What's the Hype with HyperDocs?!

"We want our students to be creative,  collaborative, critical thinkers and communicators - and then we ask them to sit quietly while we explain everything and tell them exactly how to do a task."

-The HyperDocs Handbook

This past summer, while on Twitter, I kept hearing about HyperDocs. The more I saw, the more intrigued I became. I went on Amazon, bought the HyperDoc Handbook, and I was hooked.

HyperDocs are Google Docs, with interactive elements, designed to replace the worksheet method of delivering instruction. By sharing a link to a HyperDoc, teachers can get students thinking, exploring, collaborating, and creating all on their own, shifting teachers from the lecturer to listener. teachers are now able to personalize the learning experience and better connect with students.

In every lesson, be it a single lesson, a series of lessons, a unit, or an entire course, students cycle through activities for engagement, exploration, explanation, application (I like to call it creation), sharing, reflection and extension.

The lessons speak to individualization and deep learning. Hyperdocs allow for easy differentiation. It is a perfect way to go paperless. Every time I have introduced it to teachers, they create one the next week.

The best part? The community. Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton, and Sarah Landis (HyperDoc creators) have created a great site - Teachers Give Teachers (a deliberate play on that other site) wherein teachers share documents they created. Follow the twitter hashtag #HyperDocs and you'll see all the hype.