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This is part four of a six part series on ways to use Google+ in the classroom after getting through the logistics of using it. Our discussions surrounding the use of Google+ in the classroom have centered on the following six possibilities within a Private, “request an Invite” Community.

1. Connecting to Ideas and Information
2. Writing to Learn Strategies
3. Creating and Sharing
4. Discussion Strategies – Part Four Focus
5. Efficiency Strategies
6. Connecting to People

In looking at each of these, we continue to frame our discussions around key questions:

1. Does it make things easier or more efficient?
2. Does it alter/enhance something previously done?
3. Does it allow for something new?
4. Does it solve a problem?
5. Does it foster creating and making?

Discussion Strategies

Using wired discussion tools is a well-documented, long used approach in classrooms both online, physical, and blended. From actively engaging more voices to openly providing more reserved students to participate, online discussions offer a wealth of opportunities for the classroom.

It is not a great place for a threaded discussion because it doesn’t flow well that way. It is also not a good place for an extended discussion because the stream can flow too far away from respondents. It best suited for ad hoc discussion posts because of its quick approach.

Also, Google+ has a section called categories. This allows the owner or moderator of the community to add different categories that assist in organization. Again, the problem is that it is teacher controlled. However, it has advantages to organizing types of discussions in class that fall into these quick approaches.

Sample Discussion Strategies with Google+

Sample One

• Add a category in your community called Q&A
• Students post any question to the Q&A category in Google+ based upon the topic being explored: reading, videos, textbook, research, etc.
• At the start of each class, students provide ideas and possible answers to their peers’ questions and use the +1 to identify questions worthy of being explored.
• Teacher monitors and pulls in key questions that need addressed face to face

Sample Two

• Add a category in your community called “Debate Topics”
• Students are asked to interview adults around the school about a debatable topic
• As students interview various adults, they post a topic and commentary from each adult
• While on the go, the teacher is able to offer commentary to students that help progress their next interviews and other students share their views that will also assist their peers.
• Upon returning to the class, a face to face debate takes place based upon the interviews and discussions under those posts.

Why Not Just Use Google Groups

Google Group Discussion Board is a great tool for synchronous and asynchronous discussions.

For example, I love to use these as silent discussions that flow into face to face discussions. Students come into the class with higher order discussion topics, post new threads to the discussion board, and then flowing into different threads having discussions. With the addition of media and embedding possibilities, these offer a wealth of opportunities.

From there, the teacher can monitor for misconceptions, areas of debate, and key points that need amplified for the whole class. After 10 minutes, the teachers shifts into the whole-class, face-to-face discussions based upon the aforementioned ideas.

While Google Group discussion board is an excellent tool for formal discussion threads, there is setup time and a more formal structure to it.  This is where Google+ comes into play in the spectrum of digital discussion tools. Primarily, it is a nice place to share discussion questions, Q&A postings, and commentary responses.

This is the difference. If you are looking for ad hoc or quick hitting discussions/answer sessions, Google+ is ideal. Because it works well on mobile devices, there is a different usage pattern that emerges as well whether in a classroom, outside the classroom, or outside the school.

This is part three of a six part serious on ways to use Google+ in the classroom after getting through the logistics of using it.

Our discussions surrounding the use of Google+ in the classroom have centered on the following six possibilities within a Private, “request an Invite” Community.

1. Connecting to Ideas and Information
2. Writing to Learn Strategies
3. Creating and Sharing
4. Discussion Strategies
5. Efficiency Strategies
6. Connecting to People

In looking at each of these, we continue to frame our discussions around key questions:

1. Does it make things easier or more efficient?
2. Does it alter/enhance something previously done?
3. Does it allow for something new?
4. Does it solve a problem?
5. Does it foster creating and making?

Creating and Sharing Strategies

Creating is at the top of the Revised Blooms Taxonomy, and it is this idea of building, designing, and making with the content acquired that lies at the heart of an engaged, meaningful learning environment. In other words, it is about a Maker Mindset:

Making is a natural learning state for humans. It offers a different way to see the world through the practical lens of finding solutions to problems, conundrums, and perplexities embedded in daily life. Such opportunities stretch analytical, creative, and integrative thinking. They create multidimensional–hands-to-mind and mind-to-hands–processing that engages the mathematical and language centers of the brain. Making offers integrated learning opportunities–the best of learning in any century. (Moran and Ratliff)

And Google+ provides a platform that supports this Maker Mindset as it encourages creating products, capturing the process and final products produced, and sharing creations with the community:

1. Virtual PhotoWalks via Hangouts (sample)
2. Video Creations
3. Photo Journals
4. Experiment and Presentation Capture
5. Collaborative Field Journals via Events
6. “Screencasting“ Creations/Problem-Solving via Physical Objects
7. Storytelling Using Photo Albums and Annotations

In the end, Google+ has the power of…

• capturing moments of creation that occur without technology such as
• creating with the tool itself

And with either, the ease of then sharing with the community brings in the power of making thinking visible and peer to peer feedback

Sample Creating and Sharing Strategies with Google+

While we’ve seen students screencasting using a tablet, it is also quite powerful to capture digitally what students are doing with physical objects: Play Doh, whiteboard work, paper and pencil, etc. Here is a simple but important example:

• Geometry students work collaboratively on a unique proofs using a physical object like a mini-whiteboard
• while working on the proof, students click on the photo/video icon in Google+ and use their device to record their work as well as narration
• the “screencast” is captured and posted to the Google+ community
• students write a reflective statement in the description
• the community +1 and comments on the proofs done by their peers

This is part two of a six part series on ways to use Google+ in the classroom after getting through the logistics of using it. Our discussions surrounding the use of Google+ in the classroom have centered on the following six possibilities within a Private, “request an Invite” Community.

1. Connecting to Ideas and Information
2. Writing to Learn Strategies – Part 2 Focus
3. Creating and Sharing
4. Discussion Strategies
5. Efficiency Strategies
6. Connecting to People

In looking at each of these, we continue to frame our discussions around key questions:

1. Does it make things easier or more efficient?
2. Does it alter/enhance something previously done?
3. Does it allow for something new?
4. Does it solve a problem?
5. Does it foster creating and making?

Writing to Learn Strategies

John Bean feels his “single most valuable teaching strategy for promoting critical thinking is to require regular exploratory writing” (Bean, Kindle Locations 3124-3125). He goes on to list a number of common exploratory “thinking pieces” that fit perfectly with the use of a Google+ community:

1. In-Class Writing
2. Out of Class Thinking Pieces, Journals, and Discussions (Note: in part four, I’ll compare discussion strategies with Google+ vs. Google Groups)
3. Creativity Exercises
4. Invention Tasks
5. Low-stakes Shape Exercises

And there are many other ways educators can leverage Google+ with writing to learn activities. In the end, it is about making thinking visible as Ritchard and Perkins explain:

Thinking happens mostly in our heads, invisible to others and even to ourselves. Effective thinkers make their thinking visible, meaning they externalize their thoughts through speaking, writing, drawing, or some other method. They can then direct and improve those thoughts. Visible Thinking also emphasizes documenting thinking for later reflection.

By doing these thinking pieces in Google+, a community begins to frame.

Sample Writing to Learn with Google+

• At the last part of the class, students read a debatable topic on a new concept the class is exploring
• On a scale of 1-5, have the students determine their position on the topic
• As a class, debate the topic: those at 1-2 on one side, those at 4-5 on the other side, and those at a 3 serving as questioners (they drive the discussion by a continuous flow of questions at both sides since they are in the middle).
• After a 10 minute or so debate, each student write a thinking piece on Google+ for the remaining 5-10 minutes of class. This thinking piece should be their final thoughts about the topic including questions, discoveries, conclusions, and points of confusion.
• At the start of the next class or prior to the next class, students +1 posts at least one thinking piece from a peer that is deemed valuable and comment on one other (commenting needs to be taught so it isn’t just “good thoughts” – this is how +1 can help as that essentially serves as that piece).

Why Not Just Have them Blogging

John Bean argues that “writing means joining a conversation of persons who are, in important ways, fundamentally disagreeing with each other, or, to make the matter less agonistic, jointly seeking answers to shared questions that puzzle them.”

In many ways, John Bean is the number one advocate for blogging throughout his book Engaging Ideas. In fact, I’d argue that the items he is advocating for have a greater possibility of success if each student had one blog with them across classes and years in school.And when that is the case, Google+ would serve more as an efficiency mechanism than a writing platform: students can share to the class community links to blog posts, teachers could begin a class by randomly asking students to submit links to posts, etc.

However, there are three items of importance here:

1. Not every classroom has embraced student blogging - at my school, we are rightfully focused on the contribute to (portfolio) rather than the contribue on (blogging) at this point 
2. Google+ can serve as an entry point towards student blogging
3. Even if all students had a blog, there is still room for writing-to-learn strategies via a closed community like Google+ (not to mention, doing some of this on paper )

Bean, John C. (2011-07-20). Engaging Ideas: The Professor’s Guide to Integrating Writing, Critical Thinking, and Active Learning in the Classroom (Jossey Bass Higher and Adult Education) (Kindle Locations 3124-3125). Wiley Publishing. Kindle Edition.

This is part one of a six part series on ways to use Google+ in the classroom after getting through the logistics of using it.

Our discussions surrounding the use of Google+ in the classroom have centered on the following six possibilities within a Private, “request an Invite” Community.

1. Connecting to Ideas and Information
2. Writing to Learn Strategies
3. Creating and Sharing
4. Discussion Strategies
5. Efficiency Strategies
6. Connecting to People

In looking at each of these, we continue to frame our discussions around key questions:

1. Does it make things easier or more efficient?
2. Does it alter/enhance something previously done?
3. Does it allow for something new?
4. Does it solve a problem?
5. Does it foster creating and making?

Connecting to the 3Is: Ideas, Information, and Innovations

The Internet is a hub of ideas, information, and innovation (3Is). With Google+, students and teachers serve as intermediaries between the Internet and their peers. By sharing their findings, the Google+ community becomes a hub of content curated together and a petri dish for linking and growing those ideas.

Okay, so beyond that babble, what are the pragmatic pieces.

1. Add the Chrome Extension Google +1 Button so students can easily share the 3Is they’ve connected: pages, articles, videos, etc.
2. Encourage students to share the ideas, information, and innovations (3Is) from the Internet
3. Provide opportunities for students to connect with a new concept on the Internet before exploring it as a class and share their connections to the community
4. Create time for students to explore big ideas and big questions via the Internet and trail their journey via the community
5. Model experimenting with the 3Is
6. Transition the “teachable” moment to Connectable Internet Moment and have students share the ideas they discover with the community
7. Utilize the +1 to draw attention and accelerate valuable 3Is

In other words, make our connecting to the 3Is visible so the community can grow. It has to be done with intent. It will take time to grow. It will take much modeling. But the power of this networking and curating is invaluable.