Challenge #8: Collaborate and Communicate

I work with a school in El Salvador on a project which is hosted on a wiki, but it is cooperative, not collaborative. It is more of a repository, than a place for discussion and collaboration. My experience in FCCT on collaborative wiki editing has been a solo adventure thus far. I think that this is a major problem with collaborative work- trying to get everyone together, even asynchronously and having everyone invested in the work.

My examples with my students are from the 2007-8 school year, when I tried out wikis with my 7th and 8th graders. The 7th grade wiki was much more of a collaborative wiki by design-and turned into wiki wars. My 8th graders worked more cooperatively, but each had his/her own page that she/he was responsible for .... this was immediately after the wiki wars in 7th grade. This worked well- but was not collaborative.

Cooperation is a side by side operation, and although the students help one another, they are not dependent upon the work of others and do not edit it. Collaboration is a very different relationship, where you are dependent upon the work of others to get your work done and you actually have to work together- more of a give and take. Collaboration can be modeled and practiced...is that the same as being "taught"? I was frankly amazed at the level of competition within my class and appalled at the wiki wars. My students do not like to work with one another and when their "grade" depends upon the work of another, it is really not pretty.

Most of my recent experience is collaborative editing in Google Docs. Bill and I used this for our quad-bloggging project, co-editing, leaving comments, etc. This was a collaborative effort. In school I have my 8th graders work on a Field Guide to the Everglades before they go on a one week trip in March. Each student shares his/her document with me and with their science teacher. We both comment, ask questions, answer questions and edit- much in the same way one does on the wiki. We also use this in 9th grade history, where all the mjor papers are turned in on Google Docs, commented on by fellow students as part of the editing and review process. This is more of a cooperative effort.