Thing 9 and Thing 10: Online Collaboration Tools

Before I started on Thing 9 I accepted the fact that I needed to set up a Flickr account. So I did. I added two photos.

Then I proceeded to "play" at Big Huge Labs and made a "trading card." I emailed it to my husband. Too bad it wasn't the usual sports trading card he would have loved - it was a flower trading card with the picture of a pretty orchid on it :-)

Thing 9: Google Docs
After spending almost an hour reading through the links and pdf crib sheets offered in the Stick #9 email lesson, I think I have a good idea how Google Docs work. It is simply Web word processing! I can see the usefulness of them when people/students want to work together on the same project anytime and from anywhere - in real time. I like this feature quoted from one of the links, "The system may facilitate collaboration at a distance, but it supercharges collaboration in person." http://future.iftf.org/2006/10/the_experience_.html

I can see that using this tool would be fun and exciting for kids who can learn to write together and revise their writing together. The peer review process will help create higher quality products in the end. Like a wiki, everyone can pull up the "edit history" to know when and what and by who things were revised.

Teachers, when included as part of the writing team, can monitor student work from anywhere - including while class is happening, identifying and intervening with students who are having problems.

It is cool to be easily able to publish the collaborative writing straight to the web (i.e. website, blog) - to a real audience!


Thing 10: Wikis
Wikis are are great collaboration tools! I know first hand. Last year my library media classes used a wiki from wikispaces.com as a "research notebook" where we collected our notes on different areas of Ancient Egyptian culture.

Students in grades 2-5 were given the same username and password to gain access to the wiki and there was a lot of participation from students (and their parents!) from home.