It's All Collaboration- MD DL Standard #7

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 By Kerri Lambert, Teacher Specialist, AACPS Office of Instructional Technology

This is the seventh and final post in a series about the Maryland Digital Learning Standards. 

Collaboration, the third of the famous 4 C’s of the 21st Century is a natural fit for the Maryland Digital Learning Standards as technology allows for a variety of collaborative activities. Whether it’s working simultaneously in a document to meeting virtually with an expert or community member, technology allows individuals to work as a team to expand their knowledge base and find solutions. So what exactly does the standard say about this all important concept? 

7. Global Collaborator 

Students use digital tools to broaden their perspectives and enrich their learning by collaborating with others and working effectively in teams locally and globally. Students:

 a) use digital tools to connect with learners from a variety of backgrounds and cultures, engaging with them in ways that broaden mutual understanding and learning; 

b) use collaborative technologies to work with others, including peers, experts or community members, to examine issues and problems from multiple viewpoints; 

c) contribute constructively to project teams, assuming various roles and responsibilities to work effectively toward a common goal; and 

d) explore local, state, regional, and global issues and use collaborative technologies to work with others to investigate solutions. 

It’s clear from reading the standard that a key component is connecting with others. In AACPS we utilize Google Meet as our student video conferencing platform. Using Google Meet, teachers can arrange for students to speak with community members, experts, and other students. Reaching out to a stranger to ask them to speak to your class can be intimidating, but if we look at the standard, it mentions connecting with peers. Why not reach out to a teacher friend in another school to see if they would like to connect class to class to share projects or information?  AACPS is a diverse county; we have rural areas in the south, urban areas in the north, and everything else in between. Having conversations between different schools, even within our own county, can broaden students’ perspectives. A former colleague of mine once reached out to another former colleague who had since moved to Australia to teach. They were able to connect via Google Meet to share information about the Great Barrier Reef. Even if you don’t know someone in another country, you probably have a teacher friend in another state you could connect with. 

There are also many resources for teachers interested in connecting with others or having their students participate in a live virtual field trip with experts. Discovery Education, the National Parks service and Exploring by the Seat of Your Pants are three options that offer classes the option to explore the outdoors virtually. Interested in different topics? A quick Google search will turn up opportunities to connect your students with others. 

Even sharing thoughts and ideas via a discussion board in Brightspace provides students within the same class to connect with others in a safe environment where ideas can be heard, experiences shared, and thoughts reflected on. 

But this standard is more than just having conversations with others via a virtual platform, it’s about collaborating and working together as well. Almost all of our applications in AACPS support synchronous collaboration on digital projects; there’s no need to limit your students to only working on shared slide decks! Minecraft Education, Google Earth, WeVideo, Wixie, and Adobe Express are all creative platforms in which students can contribute to a team or class project. Videos, podcasts, infographics, posters, ebooks…let students decide what works best for them to get their point across to their audience. 

While managing an online, collaborative student project comes with its own set of unique challenges, many tried and true strategies from traditional group work can be applied. Assigning roles within the group, a timeline with check-in points established, and having a rubric to guide students all work incredibly well with digital projects. Using version history allow teachers to keep a handle on who is doing what on the project. With cloud based applications, students and teachers can access the project anytime, anywhere, and (usually) from any device which makes it incredibly convenient for students who miss class and their teammates who can still access the project to work on. 

In brief, the essence of the final Maryland Digital Learning Standard echoes that of all the standards: although students display a natural inclination towards technology use, it remains our responsibility as educators to craft learning experiences that harness technology effectively, nurturing students' skills essential for college and career readiness.


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