Session+7

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Again, I do not have my own classroom, I am a consultant, but I am able to see students and teachers collaborating in the classes that I go into. One way that I see students collaborating is through group and partner work. Students work in groups or with partners frequently in math class on projects and daily assignments. The key is to have each member of the group accountable for a porting of the project. I have also seen students working together in groups on a daily basis, sitting in groups where each student is assigned a role, such as "classwork person", "answer person", etc. The roles switch every couple of weeks. An example of partner collaboration is giving students a worksheet with both names on the sheet and they pass it back and forth, so the first person does #1 and passes it to the partner. The partner checks it and initials it if it is correct or gives it back if he disagrees. They first person is then able to ask the second person for help. If they don't agree they ask a member of a second group, if that doesnt work they are able to ask the teacher. =====

**How can expanded use of technology help develop depth and breadth for our students?**
In the Pixar video, Randy Nelson talks about depth as the number one predictor of success. He says that if you look at people who have mastered any one thing, that person is a person you want on your team. Use of technology will enable students to find an area that interests them and delve into it as heavily as they would like. They will be able to become experts in areas that interest them. Randy Nelson also talks about breadth as an indicator of success. A person with breadth would be someone with a broad range of interestss and experience, mostly someone with natural interest/curiosity. Technology could help devolop this in students by exposing them to an infinite amount of information and opportunities.

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In this video, Randy Nelson says that there is a huge difference between cooperation and collaboration. Cooperation is people working together, but seperately. He likens it to an assembly line, where each person does his own job, but none of the people on the line are really helping or relying on each other for anything. Collaboration, he says, is a way of amplifying each other, making each other better. Where people are interested in what the other members of the group are saying and doing. There is constant communication in the group and together they are better than they would be seperately.=====

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The Challenges of getting students to collaborate, is sparking their interest and finding ways to motivate them. I often find that when students are placed in groups, there is one person that does most of the work, jobs are assigned and there is often conflict. We need to find ways of letting all the students contribute in a meaningful way. Fostering communication is also difficult in groups.=====

7.3 Voicethread Definition
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Define a Voicethread in your own terms, **summarize** your initial impressions of Voicethread and the various ways it might be useful in your classroom.

VoiceThread is a way of seeing and/or participating in a group conversation with people from all over the world. It allows you to comment in five different ways, using voice (with a mic or telephone), text, audio file, or video (via a webcam). You can then embed these conversations on your wiki page! I really enjoyed watching the voicethreads on the video. I can see why a child/student would enjoy listening to people's comments about their work, the only concern would be people posting negative or innapropriate comments. I love the idea of using it in the classroom to foster collaboration. Students can get and give feedback from peers, teacher, and others easily and refer to it as often as they would like. Just as we use forum posts here and comment on each other, students could do the same.

7.4 Immigration Voicethread
Comment on the positives you saw and heard in this Voicethread and some aspects that you could see being improved upon.

I liked the fact that each student's voice is heard and that they were given time to plan their responses before recording them. I also liked that the teacher is able to also record the question that the students are required to answer. I think the only improvements that could be made is maybe adding an image to each students comments or maybe having students on each side taking a different side, like a debate.

7.5 Voicethread in the classroom
media type="custom" key="10025266"

I was unable to record any comment, I am not sure why. It said I was recording, but when I try to listen to it it does not work. Also, I tried to change the voicethread identity picture.....I was able to upload pictures from my computer and from facebook, but could not change the picture! Also, I am unable to collaborate with a co-team member because I am leaving on vacation and will not be back until next week and nobody else has done the assignment.

**Comment on how you can use voicethread in your classroom:**
I am sure that there are many ways to use this in the math classroom. I was thinking about having students solve problems in multiple ways, having them solve word problems, sharing vocabulary specific to a unit, solve different parts of a problem, coming up with their own problems to have other students solve, and I am sure much more.