Friday, October 26, 2012

New Technology Uses for Debate

After discussing some options for collaboration and efficient student work with our district technology staff, we have taken the initiative to create a Google Drive account for LSDF. All students in the debate program will be able to access the information in the drive account; however, they must log in to Google Drive via their school email address.

drive.google.com


What types of items are located in the drive account?
* Debate files created by students
* Oratory manuscripts
* Extemp speech/question listing, annotations, research summaries, etc.
* Congress research analyses/briefs.
* Drama scripts with introductions, literature analyses, etc.
* Instructional and administrative forms.

----IN CLASS REHEARSALS BEGIN ON MONDAY, OCTOBER 29. SCHEDULED REHEARSALS ARE POSTED IN THE INSTRUCTIONAL FOLDER IN GOOGLE DRIVE. STUDENTS SHOULD COME TO CLASSES PREPARED TO EITHER REHEARSE OR CRITIQUE.


What will Google Drive be used for?
* Sharing, collaborating, and critiquing other students' work in real time.
* Signing up for future tournaments.
* Keeping updated on current research, ideas, etc.
* The potential is virtually limitless. We will add things and change things as we go.



Students experimented this week uploading and creating items in Google Drive. Novice debaters created their third research brief via Google Drive, and Varsity debaters uploaded their original research brief via Drive. Dramatics students began analyzing new scripts. All students were granted access to the signup sheets for the Nov 9-10 tourneys (Grandview and Ray-Pec).

There are several benefits to using Google Drive. First, students can access the items at any time, from any computer/device connected to the internet. Second, students can upload, create, change, etc., in real time, in addition to collaborating with other students and coaches. All changes made are saved automatically, and since the documents are stored online, they are always accessible. Another major benefit to Drive is that we can begin to save a lot of paper (physically and financially) as students turn in their work online instead of in paper form.

Students in policy debate (all novices and some varsity) may choose to use their own personal laptop or tablet to store files. Computer devices can be used in debate rounds (not cell phones, though), so if students want to store all their files electronically, they can. If they would rather purchase a tub and some file folders, etc., and keep a paper file system, that is also fine. Students using their computers can bring them to school, but they will not be able to access the wi-fi network during the school day.

More updates coming soon!

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