Image via Google
Collaborative tools, like Google Docs, have shifted the way students write, collaborate, and get feedback and editing from teachers and peers.
Google Docs and the entire G Suite system have revolutionized the way teachers interact and create with their students. The collaboration is fundamental to helping kids make authentic connections with text and information.
Allowing teachers to provide electronic feedback within text—instead of "red-lining" papers—paves the way for more transparent revisions and more targeted comments. Along with that, the ability for students to work with each other is just as important.
Group work extends to social-annotation tools as well. Digital resources allow teachers to upload texts and have students highlight, add questions, and create discussion threads with others. These are great tools for children to engage.
Technology has also enabled personalization in english/language arts. Students have new ways of communicating knowledge, through presentations that might incorporate text, infographics, photos, and video.
Students now have multiple means of creation and consumption that have changed the teaching landscape. Creating movie trailers as book reviews is one example.
The use of personalized digital products is also expanding. Commercial products, like Renaissance Accelerated Reader 360 and LightSail, make it easy for teachers to deliver the same texts but at different reading levels or to customize reading and writing assignments based on those levels. Web-based Newsela, for example, offers daily news articles adapted to reading levels in English and Spanish. Adaptive products like READ 180, which assesses students then provides customized exercises and lessons, are also gaining in popularity.
The future shows that students will have many more options for reading, writing, and collaborating, and structure that permit them to choose how they approach their subjects. That could open doors for augmented reality and virtual reality to tell stories and communicate and collaborate in multiple modes. There will likely be more reliance on digital content in the future from e-books to video streaming.
Kids are learning so much content from the internet, and using it to the school’s advantage is the next big step in education.
(Story via EdWeek)