Teaching, Collaboration,Google Apps, and Plagiarism

So, you have a class set of chromebooks. You are having kids write, collaborate, create, and publish their work. You are happy. You are proud of saving trees. You are astonished by the amount of work kids are willing to create using technology. Collaboration is off the charts. Then, it happens. It always happens. Kids try to figure out ways to beat the system.
"Why should I do the all the work myself," she mumbled, thinking about all of the things she wished she was doing instead of writing something for school. Then she turns to her friend.
"Hey, share your essay with me."
"Okay." He says. . .

Draftback Extension

I think you might know the rest of the story. Plagiarism. It has been happening since the first caveman copied another caveman's Paleolithic etching and called it his own. It happened way before digital technology and it will happen long into the future. I am frequently asked how to deal with this in the Chrombook era (#seewhatididthere). I don't pretend to have all of the answers, and, quite frankly, I would rather be thinking about more creative things we could be doing with technology, but I understand how this concern could lead to fear, which could lead to mistrust, which could lead us back to paper and pencil. In an attempt keep out momentum moving in a positive direction, I am offering advice on two tools you can use to help  you monitor the awesome collaboration that is occurring in our classroom and might just be the tool to ensure each kid is doing her own work. I offer the Google Apps revision history and an amazing new Chrome extension, Draftback. Enjoy!


Be Awesome, jeff