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Mr. Schultz went to his DLNs to gather ideas about ways to upgrade a writing unit focusing on current social justice issues

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Mr. Cannon, who is a technology integration specialist, suggested Mr. Schultz's students post their arguments covering social justice issues to a blog where other students could comment their opinions

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Having other students comment would allow an authentic learning opportunity for Mr. Schultz's students to accurately get their messages or arguments across.

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Mr. Cannon provided some suggestions to Mr. Schultz about integrating this new innovation into his unit.
-Spend time writing about specific aspects of the claim
-establish norms for peer reviews

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Mr. Cannon and Mr. Schultz met via videoconference again to discuss local and global connections, which is a must for authentic learning.

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After much discussion, they made the decision that students would participate in a virtual pre-research experience, where collaboration and communication would happen.

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Instead of allowing students to choose their own topics, Mr. Schultz would have students rate four social justice issues: cyberbullying, child abuse, discrimination, and immigration. Based of student interest level, students would be grouped into four groups, each group covering one of the four issues.

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The two teachers used a modern KWL chart to guide the collaborative team research. The KWHLAQ chart would be used, which stood for: What do we Know?; "What do we Want to know?;How will we find the information to answer the questions?; What have we Learned?; What Action will we take once we have learned what we set out to learn?; and What new Questions do we have?" (Hale & Fisher, pp.108)

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Mr. Schultz's shared his vision of the pre-research process to Mr Cannon. This process would include the students accessing two web-based tools, TodaysMeet and Wallwisher, to collaborate and take notes for their project.

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Mr. Cannon suggested that Mr. Schultz add a link to the student blogs to Lve. He also suggested live streaming the pre-rearch experience.

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Mr. Schultz shared has LiveBinder with Mr. Cannon, where they worked together to create the Social Justice Live binder. The tabs and links that were included on the binder was TodaysMeet, Wallwisher, Google Docs, uStream, live interactive broadcast platform, an area for student blog posts, teacher website, and professional blog.

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Mr. Schultz introduced the unit to his class making sure to explain each piece so students would understand what was expected of them and how the tools would be used.

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Mr. Schultz's upgrade to the unit was more time-consuming than he had expected. However, he found it to be worthwhile for the students because they had learned to "actively collaborate with their peers, demonstrate an increased conscientiousness in collecting, analyzing, and curating their research findings, to write an argument with a clear claim and counterclaim, and engaged in thoughtful peer revision of their drafts and analysis of the comments on their blogs," (Hale & Fisher, pp. 112).

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Student reflections from the project included the use of higher order thinking skills, which the students used to make informed decisions about their social justice claim. Students were able to engage in meaningfully and empowered collaboration and communication with their teammates and other students. Students were able to engage in local and global connections through live streamed events, which helped to make learning authentic. Students used web-based tools to help them collect information in the LiveBinder for their research. Students were able to interact with technology throughout the project

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Mr. Schultz decided to expand this writing unit into his other ELA classes and one of his social studies units.

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Throughout the school year and into the summer, Mr. Cannon and Mr. Schultz continued to collaborate and communicate about the latest websites and web-based applications, which could be used to enhance the project.

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The Social Justice Live unit can also be done using role play/simulations/drama. Role play/simulations/drama can help students "process new information, deepen their understanding, and synthesize complex ideas quickly," (Valdes, 2017).

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The four social justice issues Mr. Schultz wanted students to research can easily be role played/simulated/dramatized. As all students can find a personal connection to their own lives with one of the four issues.

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The key to role play/simulations/drama is to make it as real as possible bu having students share their experiences, make the scenarios clear so everyone understands the problem and outcome, make sure everyone is assigned a role or part to act out in the scene, make sure everyone understands role-play basics, and act out the scene for an audience.

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Role play/simulations/drama could be modified to fit this project by grouping students together who have had similar experiences with one of the four issues. Students could then collaborate to write a script containing a role fir each person in the group. The group could than record their scenes using a movie maker app. The class could then review the movies and discuss the issue more in depth

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Hale, J., & Fisher, M. (2013). Chapters 10 Upgrade your curriculum practical ways to transform units and engage students (pp. 105-115). Alexandria: ASCD.
Valdes, K.S. (2017, March 30). Role-play as an SEL teaching tool. Retrieved from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/role-play-sel-teaching-tool-kristin-stuart-valdes.