Collaborative Documents

http://chronicle.com/article/A-Social-Network-Can-Be-a/129609/


Collaborative documents. You've no doubt heard that Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Less well known is that every page in Wikipedia has a parallel discussion page, where those editing the page debate which edits to make. A Wikipedia page on a popular topic is the synthesis of dozens and sometimes hundreds of contributors, a form of peer review.

Give your students assignments in which they must collaboratively create a document. You might set up a wiki for your course, divide students into groups, and ask each group to contribute something (an essay, research report, play, etc.). Aim for your students to engage in the kind of editing and revision that you do when you write papers with colleagues. Wikis and other platforms (such as Google Docs) usually let you see what each person contributed to the project, allowing you to hold individual students accountable for their work.

Collaborative documents need not be text-based works. Sarah C. Stiles, a sociologist at Georgetown, has had her students create collaborative timelines showing the activities of characters in a text, using a presentation tool called Prezi.com. I used that tool to have my cryptography students create a map of the debate over security and privacy. They worked in small groups to brainstorm arguments, and contributed those arguments to a shared debate map synchronously during class.