Computer Skills

Beginner

60 mins

Teacher/Student led

+105 XP

What you need:
Chromebook/Laptop/PC or iPad/Tablet

Working with Others — Collaboration, Feedback & Email

Swap your pitch deck with a peer, exchange constructive feedback using comments, and practise composing a professional email with an attachment. Learn to accept, decline, and act on feedback before your live pitch.

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1 Introduction
2 Key Concepts — Collaboration
3 Step-by-step — Share a Deck and Add a Comment
4 Common Issues
5 Key Concepts — Email
6 Step-by-step — Compose a Clear Email with an Attachment
7 Independent Practice — Feedback Round
8 Reflection
9 Lesson Summary
Quiz

1 - Introduction

Illustration for Introduction

Welcome

Last lesson you built a 5-slide pitch deck for your Something Real. Today you'll swap decks with a classmate, comment on their work, hear what they thought of yours, and make at least one change before the live pitch next week. You'll also learn how to write the kind of email a teacher or a parent will actually read, with a subject line that doesn't get ignored and an attachment that actually arrives.

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Share a document with a peer and add comments and suggestions to their work
Give feedback that includes a concrete suggestion, not just praise
Act on feedback you receive, deciding what to accept, what to decline, and recording why
Compose a clear email with a subject line, appropriate attachment, and a proper sign-off

Warm-up

Think about a time someone gave you feedback on something you made: a school project, a photo, a draft of a message. What made the feedback useful to hear? And what made some feedback less useful, even when the person meant well? You don't need to write anything down, just hold it in your head for the next ten minutes.

Teacher Notes

Students should come to this lesson with their 08_pitch_deck already complete. Check that every student has a peer to exchange with before the Independent Practice step: solo students pair with another solo; pairs swap decks with another pair. Optional: if the mood of the class is quiet, ask students to turn and share their warm-up thoughts with a neighbour for 30 seconds before you move on. It primes them for the peer-feedback work later.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+5 XP

2 - Key Concepts — Collaboration

Three ideas that separate useful peer feedback from feedback that just takes up space in the margin.

Concept	Why it matters	Example
Comment — a note attached to a specific part of a document or slide, used to ask a question or point something out without editing the content	Lets a reviewer flag something without rewriting the owner's work, and keeps the conversation next to the thing it's about	A classmate adds a comment on your "The Ask" slide: "This line is vague — can you name the actual euro amount?"
Suggestion mode / Track changes — proposed edits shown as coloured markup the owner can accept or reject one by one. Available in Google Docs (Suggesting) and Word (Track Changes). Slides apps (Google Slides, PowerPoint) don't have this; reviewers use comments instead	The owner stays in control. No unwanted rewrites land in the file, and there's a record of what was proposed	On a Google Docs project brief, your partner turns on Suggesting and proposes changing "Our fundraiser will be great" to "15 students signed up in one day"; you accept it with one click
Constructive feedback — feedback that names a specific thing AND suggests what to do about it, instead of just "good job" or "this is bad"	"Good job" teaches nothing and "this is bad" hurts without helping; a concrete suggestion gives the maker something to actually act on	Instead of "your chart is confusing", write "the y-axis has no label — could you add € so readers see these are euro amounts?"

Teacher Notes

If students ask why slides don't have a suggesting mode, the short answer is that slides are visual and positional in a way text isn't — there's no clean way to 'suggest' a box moved 5 pixels left. Comments cover the same need for slides.

👇 Mark your steps as done as you complete them.

+10 XP

3 - Step-by-step — Share a Deck and Add a Comment

Open your own pitch deck and practise the full commenting workflow: set up sharing with the right permission level, then add one constructive comment as a worked example. The accept/decline decisions happen later in Independent Practice, where real feedback from your partner lands.

Teacher Notes

Students are commenting on their OWN deck here, just to learn the mechanics. The real peer exchange and the accept/decline decisions happen in Independent Practice.

+15 XP

4 - Common Issues

Common Issues

Issue	Solution
My share link doesn't work for my partner. They see "request access"	Open Share again, check the permission is {{btn:Can review}} or {{btn:Can comment}} (PowerPoint for the web) or {{btn:Commenter}} (Google Slides), and make sure the access scope is set correctly. If you added them by email, confirm you typed the exact school-account address. As a fallback, use {{btn:Copy link}} with "Anyone with the link can comment".
My attachment is too big to send by email	Export the deck as a PDF first: {{menu:File -> Download -> PDF Document}} (Google Slides) or {{menu:File -> Export -> PDF}} (PowerPoint for the web). PDFs are usually 5–10× smaller than the original deck. If the PDF is still too big, send a share link to the live file instead of an attachment.
I can't find where my comments went	Both apps keep a comments pane. In PowerPoint for the web, open {{menu:Review -> Show Comments}}. In Google Slides, click the speech-bubble icon near the Share button in the top-right to open comment history.

+10 XP

5 - Key Concepts — Email

Two ideas that separate an email that gets opened first from one that gets buried.

Concept	Why it matters	Example
Subject line — the one-line summary that tells the reader what the email is about before they open it	Teachers and adults get dozens of emails a day; "hi" or "quick question" gets buried, a clear subject gets opened first	"TY ICT — feedback from Aoife on my pitch deck" instead of "hi"
CC vs BCC — CC (carbon copy) sends a visible copy to someone; BCC (blind carbon copy) sends a hidden copy that other recipients can't see	CC loops someone in openly (e.g. your partner when you email your teacher about shared work); BCC protects privacy when you don't want recipients to see each other's addresses	Emailing the teacher with your partner CC'd means the teacher knows you both worked on it; BCC'ing a whole class means no one sees each other's email addresses

Teacher Notes

If students ask about privacy: reinforce that BCC is the polite and safe choice when emailing a group where recipients don't know each other.

+10 XP

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This lesson is copyright of Coding Ireland 2017 - 2025. Unauthorised use, copying or distribution is not allowed.

Working with Others — Collaboration, Feedback & Email

Teacher Class Feed

1 - Introduction

Welcome

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to:

Warm-up

2 - Key Concepts — Collaboration

3 - Step-by-step — Share a Deck and Add a Comment

4 - Common Issues

Common Issues

5 - Key Concepts — Email

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