Communication and Collaboration- the individual in the group (ISTE standard 2)

This week I spent time looking more in depth at ISTE standard 2: Communication and Collaboration. According to this standard, students should "use digital media and environments to communicate and work collaboratively, including at a distance, to support individual learning and contribute to the learning of others." At my school, my students are very familiar using shared documents like Google Docs, Office 365, and especially OneNote to collaborate on projects and share information. For this reason, I chose to focus on the individual part of the collaboration standard. 

My question is: How can I hold students individually responsible for their work in a group project? I was particularly interested in finding technological tools with which to do this.

This is an example of
OneNote's user tags

In OneNote, I can see a tag on any typed work that tells me who typed it, and when they last worked on that section. What happens frequently in group projects is that either 

a) one student does the typing for the group so I only see her user tag, 

b) one student goes back and does a final edit, thus making it look like she has done all the typing, or 

c) one student copies and pastes information that was sent via email into OneNote, making it look like it was all her work. 

There is a "recent edits" selection, but it only focuses on pages as a whole. Also, if the work is hand-written on the screen, there is no time stamp. This makes OneNote great for sharing, but not for holding students individually accountable.

While OneNote is convenient, I think I might have to begin using Google Docs more extensively for group projects. As a study by Sharples, Arnedillo-Sánchez, Milrad, and Vavoula (2009) notes, "Traditional assessment methods are not appropriate for accrediting learning not directly related to the curriculum or done through informal collaboration" (pp. 8). Before tech made it possible to drag and drop, it was easier to tell who did what on a project. Google has a host of features and plug-ins that allow teachers to track the use of its technology. The "revision history" tool shows when edits where made and by whom, and it blocks off what was changed. There is also a plug-in called Draftback that creates a sort-of video of how a document was created. On the analysis page, it shows who did the edits. Reviews from teachers state that they find it particularly useful to tell when students are copy-and-pasting information, especially in language classes where Google translate can be a bane. If I can set up my assignments properly to include the use of Google docs, these tools will be really helpful.

However, just tracking changes does not make a group project worthwhile or ensure that everyone pulls their own weight. Accusations of inequality, or just plain lack of motivation, are common problems associated with collaborative learning tasks (Kao, 2013). To address these problems, it is important to build positive interdependence within your classroom. When working together, "team members need to think that success of the team depends on the contributions of each member" (The Foundation Coalition). When you have done this, using technology to track changes becomes secondary.

Here are a few extra resources on building positive interdependence and developing quality collaboration:

http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/109018/chapters/Using-Positive-Interdependence.aspx

https://sites.google.com/site/cooperativelearningresources/edss-555/assigningacademicsocialskillroles

References:

The Foundation Coalition. Positive interdependence, individual accountability, promotive interaction: Three pillars of cooperative learning. Retrieved from https://www.uwstout.edu/soe/profdev/resources/upload/acl_piiapi.pdf. 

Kao, G.Y. (2013). Enhancing the quality of peer review by reducing student "free riding": Peer assessment with positive interdependence. British Journal of Educational Technology, 44, 1, 112-124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2011.01278.x

Sharple, M., Arnedillo-Sánchez, I., Milrad, M., & Vavoula, G.N. (2009, January). Mobile learning. ResearchGate. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9827-7_14