E.Authentic+Assessment+Activity

By participating in the workshop, people will be given the opportunity to create a wiki space, a blog, and establish a Skype account. By creating these pages, participants will need access to multimedia tools including PCs and the internet. The workshop will be held in the media center, providing each participant individual access to a PC and the internet.

Prior to the participants embarking on the journey of creating their own classroom collaboration pages, a PowerPoint will be viewed, highlighting the benefits of a creating a collaborative classroom and how a wiki and a blog can fulfill this need, easily, safely, and cost free. The media presentation can be viewed either on the individual PCs or as projected from an LCD projector. Both options will be available to accommodate all learners.

After viewing the PowerPoint presentations for each creation, (the wiki, the blog and Skype) workshop participants will be given time to break into small groups and collaborate, sharing their views, inhibitions, experiences with virtual collaboration and how this type of collaboration can be implemented within the classroom.

Group Formation: The groups will be determined based on area of academic expertise. I will attempt to separate groups in order to assure that each group is a homogeneous mix. I will be able to determine the groups prior to the beginning of the workshop based on those who signed up. When participants sign in I will provide each with a nametag that will include a color coded sticker which will determine the formation of groups at a later time. Post workshop collaboration:  Participants will be able to share and exchange ideas via one another's blog, wiki or conneting via Skype. All participants will have the opportunity to exchange addresses during the wrap-up session so that they may send an invite.