collaboration



What is collaboration? Collaboration is working together for a common goal.

What are 3 ways in which students collaborate in your classroom and are they successful? They collaborate by dividing up the task to get it accomplished while communicating with each other about their findings and progress and listening to each other's questions, comments, and suggestions. They collaborate when they edit and revise work based on their peers comments during pair/share. They collaborate when they are in constant communication, listen to each person's idea, and work together to incorporate those ideas into their completed assignment (like in a skit).

Pixar collaboration education video
 * 1) How can expanded use of technology help develop depth and breadth for our students?The sheer volume of information available through technology can increase depth and breadth as long as the students are able to discern quality info from quantity, and as long as they balance what they see on the web with common sense and what they know from the world around them.
 * 2) What is the difference between cooperation and collaboration? Communication- and the valuing of that communication is the main difference. If the students split up a task and don't communicate throughout the process of completing that task it is cooperation. If they listen to each other and use their partners comments, questions, and ideas to enhance their work and take it to the next level- that is collaboration.
 * 3) What are the challenges in getting students to collaborate rather than just cooperating? The main problem I've encountered is that students want to rush through an assignment and not only don't listen to others- they don't talk to others. There is no exchange of ideas and questions if they rush, but many students just have the goal of finishing quickly- quantity over quality. Getting them to think in reverse is an ongoing battle.

Voicethread
voicethread tutorial

Voicethread reminds me of a long distance classroom- like you'd find in Alaska- where someone posts something (drawing, video, writing) and everyone else posts their comments one by one. It's a great piece of technology, but to me it's better suited to long distance than in one classroom (my first thought was that it would be great for a family scrapbook like ancestry.com more than an educational tool). It would make an assignment fun, but it would take up way to much time. Also, it talks about people posting using their phones- if student's phones are on and they are caught with them they're taken away!!

media type="custom" key="8278002"