Writing a Student Multimedia Science Book

My students have been using multimedia science journals for the last year and I wanted to push the work into a student written book about a science topic.  I have created iBooks in the past, but I wanted students to create a multimedia book with text, pictures, and video.  We started building the book over the last few days using Google Docs to start writing the text.

We started by discussing the features of a nonfiction book and then highlighting the content we learned over the last few science labs about magnets.  Students then accessed Google Docs for the first time with their group of five.  There were some successes and challenges with students sharing a document and composing.  Here is what we learned:

• Writing is produced faster because each student can see the writing and add to it easily.
• Everyone can see the ideas and add on or make changes. 
• Students can work on different "parts" of the writing at the same time and move and combine in the same document.
• It's confusing when everyone is trying writing at the same time, at first, taking turns is important so everyone can see what is being composed.
• When you edit others work its important to ask first.

My students were able to make it work, but the ideas they shared after about the successes and challenges are important to remember when asking kids to work in collaborative documents.  Our biggest take away around the challenges is that communication and common courtesy go along way when working together whether in a document, on a project or just in life.  We need to remember when we ask kids to collaborate with technology we are still asking them to work together and that requires a lot of teamwork, compromise and patience. Here are some of the ideas they presented to make collaborative writing easier:

• When you want to change or add on to someone else's writing ask, "Are you finished, I had an idea to add on." or, "I wanted to change your idea to say this, do you agree?" 
• If you want to move an idea from one spot to another ask the group if they agree with your revision.
• If you want to delete an idea explain to your group what you want to delete and why.   

As adults, these ideas may seem obvious, but to nine year olds they need discussion and stating.  In those ideas above about working together it comes back to the key principles of respecting others ideas and work and using communication of ideas to make the group's work stronger.  That can only happen when ideas and work are respected.  

I am writing about this, because we often look at the technology tool because of the ease it brings, or the ability to allow kids to collaborate easier, or it allows our students the ability to do work that was not possible before, but we often leave out the culture that is needed in our space to allow those tools to be used effectively.  Students want to have their ideas shared, valued and respected.  Our classrooms have to provide the culture for collaboration before we provide our students the tools. 

Here is a sample of some of my students' writing.  These were composed in a group and revised and edited with me and the rest of the class.