Over five lessons, a Year 10 class studying the American West and a partner class in California build a shared Google Site on the Gold Rush that followed James Marshall's find at Sutter's Mill in 1848. The UK class finds British newspaper reports and emigrant guides from 1849 in digitised archives to show how Britain saw the rush at the time. The Californian students, who studied the Gold Rush in their state's fourth-grade history course, write about how it is remembered where they live: what they were taught, the place names, monuments and local museum displays around them, and whose story, such as that of the Nisenan and other Native Californians, is told or left out. Each side drafts its pages in a shared Google Doc, the other class adds comment questions such as "why do British papers of 1849 hardly mention Native Americans?", and drafts are revised to answer them before they go on the site; the two teachers read every comment before the next lesson. The site is shared only with accounts in the two schools, pages are credited to classes rather than named students, photos show objects and places, never faces, and because the schools are eight hours apart all exchange happens through moderated comments, with no live calls.
Tools: Google Docs, Google Sites Nine ideas for your own version in Generate
This page is one of a growing set of PICRAT examples by cell, subject and grade. Page maintained by Andy Perryer.