Realism through Outside Collaborations
Students enjoy sharing their ideas with a real-world audience.
Explore ways to use technology to reach outside your classroom. Young people can become creators and contributors along with consumers of the Web. Use collaborative documents, concept maps, and wikis along with other technology to bring literature and learning alive.
Differentiated classrooms adjust the audience of student products to provide realism to classroom assignments.
Online Collaborative Tools: Blogs, Wikis, and Social Technology
Recently a whole new generation of web-based social, collaborative, and interactive technology tools have emerged with cute names like avatar, blog, podcast, wiki, and gliffy allowing students to easily work together to reach learning goals.
Collaborative technologies are generally web-based tools that involve two or more people working together in a virtual environment to create something greater than could be build independently. Rather than simply viewing existing information, emphasis may be placed on authoring content.
Read ABCs of Web 2.0: Avatars, Blogs, and Collaborative Wikis.
This article provides an overview of collaborative tools of Web 2.0.
Blogs
Blogs are web logs that arrange postings (i.e., text, graphics, audio, video entries) in reverse chronological order. Generally a single author or team of authors post messages and encourage people to add comments. Go to A Really Different Place as an example of a classroom blog.
Read Blogs and Blogging: A Homerun for Students, Teachers, and Technology. This online workshops introduces blogs and blogging tools.
Read Learning Spaces: Blogging, Podcasting, and Vlogging.
This page provides information about blogging, audio sharing, video sharing, and RSS.
Wikis
A wiki is a type of website that uses "open editing" collaborative software technology to provide an easy way for multiple participants to enter, submit, manage, and update a single web workspace. For instance, The Wright 3 is a middle school project created by a teacher and her students to share their understanding of this book. Get your own Wikispaces.
Read Reading, Writing, and Wikis: Nurturing a Sense of Wonder Across the Curriculum.
Read Wiki World: Collaborative Learning through Technology.
These web resources introduce wikis for collaborative reading, writing, and learning.
Read Learning Spaces: Collaborative Web and Wikis.
Social Technology
Well-constructed social environments provide an excellent opportunity to model high tech learning in a safe online environment.
Read Learning Spaces: Discussion Forums.
Read Learning Spaces: Social Networks and Virtual Worlds.
These pages explore the use of online discussions in teaching and learning.
Online Collaborative Projects
Connect with people around the globe through online projects. For instance, the National Math Trail is a project that involves students writing and sharing math problems.
Go to GlobalSchoolNet for lots of projects to join.
Go to KidsLearn and explore their online projects. Plan to participate in this project. Or locate a class and write an email to the class. Or, locate a class anywhere in the world and write an email to the class.
Explore
Dr. Lamb's Flat Stanley Project.
Explore more examples at Travel Buddy from Teacher Tap.
Go
to Epals and find a classroom in another
state or country at your grade level. Or, find a classroom that studies
at topic or reads a book that's in your curriculum.
Explore Ask An Expert from Teacher Tap.
Explore Book
Awards from Teacher Tap.
Differentiate! Explore collaborative tools and projects. Design an assignment with a real-world audience or authentic collaboration.
Review
Review the "big ideas" on this page:
Technology tools and collaborations can help young people reach beyond classroom. Rather than simply being consumers of web resources, students are empowered and become web creators and contributors using collaborative documents, concept maps, and wikis along with other technology.
Collaborative technologies are generally web-based tools that involve two or more people working together in a virtual environment to create something greater than could be build independently. Rather than simply viewing existing information, emphasis may be placed on authoring content.
Blogs are web logs that arrange postings (i.e., text, graphics, audio, video entries) in reverse chronological order. Generally a single author or team of authors post messages and encourage people to add comments.
A wiki is a type of website that uses "open editing" collaborative software technology to provide an easy way for multiple participants to enter, submit, manage, and update a single web workspace.
Well-constructed social environments provide an excellent opportunity to model high tech learning in a safe online environment.
