In the past I have carried students’ notebooks from Newell Hall 25, to the language office, back to NH25, to my car, to my kitchen table, back to my car, back up two flights of stairs and then had students never pick them up, never read the comments I entered, never compare the score they gave themselves on the writing to my grade.
This semester I decided to follow an idiom I should be teaching “there’s no time like the present.” In the spirit of this thought, I put a journal up in google docs. I told my students that I didn’t want to carry their notebooks back and forth any longer. If I want better biceps I will start to visit the gym. I explained to them that they needed to create the document – title it Journals Spring 2012 ESL 504, and then put a title and date on every entry. Now I can read them wherever I have access to my gmail.
It worked so well, that i’m having them do their first essay that way. Put it in google docs and let me look at it there. I tag the mistake and write (subject/verb agreement discrepancy – please fix this) if they want full credit they have one week to fix all the editing marks I’ve entered.
The best part – they can no longer say “you lost my paper” or “you never handed that back to me” or “I turned it in I know I did.” if it’s not a shared google document I didn’t get it.
Now the question is, how to use this for the major class project we are about to do: KIDZ WORLD V. Though I left the business world years ago, it seems that the planning, meetings, etc I used to do are probably all done through technology, but my skills are so rusty? Could we hold meetings with the college? Could we share documents through google instead of going up to the college to see drafts, etc? It seems we could find a more efficient way to do what we need to do.
It would be more prepwork up front if they got ALL their information from google docs. But I still hand out hard copies of my curriculum – I just insist they turn it in electronically. With the next project I have been trying to put the documents up and make them responsible for getting them themselves. We’ll see how that goes. It is much less work on the grading end – and the students LOVE the paperless route. I think because they are much more comfortable in a digital world than I am – so I am finally meeting them in their world = instead of pulling them into mine (if that makes sense.)
Posted by Sandra, on January 31st, 2012, at 7:20 am. #.
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Overall, how do you find the students responding to the paperless route? Also, are you finding it more prep work upfront, but less work on the grading end?
Posted by Karen, on January 29th, 2012, at 9:18 pm. #.