layer to our digital writing workshop:  I introduced students to Google Docs, and with it learned the power and potential of yet another space that again is changing writing instruction as I know it.

Getting students started with their first Google Doc was easy.  My students already have Google account as they maintain blogs on Blogger, so having them begin their first Google Doc was as simple as directing them to log into Google, click a couple tabs, and begin a new document (if you've never done it before, create an account on Google, visit google.com/docs, and hit the "create" button).


To be honest, my main purpose for getting my students to begin using Google Docs wasn't composing; rather, it was the possibilities presented for collaborative writing and conferencing.  But even so, after a couple days most of my students expressed to me that they preferred typing in docs over the text editor in Blogger. They cited the larger screen and more familiar format, as well as the ability to access previous revisions.  Others mentioned that they liked being able to access their drafts on their phone through the Docs app for Android. I also noticed that I had fewer students coming to me with the problem of loosing work they had previously thought was saved, like would happen on occasion with Blogger.

Getting Collaborative

The transition to using Docs as a drafting space went pretty smooth, and after all of my students seemed to have drafts underway, I introduced them to the Google Doc conference. Google Docs provides users the option of sharing documents, so others can have the ability to edit and add comments to a document in real-time. It is an option that, I've felt for some time, had potential to change the way conferencing is done in writing workshop.  I was pretty excited today to take my first real step into it with my students.


In order to invite collaborators to a document, the user simply clicks the blue "share" button in the top right corner of their document and enters the email addresses of intended collaborators.  Before my students could do this they needed access to each other's email addresses, which we accomplished in about two minutes with a Google Form and a link to resulting spreadsheet posted on my home page (Google Forms is yet another handy feature of Google Docs).

After students had time to fill out and submit the form, I introduced them to the conference they would soon be having.  Students in my class have an established writing group they have been working and sharing with since the beginning of the year, so the idea of a writing conference was not unfamiliar to them.  Actually, the way I framed this conference using Google Docs was with the exact same instructions that we had been following the past two weeks:

1. Students would meet sit together with their group
2. One student would read aloud his or her writing
3. Other students would listen, ask questions in response
4. The group would have a conversation about the piece
5. The author would get any help he or she felt they need
6. Repeat 

Before meeting in their groups, I gave students time to refer to our list of student emails and invite their group members to their document. When the invites were sent, students got with their groups and began their conference, just the same as they usually did, but this time instead of just listening, they would open that author's draft and read along; and in addition to just responding and asking the author questions, students used the insert function to type their comments onto each student's draft. 

Responding to each other's writing in a Google Doc enabled group members to attach comments to specific places in the text, while also leaving the author the option of accessing the feedback on the draft at a later time. These two posibilities alone made writing conferences more engaging and worth while, like I expected they would.  But there were also some things that happened that I didn't expect.    Things that began after the initial conferences had ended.

Opening New Spaces
Well, maybe "ended" isn't the right word to use.  Because, what I noticed was that after students moved back to their seats and continued their writing quietly, many of the conferences didn't end.

A student collaborates with several others on a Google Doc

Rather, I saw right away that many students took it upon themselves to continue to post comments on each others drafts, reply to those comments, and in some cases, carry on conversations about their writing using the chat feature on Google Docs.  This, I didn't expect (especially since I didn't mention anything to students  about the chat feature).  Yes, I planned on later giving students the option of having Google Doc conferences during workshop time, but I had not figured it was something they would just begin doing on their own.  Clearly, they were ahead of me.  So, I decided to just get out of the way, watch, and learn.

In the writing workshop sessions that followed it became clear that Google Docs was opening spaces for writing in my classroom that I didn't know existed. Spaces, that I wasn't aware of until I saw students carve them out before me:

• Jacob, Luis, and Cody shared a common interest in wanting to write science fiction.  While in different  writing groups, each invited the other to their Doc where they were drafting the next piece.  During class workshop time, each had three documents open.  Each spent the majority of the time working on his own writing, but would also pop in and out of the chat side bar of the others' Docs asking for help or a response to part of their writing.  The three would chat briefly about the part under consideration, then move back to work in their own Doc, every so often checking in on each other to see how their stories were progressing. 
• After it was received well by the class at our Friday Open Mic, David decided to create a sequel to the first part of his sci-fi piece.  Josh, inspired by David's piece, decided to write the sequel as well, but from the perspective of a different character. Each invited the other to their drafts, and collaborated
• Isaac, wanting to get new ideas for his writing, whispered to Jhonny, asking him to send an invite to his draft.  Jhonny did, and while Jhonny continued to revise his writing, Isaac chatted with him about parts of it that he liked and ideas it was giving him for his next piece. 

Above are highlighted a few specific examples of how students adapted the features of Google Docs to meet their needs as writers. In each case, I didn't instruct students to confer or collaborate.  They just did.  They recognized the need, were aware of the value that collaboration had on their writing, and used the tools and space afforded to them to carry it out.

I feel it's important for me to point out the the examples I shared above were not the exception to how writing was being done in my classroom.  After having now used Google Docs in my classroom writing workshop for three weeks, frequent collaboration while writing has become the norm.  It has become increasingly difficult to draw the line between writing time and collaboration time.  And this collaboration, which seemed to be taking place at any given time between pairs and groups of writers, looked different in each case, dependant upon on the needs of the writer.
In just this short period of time, with Docs in the mix, I've seen a significant change in my students writing and identities as writers.  Not only are they coming to see themselves as writers on an extent to which I had never before seen, but they are also developing an appreciation and understand of the writing process and  the nature of writing that I had not considered possible with 8th graders.

This is the most engaged and creative group of writers that has ever been inside my classroom walls.
I say this every year, and I always mean it.
Writing is going well, and there are a number of variables that explain why. The workshop model is part of it, my students are part of it, my teaching is part of it, and the technology is part of it.  I'm sure that there is a really interesting explanation in the intersection of it all.   But with respect to the technology,  specifically Docs, I'm pretty sure that the difference is being made in the space the technology creates.

Google Docs creates a space where writers can move seamlessly and more effectively through the steps of writing.  Regardless of how it often gets taught, as straight-forward and rigid, the process that real writers use is anything but linear.  With Docs being cloud based, students can write whenever they are inspired on whatever device they have with them.  With the collaborative features, students can give and receive feedback quickly and quietly (which is pretty important when 30 students are writing in a classroom) at any given time, as well as write collaboratively.  And with the ability to access past revisions, it's easier to try out different approaches and take risks in writing without fear of irreversible damage.

The space of Docs is also highly conducive to the development of new and better ideas for writers. It is a space where ideas can move as quickly (or slowly) as they need to, collide with other ideas, and give rise to new ones.  It is a space that is a catalyst for creativity and innovation. It's one that affords opportunities not possible in physical space alone, and one that fits in pretty well with the digital and physical elements present in our workshop already: daybooks and blogs, conversations with me and between students, and mini-lessons and mentor texts. 

Adding this new layer to our workshop has redefined the act of writing for my students.  It's changed me, too.  I've noticed that I've developed a new awareness of and appreciation for my both the workshop model and my role as a teacher of writing.  I'm pretty sure that I haven't seen all of what is possible through Google Docs in the few weeks we have been using it, but I've seen enough to know that it's a place significant enough to be permanent.  And I also know that my students, so long as they are allowed to take the lead, will gladly continue to carve out new possibilities for composing and collaborating within the space of our Digital Writing Workshop.