During the first week of our mentoring relationship, Nicole and I texted, emailed, and spoke over the phone about her Masters work. I helped her to troubleshoot some issues she was having with Evernote, gave advice on her lit review, and discussed her distance education project.
We met in person at the end of the week. Our plan was to work with Evernote and Google Drive, organizing files and becoming more comfortable with navigating the two. However, Nicole wanted to begin by talking about her distance education (DE) Masters project. She was feeling overwhelmed by the project and wanted to talk through the process to make sure she was including everything she needed to. Nicole needed to write up a basic outline of how her DE experience would occur so she had a solid starting point. I asked her what the end product would be, and she determined it would be a Google Slides presentation. From there, we backwards planned. I guided Nicole through the planning process by asking questions about each step in the DE experience. I kept asking her how the experience would be asynchronous because it was difficult for her to figure out how to make the unit a true DE experience. I gave Nicole tips from my own first DE unit, explaining ways she could incorporate more communication and collaboration between students using Google Docs and Google Slides. I also suggested ways Nicole can check in with each group so they know she is holding them accountable. Using my own DE project, I showed Nicole an example of how the DE experience can look so she could have something tangible to relate to. After about thirty minutes, Nicole had a plan written down with each step clearly explaining what the students needed to do and what she needed to plan. I will be co-teaching one lesson with Nicole, with her on Google Chat and me in the sixth grade classroom. I offered to do this because Nicole was still feeling unsure about how teaching at a distance would work. Also, the sixth grade students Nicole is working with have never used Google Drive or worked at a distance, so it will be a little challenging to start. This co-teaching experience will be fun and meaningful for me, Nicole, the classroom teacher, and most importantly, the students.
We then moved on to discussing Evernote, as Nicole had requested. I began by asking Nicole to state her confidence level on a scale of 1-10 with organizing her digital files on Evernote. She said her confidence level is a three because she knows where to click and save, but doesn't understand how Evernote works. I was going to show Nicole a short video about Evernote, but in the moment, I thought her anxiety level was too high and wanted to keep the session as casual as possible. Instead of showing a video tutorial, I gave a live five minute demonstration of how to navigate Evernote using my own account. I talked through my thinking process in how I wanted to find documents and why. I could already tell that Nicole was feeling better about Evernote. Next, it was her turn to navigate her Evernote account. I asked her to show me her files, making sure she could click in the appropriate places. Nicole asked how to find her different work and notes, so I showed her where to go and she immediately said it made more sense. I showed her how to delete duplicate notes and how to know when a note has been shared. In collaborating on a group project, Nicole told me that one frustration is that she has no idea when someone has edited a note. She asked if there is another way to tell if someone had worked on note other than color coding and just checking Evernote often. She also was frustrated with collaborating on PowerPoint because she wasn't sure how emailing the latest file would work. This was the perfect segue for Google Drive and I couldn't have planned it better.
Nicole navigating her Evernote account
To answer Nicole's questions of how her group could work together more easily, I showed her how she can collaborate on her group project in Google Drive. Using my own folders and my own projects, I showed her the comments and revision history. Nicole was so excited to learn that people can work on the same document at the same time in Drive and was wondering why her group was using PowerPoint instead of Google Slides. I encouraged Nicole to be the leader in her group and suggest Google Slides. She pulled out her phone and immediately texted her group members to ask them if they would be okay with changing their project from PowerPoint to Google Slides. They replied back that it would be fine, so Nicole said she would start the Slides presentation and email it shortly. Nicole wanted to make the presentation right away, but I wanted to finish modeling how to navigate Drive. I showed Nicole how to organize files. She thought that incoming files automatically were saved in her Drive, but she didn't have any incoming files to work with. Because I had plenty to work with, I showed Nicole my incoming files and how I can add them to my Drive in the appropriate location. She said Google Drive was starting to make a lot more sense to her.
At this point, Nicole was ready to work in her Drive. Before we went further, I asked Nicole to state her confidence level on a scale of 1-10 with organizing her digital files in Google Drive. She said she is a seven on Google Drive. I did a live demonstration of Evernote and Drive, comparing and contrasting the two organizational systems. Going back and forth between the programs, I was able to provide a live demonstration of the Evernote and Drive functions while comparing the two. I highlighted that Google Drive is best for live collaboration because multiple people can work on a document at the same time and can see the live changes. I showed how Evernote allows for collaboration, with different people using colors to code their responses. Moving to Google Drive, I showed how the revision history will allow Nicole to know what each person had done. I also pointed out the Google Chat feature, which Nicole found very useful so she could chat on her computer or phone rather than texting with her group members.
Moving onto just Google Drive, I demonstrated how to create the various types of documents and explained the purpose of each kind of document. I also showed Nicole how to share. Using my own documents, I showed Nicole what the collaboration process looks like on Drive, viewing comments and the revision history on a few of the projects I had created.
At this point, Nicole asked if she could get started on her Google Slides presentation. Because I had just walked through the process of creating and sharing documents, Nicole was able to easily start a new presentation. I recommended that she add a title first and then share. She didn't know her group members' email addresses, so Nicole was resourceful and used her phone to view her text messages so she could find out her group members' last names. She then used an email from Tim to find the email addresses, and cross-checked those email addresses with the names in Haiku to make sure she was sharing with the correct people. I noticed she was using her mouse to right click when copying and pasting the email addresses to share the presentation. I showed Nicole the copy/paste keyboard shortcuts and she began to use those. Nicole said those shortcuts made things easier. Now, Nicole has her first Google Slides presentation created and shared.
Nicole creating a Slides presentation and sharing with her group members
To finish, I walked Nicole through her Drive. She didn't have any folders set up and only had the presentation we just created. I showed Nicole how to create folders and had her create a folder for each of her Masters courses. From experience, I told her that her Drive would start getting messy and can get disorganized if she doesn't start with good organization with folders. Knowing how much Nicole loves to color code, I also showed her how to color code her folders, which made her happy.
Nicole told me that the two hours we spent today we very helpful and made her feel more at ease about her Masters projects. To end, I asked Nicole to state her comfort level with organizing her digital files. She said that now she is at a 10 for both Evernote and Drive, and that she will most likely be using Drive more than Evernote now that she understood the features of both systems. When I asked what her biggest takeaway from today is, she said it has to be organizing her Drive because she enjoys organizing and can see how this will make setting up her lessons for her DE project more manageable. When I asked Nicole how how learning today will impact her teaching, she said it will help her to organize her work Drive so she can more easily find the files she uses for teaching. Next, Nicole said she would like my assistance in explaining Google Slides during her DE project, wants some guidance with organizing her work Drive, and would like some support in Google Calendar. I feel like today's mentoring session was extremely productive. Nicole made tremendous gains in her understanding and confidence level with her DE project, Evernote, and Drive. I can tell that she is now more excited than stressed about her work. I'm glad I paid attention to Nicole's needs and kept today casual. I think this helped to keep her anxiety level down so she could really focus on her learning.
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