Collaborative Technology in the Classroom

Collaborative Learning using
Collaborative Technology

The first use of technology by school students was taking advantage of the easy access to all kinds of information on the internet. That information is growing daily and students need guidance in order to fully be able to retrieve information that is useful to their learning. Educators have given research assignments and strict instructions on what not to do on the Web but with the millions of sites that result in a search the way the student conducts the search is just as important as being successful in using this information. In Chapter 2 of “The Digital Diet” it explains how the search engines work and why they retrieve the sites they do and what order they list the sites. We should demonstrate how to search using the Advanced Search so we narrow down the list and then we need to guide the students in what sites are the most informative or more appropriate for what the search objective is. It may seem like an easier type of research than the old way of searching at the Library and then having to copy resource books that couldn’t be checked out, but they also need to know how to search or it will be less effective. Students also need to know if the resource is an accurate one. Educators need to require that only accredited and trustworthy resources be used and students need to be given examples of good resources to use and not so good ones. Sites should always be listed as the resource so if students choose a site that may not be trustworthy the teacher can use it as an example of what resources not to use and the whole class can learn from it.

Collaborating with the use of technology can enhance sharing of knowledge. In chapter 3 of “The Digital Diet” the idea of saving and sharing web sites is done using the software “Delicious”. This tool is useful in organizing and keeping the wealth of knowledge we’ve found on the web. I’ve always made lists and lost lists so this bookmarking tool will help me retrieve helpful information in the future. We also have the ability to share with our colleagues. Many of the best web sites I’ve heard about have been from friends and colleagues and again I’ve lost many of them so I’m excited to finally get organized in this area of my learning, teaching (and life! Ha!).

Another technology tool that can help our students work collaboratively is an online editing word processor. Students can contribute to a group project and the teacher can easily see how much each student has contributed. This type of project should be demonstrated so everyone understands how to work together with others in the group. I feel this could be a good way to compile input from everyone in the group and then discuss and evaluate the ideas they want to keep and the ones they don’t. This way of using technology can make the group work process more efficient as students can work from home and then get together for discussions on the findings from the night before in class the next day. This type of collaborative writing practice would give the students experience they can use in their future careers as companies are using technology to work together across miles on projects instead of sending employees on expensive company trips.

These are just a beginning of the types of programs we can use in our classrooms to bring about collaborative learning and we can also use them ourselves to gain in our collaborative learning and interactions with fellow educators and scholars.

Resources:

Churches, A., Crocket, L., & Judes, I. (2010). “The Digital Diet: Today’s digital tools in small bytes.” Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin