Hyped about HyperDocs

The Hype about HyperDocs:

HyperDocs is a term which has been a buzz word for some time now in regards to leveling up the classroom experience with word documents.  I first heard about hyperdocs three years ago at the 2016 VISTE conference in Roanoke Virginia.  The Virginia Society for Technology in Education (VISTE) opened up my eyes to countless possibilities with technology in education.  One of the sessions that I attended at VISTE was a session on what she refereed to as "HyperDocs", something I never heard of before but was curious to attend because of the description of the session.  What is a 21st century  worksheet?  That phrase caught my attention on the schedule of events and so I stopped in to find out more.  As the instructor started to explain the ability with in Google Docs to insert hyperlinks, embed videos and sound clips, and directed us to other google apps for education like slides, and sheets.  I could instantly see the power of hyperdocs being a living document.  One that you could engage the students and direct them on a path to a unique, exiting and engaging learning experience.  It wasn't long until I started to create some of my own hyperdoc lessons.

Building My First HyperDoc:

The winter of 2016 was especially cold, windy and snowy.  We happened to have a good amount of snow that year, but for whatever reason it seemed to have only snowed on A-days (we have an A-day B-day schedule alternating back in fourth between two different groups of students.)  At this point are B-day students were way ahead of our A-day students and we needed to develop an extension activity to try and get back on pace with our curriculum. Once coming back home from the VISTE conference I was filled with new creative and exciting resources to add to my assortment, but I had learned so much that I knew I couldn't do it all.  Than the question arose where do I start, do I want to do green screens, or comic book creation, or talking animations, stop motion...I know I will explore HyperDocs.  After all we just started using Google Classroom it would be a good time to experiment with some of their apps for education.   We were snowed in and I started to think of a lesson which I had always wanted to build as part of our 1920s unit.  I wanted to students to explore the rise of organized crime in the 1920s.  After all what goes better with our lesson on Prohibition and the 18th amendment, than a lesson on the Mafia.  The sparks of a new lesson was starting to form, the kids were going to learn about organized crime.  I questioned myself how can I make this authentic... I know I will have them be cops and they are going to have to investigate a case and will have to collect evidence and try and solve the crime.  I figured the more authentic I could make it the more engaged students would be in the lesson, and it would also require students to do some true critical thinking in order to solve the crime.  Now what I needed was a crime, and I knew just the one to use, one of the most notorious criminal events in history, the St. Valentines Day Massacre.  The framework was set now it was time to build the actual lesson and the HyperDoc was the perfect tool to deliver the material.  The HyperDoc was starting to take shape as the report informed them of details about the crime scene complete with photo graphs that they could use as they started to gather evidence.  As they continued down the report students would use embedded link which would either bring them to another site, like google maps, or linked to other HyperDocs which contained more information like an autopsy report.  Click Here to Download a Copy of the Detective Report.   





Now that my students had the Detective Report, they were  going to need a Police log to keep their notes for the case they were building.  I wanted to guide them to look for some specific information so the form required them to investigate different aspects of the crime scene, witnesses, motive, possible suspects, and of course, who was responsible.  This form would guide them through the case and give them some direction in their investigation.  At first I used google draw to create the form because it gave users a greater ability to manipulate text boxes and shapes to build the report that I wanted.  However when we first started this activity our students did not have one to one devices yet, which meant we used what ever devices students had.  Some had iPhones, while others had iPads, and still others had android powered devices, this meant that not everyone had the ability to access google draw.  This meant that we needed to print the Detective Logs for students to use.  It wasn't long until I converted the form to Google Slides which still gives users the same amount of manipulation and increased student accessibility.  Student's simply needed the Google Slides app in order to access the form that was shared with them through Google Classroom.  Click here for a Copy of the Police Log.

My Reflection on HyperDocs

My first experience with HyperDocs was a huge success and as a matter of fact while I am typing this blog right now I preparing to use this same activity for my students tomorrow in class.  The HyperDoc is an engaging way to deliver a lesson to your students.  You can customize it as much as you prefer leading our students on an educational experience which is one of a kind.  It allows your students to explore on their own while still following the guided path you designed for them to follow.  What is the most powerful part of the HyperDoc is it's flexibility and variety of resources that can be embedded, linked, and included within a single document.  The variety helps to ensure that the individual needs of the students are meet because of the variety of media that can be used within the HyperDoc.  The pathway your students will explore is completely customizable to whatever objectives you set, but gives them the freedom to explore what they are interested in and at their own pace. By doing this we can increase student engagement and increase ownership in their work because they are in control of what they seeing, hearing, reading and doing.  This is extremely important because now the teacher no longer has to be tethered to the board, but is now free to facilitate the lesson rather than lead the lesson.  The students become the leaders as they collaborate with one another to solve the case.  The teacher can now work with individual students or small groups to check for understanding, encourage student progress and to challenge those to go deeper. So what are you waiting for get Hyped and create your own HyperDoc today.  

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