Group items tagged

"Vygotsky controversially argued for educators to assess students' ability to solve problems, rather than knowledge acquisition. The idea of collaborative learning has a lot to do with Vygotsky's idea of the "zone of proximal development". It considers what a student can do if aided by peers and adults. By considering this model for learning, we might consider collaboration to increase students' awareness of other concepts." Excellent, well-documented advise on using collaborative learning and its value for learners.

"With the advance of web 2.0 technologies, there emerged a wide range of educational tools that we can use with our students in and outside the classroom.Collaborative web tools is one example. Using such websites, teachers will be able to help in holding online and real-time discussions with their students, help them in their projects and assignments, guide their learning, do backchanneling, and synchronously moderate discussion threads and many more." The focus here is on tools for collaboration. Many are new and interesting, such as virtual whiteboards, searchteam to do online searches together, browse websites together, create online projects collaboratively, create your own chatroom, etc.. Some of these will be gone quickly, but they all appear quite useful. About 30 in the list.

This two-step exam process sounds like a great way to do online-exams: "The two-stage exam is a relatively simple way to introduce collaborative learning and formative assessment into an exam. Their use is rapidly growing in the physics department at the University of British Columbia, as both students and faculty find them rewarding. In a two-stage exam students first complete and turn in the exam individually, and then, working in small groups, answer the exam questions again. During the second stage, the room is filled with spirited and effective debate with nearly every student participating. This provides students with immediate targeted feedback supplied by discussions with their peers. Furthermore, we see indications that the use of this exam format not only ensures consistency across interactive course components, but it also positively impacts how students approach the other collaborative course components. This is accomplished without losing the summative assessment of individual performance that is the expectation of exams for most instructors. In this paper we describe how to implement two-stage exams and provide arguments why they should be part of physics courses that use interactive engagement and social/collaborative learning methods." The paper is from The Physics Teacher, AAPT.

"Global collaboration projects, which allow students to work with peers across state and national boundaries, aren't just fun. They can also address several of the ISTE Standards for Students, including Digital Citizen, Global Collaborator and Empowered Learner. "

This is not about the technical how-to of G-Docs. The teacher instead discusses the pedagogical aspects of how collaboration works, as students write a collaborative essay and discuss it together as they write. The teacher also explains how she does formative assessment as the students write. Using Goggle Docs she can see who contributes and how much.

This is mad comprehensive -- so many tools to explore and collaborate with. By R. Good, updated monthly.

another list, but some are new to me, so if you have time, go explore. Some are whiteboards, like Dabbleboard, or brainstorming tools and mind-mapping tools (Thinkature), project management, Stixy for post-its, an online meeting "playground," called Twiddla, and some old favs, like Wetpaint, G-Docs, and Skype. a jumble, but of interest because most have an online collaboration element. Very brief descriptions of each, but little on pedagogy.

A great lesson plan for writing collaboratively. Students extract memento and write them on large cards/pieces of paper. They then create the poem by placing the cards on the floor or table. The teacher (or students) select a topic that the quotations should reflect. It makes students thing about the real meanings within the text. Students discuss their found quotations as they write them. The 5 min. video shows students discussing and coming to realizations as they collect and collaborate. Great speaking, writing, reading activity.

Mostly free and easy to use--all online. Can be very useful for diagraming sentences, charting the plot for a collaborative story or project, etc.

"MEET & PRESENT Give presentations, host webinars, or conduct team meetings. Leave content available for access over time. REVIEW & ANNOTATE Upload, create, and collaborate on content with your team or customers. EDUCATE & TRAIN Create and upload course content for real-time and anytime collaborative learning. "

""This document text is synchronized as you type, so that everyone viewing this page sees the same text. This allows you to collaborate seamlessly on documents in your Web browser." A collaborative writing tool. No directions given until you start a new document.

"Building bridges for the future through collaborative projects" This site is a huge collection of inter-related blogs, videos of collaborative student projects, likes to wikis, Twitter and Skype pals, etc., etc.--open the box and start devouring the candy! Based on Tom Friedman's concept, "the world is flat," this is the place to find help with teaching, display your students' work, discuss issues and projects, et al.

Stoodle allows the teacher (or students) a way to create a collaborative whiteboard space. R Byrne's video shows how to use the tool. He also suggests ways students could use Stoodle for peer editing and tutoring sessions, including freehand drawing.

"Google Slides is a great collaborative tool that creates slides rather like PowerPoint but online. I have used this tool extensively for groups to create slides at home but also in the class. I often use one set of slides and give one slide to each group of students to work on. In this video I suggest a few useful tips of how to work with this excellent teacher tech tool. It is a quick 5 minute introduction to working with Google Slides. I also recommend you watch the 5 minute videos on working with Google Docs. Google Docs is also good for collabaration and works in a similar way. "

"Google Docs in the Classroom" Lesson objective is to write collaboratively using Google Docs. Video page includes discussion questions and teacher comments.

An online whiteboard for collaboration. Links to Google docs. Nice video and presentation to explain how the tool is used. Developed for business, but with good educational potential.

Some more examples and ideas to think about

Use for step 3 of our list of tasks

"Peeragogy is a collection of techniques for collaborative learning and collaborative work. By learning how to "work smart" together, we hope to leave the world in a better state than it was when we arrived." Good reading for the teacher interested in professional development

This blog describes some tools for live conference speakers to help make presentations more interactive: "here are a few tools that, thanks to the increasing availability of wireless connectivity at conference centres these days, might help to turn your passive listeners into a bunch of multitasking audience collaborators." These tools include TodaysMeet, for backchannel communications, live polling at Urtak, and Sync.in which will allow collaborative note-taking. Using all these tools will make a live presentation seem much more like an audio-video conference in WiZiQ or Elluminate.

Similar to the new version of Google Docs, Sync.in lets online writers collaborate in real-time, seeing what each one writes, and even replaying a recording of the developing text (or chat).