Getting middle school collaborative learning to work at any level is a great feeling! When your students are able to work with 6th graders from a school in Pakistan, that’s next level. This was just the type of activity I wanted to pull off before Christmas break. Here’s how we made it happen…
Collaborative Learning in Middle School ELA
I have a Facebook group for Middle School ELA teachers who are interested in ways to use technology in the classroom. One of our amazing group members teaches middle school in Pakistan. She asked if anyone would like to have their students read the story, “A Christmas Carol,” and then they would discuss the themes of the story by recording responses on Flipgrid. I immediately raise my virtual hand. I have been obsessed with Flipgrid for years, and you can find 10 ways to implement this tool into your classroom here.
My classes read the Scope Magazine version of “A Christmas Carol.” This was due to only having about 3 days to make this all happen prior to break. Then I created the Fligprid group that both my students and the Pakistani students would use to post and respond to each other’s videos. Unfortunately, Flipgrid would not allow students to view or respond to each other from outside networks. We tried a couple different options, but none of these worked. We were on a time crunch, and literally had to come up with an alternate plan in under 30 minutes. The other teacher suggested using Padlet, and that worked perfectly!
Steps for Creating a Padlet
After going to Padlet and creating a free account, you can make your first Padlet. To do this, click the + sign like the one you see below.
Next, you provide any directions you would like students to follow. After this, you will share the link to the Padlet with your students. Then they will follow the directions shown in the images below to upload their videos. First, students will click the pink + sign. Next they will click on the 3 dots. Once they do this, the options in image 2 will appear. Students should choose “video recorder.”
A video camera will appear on the screen, and students can record their video response. We had our kids discuss 2-3 of the themes they found in the story (some did more). Then they would comment on at least 2 other students’ videos. Both my students and myself were so impressed with not only how well the Pakistani students spoke English, but also their level of understanding of theme. It was such a neat experience to learn from and with students on the other side of the world.
After seeing how well this worked out for us, I have added a Google Sheet in our Facebook group for future collaborative learning opportunities. If you would like to participate or get ideas and FREE resources from other awesome ELA educators, join our Facebook group. We can all grow together!
