Collaborative+Efforts

toc =Using Web 2.0 tools to foster Student Collaboration=

media type="custom" key="135791"

Writing and Mindmapping
One of the greatest aspects of Web 2.0 is that everyone is a producer of content; however, along with that comes a great responsibility for the teachers of today: we must teach students that the net effect of their content creation is how the world will see them. Teaching students to produce meaningful and valuable content now extends beyond the audience of just you the teacher and maybe the entire class if we were lucky enough to make copies of drafts for all participants.

Below is a list of applications (all free) that enable student collaboration and publishing on a level unseen by past classrooms. We'll take a look at each as we go through.

[| Google Docs]
Google has created a bunch of applications that exist on the web. Google Docs is a mobile word processor that allows you to share your documents with other collaborators in real time. This is great for monitoring student writing from the start of the assignment. There is a comment feature that will allow you to make comments as the student is writing. Other uses: Other options besides Google? Absolutely. This is a big, emerging market and several companies offer similar products. Check out [|Zoho Writer], [|OpenOffice], [|Coventi pages]
 * team projects with your colleagues
 * graduate school group projects
 * Writing in the round
 * Committee correspondence
 * Group note-taking

Blogs
One of the most pervasive features of Web 2.0 has been the rise of blogs and bloggers in the past few years. What is a blog? Here are a few worth looking at: Blogs are hosted by software that handles all of the technical aspects of blogging for you. Here are a few of the most popular:
 * a portmanteau for "web log"
 * more than just an online journal, it creates conversation and can serve as a portal for learning.
 * [|Weblogg-ed]
 * [|Two Cents Worth]
 * [|Tech Dossier]
 * [|A Difference]
 * [|Cool Cat Teacher Blog]
 * [|Class Blogmeister]
 * [|Edublogs]
 * [|Blogger]
 * [|LiveJournal]
 * [|MySpace]
 * [|TypePad]
 * [|Vox] (Includes ads. Not for direct use with students, but great tool for adults to learn more about convergence.)
 * [|Wordpress.com]
 * [|Think.com] (A supervised version of MySpace for elementary school kids)

Wikis
//From [|Wikipedia]//
 * //A **wiki** ([|IPA]: [ˈwɪ.kiː] or [ˈwiː.kiː][|[1]]) is a [|website] that allows visitors to add, remove, [|edit] and change content, typically without the need for registration. It also allows for [|linking] among any number of pages. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass [|collaborative authoring]. The term wiki also can refer to the [|collaborative software] itself ([|wiki engine]) that facilitates the operation of such a site, or to certain specific wiki sites, including the [|computer science] site (the original wiki) [|WikiWikiWeb] and online encyclopedias such as [|Wikipedia].//
 * [|A Wiki can be thought of as a combination of a Web site and a Word document. At its simplest, it can be read just like any other web site, with no access privileges necessary, but its real power lies in the fact that groups can collaboratively work on the content of the site using nothing but a standard web browser. Beyond this ease of editing, the second powerful element of a wiki is its ability to keep track of the history of a document as it is revised. Since users come to one place to edit, the need to keep track of Word files and compile edits is eliminated. Each time a person makes changes to a wiki page, that revision of the content becomes the current version, and an older version is stored. Versions of the document can be compared side-by-side, and edits can be “rolled back” if necessary.>]

What are some of the types of things you can do with Wikis? Let's brainstorm a few: media type="custom" key="136935"And the blog of the final, published student work is [|here].
 * What Can We Do with Wikis?**
 * **Collaborative projects among student groups**- wikis act as a great organizer for students working on a group project. The discussion and email features allow for students to communicate asynchronously, so time together never becomes an issue.
 * **Class texts**- study guides where each student is responsible for adding relevant content to help the class create a study guide through the wiki. Students would be able to pull in a multitude of resources from around the web and from text sources.
 * **Vocabulary or wikidictionaries**- students build a virtual word-wall online as they learn new vocabulary throughout a year. At the end of the year, they can reflect back on the building process.
 * **Have focused classroom discussion**- wikis allow you to extend the classroom discussion beyond the 40 or 70 minutes we see them. Also, it has been the experience of several of the teachers in our district that reticent students will contribute more to online wiki discussions. We call this the [|"drive-home" effect] (thanks, Jo).
 * **Bring back "Choose Your Own Ending" stories**- have students create a story that has multiple plots and endings using the wiki to link out to the various choices that the reader can make. See "The Holocaust Wiki Project" below for a better understanding.
 * **Project resource pages**- use a wiki to house all of the resources for your project, including how to's and videos to help the students understand concepts.
 * **International Collaboration**- use a wiki as a homebase for a collaborative project with another school. The open access allows any member with an internet connection to be a part of the wiki.
 * **Create a Presenation**- ahem.
 * **Digital Portfolio**- teachers and students alike can use a wiki to create a showcase of their work over a selected time period for reflection and review by others.
 * **Create Responsible Internet Users**- Wikis allow you to place extraordinary power in the hands of the students, and as Peter Parker's Uncle said, "With great power comes great responsibility." Wikis need to be monitored and edited regularly, so by giving jobs to students as editors and monitors, you are asking them to [|police themselves].
 * Here is a great screencast detailing the work of Clay Burell, Chris Watson, and Michelle Davis on the [|1001 Flat World Tales] wiki.

Podcasts
The spread of the podcast, largely due in part to the spread of the iPod, has revolutionized how content is delivered and treated, especially on the college level. Recently, renowned universities such as Cal Berkeley and MIT began to put all of their professors lectures onto something called iTunes University. So, if you really wanted to, you could listen to all of the same material that the students at those universities do.

On a much different note, students at [|Mabry Middle School] produce podcasts for the world to use, sometimes exceeding over 1.5 million downloads! That is a huge shift away from traditional learning and traditional motivation.

Places like the [|TED Conference] and the [|Apple Learning Interchange] provide free videocasts of their content for anyone to download and watch.

Podcasting really only requires a sound recording program, like [|Audacity] or [|Garageband], a microphone, and some scripted material to read, or not. Getting teachers and students to podcast is a great way to offer content to students in non-traditional ways that could really make a difference in their learning, after all, students at Mabry are[|"exceeding state standards in Reading, Language Arts, and Math ranges from 91 to 100% of the students."]

Here are some popular podcast hosts which let you publish your podcast for others to listen to:
 * [|Archive.org]
 * [|G Cast]
 * [|Odeo] Note: Odeo has a large library of podcasts on sexuality; this isn't a resource to give directly to kids. Right. Not for unsupervised use..
 * **[|Ourmedia.org]**
 * **[|Podserve]**
 * [|VoiceThread] (Free to educators)
 * [|Podcasting Toolbox]: 70+ Podcasting Tools and Resources Note: This toolbox was written for general public consumption, not education. However, teachers will find useful tools and resources here.

Mindmapping
There are several tools available on the internet that act like Inspiration, only they add the unique aspect of collaboration. Imagine a group of students collaboratively brainstorming on a topic from their homes, or the whole class brainstorming and adding links off of ideas as you stand in front of the room and watch it grow on your Smartboard!

Here are a few that are quite good:
 * [|Mindmeister]
 * [|Mindomo]
 * [|Gliffy]
 * [|Kayuda]
 * [|Bubbl.us]

Student Writing Publication
Need to get a student some more writing to do? Don't we wish we had that problem? However, there seems to be a growing population of students that want to write about what they want to write about, not what we tell them. Imagine that.

[|FanFiction] is a site where students can create extra chapters, alternate endings, or new installments in series' of books they have read. The amount of participation on this site is staggering (be sure to check out the number of Harry Potter chapters). Similarly, [|Ficlets] allows authors to contribute part of a story, and someone else finishes it. For example, the lead story this morning was "Yoda Address The Gathering at Gettysburg." Odd, but wildly funny to our students. Novlet is another one that allows for collaborative story writing. From their website: //"Novlet is a web application designed to support collaborative writing of non-linear stories in [|any language]. With Novlet you will be able to read stories written by other users, create your own ones, and choose the plot you like most from several alternatives.// //Novlet stories are divided in **passages**, text sections usually made of a few paragraphs: users can continue stories or add alternative storylines by creating their passages after existing ones. The only limit is your fantasy."//

Then there is also [|Lulu.com], where students, teachers, anyone can print and publish their own book with a marginal cost to you of $0.

Digital Storytelling
media type="custom" key="135811"media type="google" key="7920486368430879918&hl=en" width="400" height="326"

Here is the [|link] to Carolyn's students' work. Carolyn's b[|log is here too].