I think the AP Biology list serve has finally reached a tipping point in the use of collaborative web utilities, particularly in the use of Google Docs. I’m glad to see that as a community we seem to finally be at the point where this group of super talented educators is finally putting these things to widespread usage.
In the last week, three separate initiatives have developed on the list, to help with the transition to the new curriculum framework. All of them are using Google Docs for planning, and construction:
- A rewritten list of objectives from the new curriculum that seeks to develop student-version questions to help with content presentation.
- A planning document for many teachers who are looking to move to a more “flipped” classroom structure.
- A collection that seeks to aggregate course activities and correlate them to the specific “Learner Objectives” found in the new curriculum.
Me being me, I’m active in all three (and I “built” the structure of the last one). Having advocated loudly for the usage of collaborative tools for a good while now, I’m really psyched to see these tools being put to these sorts of uses. It makes me feel good about myself, and the work that we are all doing to move my favorite course into the new framework in a way that opens it up and helps everyone.
It will be interesting to see how these initiatives develop in the weeks and months ahead. Hopefully they continue to thrive and we all get some top notch resources out of the deal.