I liked what Alex (one of my peers) was doing with his class by using a shared Google Document which the class could contribute to, so I decided to try a similar approach.
The screenshot below shows students working their way through the assignment and marking off tasks once completed. The students thought it was a lot of fun, they liked being able to see the changes made in real time and were really engaged in the process.
However, one student decided to use it as a graffiti board and starting writing inappropriate comments about the other students. Fortunately, I managed to intercept and withdraw the comments before the other students saw them. Thankfully, Google Docs retains at least 10 file revisions so it was not too difficult to put right but I really hadn’t expected this. I had thought we had discussed appropriate use of the internet quite sufficiently. This exercise proved to me that it never hurts to remind students of their ethical responsibilities in online environments.
Because I didn’t want to make everyone create a Gmail account (as they already have a school email) I allowed the editing on the shared document to be anonymous which initially made tracking the culprit difficult. I turned the incident into a teaching moment, one which I hope we’ve all learned from. Would I use a shared document at school again? Yes, but it might be worthwhile to have students create a Gmail account and to learn the real benefits of having shared documents.
Students were divided 50/50 over whether or not they thought computer programming would be worthwhile in their future education or vocational prospects. Positive comments that students offered were;
Yes, it can make you creative and know code
Yes, because it’s helpful that’s all
I believe that there will be a time in my life when these skills will be needed
