PART A - Description of Need or Opportunity

Background:
Currently we teach one course that is split into two, developmental disabilities and mental wellness. In this course the two swap students every four weeks. Each will have about 20-30 students. These students are then split into research groups, in which they will compile information about their assigned physical disability or mental health issue. After the four weeks, the groups will swap, be assigned to new research groups on a new topic covered in their new rotation, and again compile their research data and findings. The research project is based on a questionnaire that will cover FAQ's, daily living information, and information on advocacy groups for the disability.

The issue:

How can the projects be compiled in a collaborative group setting, published in a single place (platform), archived for later review once the groups swap, and be rebooted for the next course rotation?

This issue is more commonly expected at the end of a normal course semester, when the instructor or an admin archives and re-establishes course templates in an LMS or CMS type of environment. Our situation is different as we don't currently use an LMS or CMS due to budget, though we do have access to Google Apps for Education, and the student rotations are fairly often in this course.

The solution(s):

With cost, available resources, and time in mind, I plan on using Google Docs, Video and Sites as the platforms on which students can collaborate to collect their research, store notes, and publish their findings. Docs will be used as place where they can access a questionnaire shared by their teacher with their group. In Docs, the students can also store resources such as links, and other notes regarding their research. Docs allows group members to work on a document simultaneously, from different computers. Google Video will allow those students that wish to use videos they have found or they have edited themselves and uploaded to the school's Google Video account. Finally, Sites will be the final compilation of their efforts, showcasing what they have learned, and their skills in using various technologies.
The supporting technologies would be a laptop cart to enable student research, flip cams to allow students to film if they decide so, iLife software to edit the videos, and the student's school assigned Google accounts to enable access to the online tools.

The Sites tool will host a site created and designed by the teacher. It will contain three main sections, a home page with a description of the site's purpose, developmental disabilities, and mental wellness. The latter two are the two that will swap student groups. These two main categories will contain sub pages listing their appropriate disabilities. It is here where the students will publish their work. Enabling the site to become a central resource containing all of the information regarding any topic covered in the course.

The students will be granted edit rights to the site, that way their group can make edits to corresponding page. Sites will allow multiple users to make edits simultaneously, this is optimal for this type of project, where there are different groups, in different classes, at different paces. The course will run every four weeks. The way to reset the website would be to create site and page templates that can be applied to the site to start fresh. In order to keep an archive of the work from a previous rotation, the site can be copied entirely onto another with a different URL, thus enabling the work to still be accessible via a descriptive URL. The main site that will be rebooted every four weeks will maintain the original URL. To provide students an easier to remember URL, a URL shortening service, such as Bit.ly, will be used.

Every four weeks, this process will be repeated, using the Google Apps for Education platform. The plan is to provide training during the second week of their research on how to edit the site, this will provide students some knowledge as to what to expect once they are ready to publish. I should be able to implement the project within the duration of this course, CEP812. As the course will rotate at least twice during this time.

As the project is implemented, I will analyze how the students collaborate in assigning roles and infuse creativity into their topic page using different types of media.

Thoughts and expectations:

While I have some experience with Google Apps at our school, this will most likely be the more intensive project because of the time restraint, and the number of different student groups that will need to be supported. The success of this plan will be measured in the interaction that the students experience with both each other and their research content. I have piloted individual portfolio websites for our ninth grade class, and that has shown promise as they have added their own content. Though this will be a true test as many different content from different perspectives will be housed under a single site.


Resources:

Here are some links regarding Google Apps for Education, and some examples of Sites in use.
http://www.google.com/a/help/intl/en/edu/
http://edu.googleapps.com/
http://www.google.com/support/sites/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=153055
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRYRbPCHTck