Often students will be working on a small group activity during a face to face session or an online class, but it’s more likely they’ll be working independently in their own time.
Collaborative activities can be scaffolded within the VLE, including Journals, Blogs or Discussion, while complementary tools can be useful, especially where learning is informal or work in progress.
Blogs, like journals, can be a good option for developmental activities such as writing, demonstrating or sharing knowledge, skills or multimedia resources. They are perhaps best to build around a theme or changing perspectives, as blogs are usually developed over time. On a practical level, blogs can be set up for individual learners, while still sharing with peers or selective others. A group or collaborative blog offers potential as a slightly more social activity, where co-ordination is needed but leaving open the possibility of highlighting individuals’ contributions.
Tools such as discussion boards or, perhaps more informally, the chat feature in Teams can support students to share ideas or information, debate, and with consensus, agreement and community-building.
Co-creating tasks can be scaffolded using wikis or the range of collaboration tools in o365. Depending on the aims of the activity or task, processes can a collaborative product can be worked upon
MS Forms, works well to support knowledge checking, quizzes and feedback. There is also an option to enable collection of documents or multimedia. This option is useful if students are in a range of different classes or spaces or if they don’t already have a shared online area set up. Such a scenario might include working in a physical environment, such as a studio. Students can just upload a snap or video they have captured on a mobile device to show work in progress.
Figure1. Range of file types and options for uploading files
For this you need to select a the ‘file upload’ question type. It’s also possible to select the types of file allowed. There is a generous allowance of 10MB or the ability to enable several file uploads.
Note: Uploading files requires login, so the settings must be either “Only people in my organization can respond” or “Specific people in my organization can respond”
Further Resources
Sway for Collaborative working
‘Tools to support Group Work’ General Tips by Learning & Teaching hub @ Bath
Available at: https://teachinghub.bath.ac.uk/the-bath-blend/essentials/tools-to-support-online-group-work/
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