When I was in eighth grade I was asked to do a collaborative project with my peers. The classroom was broken up into six groups, each group was asked to prepare an argument for or against exploration.My group received Aztecs versus Cortez, and our task was to argue that exploration was nothing more than exploitation. Each of us were assigned a role there were researchers lawyers whose roles were to examine our witnesses and lawyers whose roles were to cross-examine the witnesses. After all the research and witness preparation had concluded the classes were all brought together and court began.

This is one of the great projects that I had been a part of in my entire schooling. Whenever I reflect back to US history I reflect back to that project. With that being said technology could have greatly enhance the collaborative process. For example I distinctly remember struggling to find time to meet with my classmates. This problem was foreseen by the teacher and the distinct roles helped are groups to compartmentalize the work. Unfortunately this took away from the collaborative effort in groups at best checked in on each other. If I were assigning this project I would do away with the roles and allow our students to truly collaborate on a wiki page.http://www.wiki.com/contact.htm. This way as a teacher I can assess the contributions of each group member and the students would be able to work together and add on to each other's work without being in their physical presence.

Something else that I thought would be an excellent addition to this project would be allowing the students to bring in one piece of video evidence using http://wistia.com/. This would allow them to present their side of the story in any way they wanted.

I really appreciate this quest as it has really helped me develop my idea on implementing this already well put together collaborative project. This project was one that I will never forget, and I hope it to be as impactful in the lives of my future students. The technology that I have implemented will give students an opportunity to grow in their collaborative skills as well as an opportunity to showcase their creativity. Once again bloggers I hope you enjoy another entry from Breaking My Tech.