Teachers love a buzzword! And one that has been floating around all of the PD I've attended lately is HyperDoc. As more and more schools are moving toward 1:1 technology, it is up to us as teachers to change our tactics and implement some elements of technology-based instruction. For me, this can be such a conundrum. I am fully capable of integrating technology, and I thank my undergrad program (Go BGSU!) that prepared us to use technology in the classroom. I'm not afraid of it, I see the value, and I find it easy to convert something to a digital format. However, I love my fonts!! Can I get an AMEN? Google has a decent selection, but nothing as beautiful as AG Boss Lady! And sometimes kids do perform better if they are writing on paper for state assessments. Check out this article. During class though, there is no reason why we shouldn't be using digital worksheets and activities. Students are very quickly moving into a technology-based world. They are familiar with how phones work, but many struggle with basic Google Slides formatting - I believe that everyone in their lifetime after high school will need to use Google Slides/Docs or another presentation based program to present or design something for work/college. Let's not let our students be the odd ones out.
A HyperDoc which is essentially an interactive, digital worksheet is one of the best ways to get students familiar with the Google interface. In order to create your own, follow these steps:
1. Choose a unit that you primarily complete on paper, and brainstorm ways to formulate it into a HyperDoc. For me, this was a mythology unit that I created for next year when I move to 8th grade. I thought about all of the stories and videos I'd like my students to interact with, then I realized the amount of paper we would need to use to get through them! (EEEKKK!) So after a day of PD, I decided I would start creating it. Let me be very clear - these can be very time intensive, but that doesn't mean they are impossible. For instance, it probably took me 30+ hours to make my Mythology HyperDoc which what I will use as my example throughout the blog. I believe that anyone with basic Google knowledge is capable of making a HyperDoc - you just have to be willing to put in the work once for a lifetime of using the resource!
2. Start with a basic design that is easy to maintain.
Here's a picture of what the beginning of mine looks like. You can see that I have designed mine primarily using the table feature in Google Docs. I stuck to this simple color scheme, and achieved this easily with highlights and changing the color of the links.
3. Determine all of the elements that you want to have in your HyperDoc. For me, I wanted to include 32 elements of mythology. Now you can see how much paper we would have been using had I not done this digitally. I'd recommend writing these out on a notepad and determining what skills and standards you want to assess through your HyperDoc. For me, I wanted to assess reading comprehension, research, and a little bit of writing. Primarily, I wanted to expose my students to mythology.
4. Start creating! For me, I wanted my students to watch a lot of videos and read stories to learn more about the different mythological people and creatures. To include videos and other links: select the text you want to be linked, right-click, then insert the link. See below.
You can do a million different things with a HyperDoc - be creative! One thing that I like to do is change the color of the link to make it more noticeable to students. To make their answers more noticeable to you when you grade, all you need to do is highlight the space after the question and give it a highlight color.
This way, when you go to grade, you can easily see if they answered the question, and THEY can see if they finished their assignment. I really like this because it just stands out so nicely. Since I mentioned grading, let's discuss that.
How do I grade this? Grading a HyperDoc can seem daunting, my mythology unit is over 20 pages. However, I will be grading this in sections. My plan is that students will complete one section every Monday after a general week-long introduction to Mythology. My students use Schoology (blog post on tips coming soon!), so I will look at what they did that day in the "In Progress" - They just won't submit until the end. I only know how to use what I have unfortunately, so I don't have the knowledge of how to make this work for Google Classroom, but I believe it is very similar. You can also break this up into sections and have them submit it weekly. There are a million options!
My main focus for integrating mythology is unfortunately state testing. Yes, of course the references to mythology are endless, so it's important to know it for that reason, but for the last three years, the ELA AIR Tests have included mythology in some capacity. Since students can't look anything up during the test, they need to have some background. So if you are in the same boat, I encourage you to consider making your own or purchasing my Mythology HyperDoc on TpT. Click to see the product on TpT.
HyperDocs don't have to be such a daunting task, and there are million items that you can add in to them. Make it fun. But it is essentially: tables, colors, and information. You can do it!! :)
-- Amanda