Collaboration in My Classroom

Prior to this class, the majority of the collaboration in my classroom did not involve technology.  We only received iPads in April of last school year and the major extent of our technology was through one lesson per week and the students using the classroom computers for working on programs such as:  First in Math, Type to Learn, etc. 

I do use collaboration for learning in other ways; however.  I often have my students work together on various projects, in daily learning situations and to extend each others' learning.  For example, during our science unit on the skeletal system, the students work in cooperative groups to construction a human skeleton, dissect owl pellets, etc.

When the students participated in cooperative learning activities, it was always positive and they were always engaged.  It was sometimes difficult to manage when many groups needed assistance at the same time, but that's really no different than when individuals need more attention.

I would like to now integrate technology into my cooperative groups.  I hope to take away several of the apps and methods that we learned in this class to begin the journey into the digital age.