Collaborative Writing

The following was written in collaboration with Kathrine Bailey.

Problems:
One problem that almost always occurs with group work is how to bring together a cohesive document from people who may have two or three different opinions. Collaborative document development does allow everyone to express his/her thoughts on a topic, but in the end the group as a whole must agree on how to present the final product to the instructor. In addition to this, a teacher may run into problems if they require students to collaborate online because of FERPA regulations. In order to collaborate online group members must have a way to communicate with each other and add each other to the document. This is primarily done through email which can be considered part of the student's personal information, which could violate FERPA if that information is not directory info.

It is sometimes difficult to get people to participate in online projects such as collaborative document creation because of their varying schedules and different ideas about when it is best to get an assignmnet done. This places added stress on the group members who are doing their best to see that the project is completed and is a success. A good way to overcome this is to have ground rules for the assignment which are shared with the group at the beginning so that everyone is on the same page and understands how their partner(s) work. Document writing is typically a solitary task. One individual gathers research, organizes it, and places pertinent pieces of that research with citation into an editor's hands. The ideas are not shared, just the editorial process. Collaborative work in the traditional classroom shares the tasks of the solitary writer in order to infuse the work with the ideas of everyone in the group.

Access to the technology may pose a problem if one or more members of the group do not have access to a computer or the internet from home. This limits the amount of time that person can devote to the project because they would only be able to work on the project at school. Also, as previously mentioned if a group member (i.e. a student) does not have access to an email account for some reason, they would not be able to complete an online collaboration assignment.Other issues involve critical mass for participation. The project must have enough participants and it also must have enough appeal to those asked to do it. Also, the rules must be defined enough for all members to function, but have enough breathing room for changes necessary for technology failures or other impedance issues to creativity and completion. (Bailey & Penney, 2007)Collaborative writing assignments in both the classroom and online environment prove challenging for students due to time constraints. It is difficult to schedule research time, writing time, and review time around another individuals schedule no matter if you share the course face to face with them or in an online environment. Class time in the face to face sections of a course are spent lecturing or on other assignments. Students still must find time to meet to do the various activities involved with group work.Author's Note: Current issues with Google Docs particularly found in this lesson is that the chat function is no longer embedded with the document creation area. This makes it harder to use Google Docs and work collaboratively.

Promises:
Despite possible issues with FERPA and disclosure, sites such as Google Docs offer excellent opportunities for students or even teachers to work together on a project or paper outside of the traditional classroom setting. This would make working with someone who lived across the country much easier, especially when it is compared with having to email a file back and forth or work via the phone and email with one person responsible for bringing together all of the different parts to the project. The abilitiy for students to be able to collectively put their thoughts on a subject into a document that can be reviewed and edited by their peers at any time allows teachers (or administrators) to make assignments to groups that can be worked on virtually any place at any time.

Possible Uses for Administrators:
Collaborative document development is a great way for administrators to work with others in creating documents about new technology as well as getting others to work together on projects. Having students or even teachers work together on a project using a program such as Google Docs is a great way to get them comfortable using technologies that was new to them. Since many collaborative document sites have a similar format to Microsoft Word they offer a familiarty to the user that makes them want to use the technology, which in turn would make it easier for administrators to teach them about new technology. This is also a good way for colleagues who work in different locations to be able to work together on a presentation or project. It saves on traveling to meet with each other or hours spent on the phone to discuss aspects of the project. Recently, technology has given the face to face and online instructors a new option for collaborative writing among students. The use of technology like those of Google Docs, Wikis, or other Web 2.0 share services has allowed students to work over large distances and often different time zones. For students pressed for time, the ability to shift work times to late or early morning hours as well as work asynchronously affords more meaningful and less stressful experiences with collaborative work. The skills learned in the online classroom using collaborative document work will transfer into the real world when projects must be completed with co-workers in other cities or countries as part of the new model of collaboration in the corporate world (Tapscott & Williams, 2007). White board or webinar software companies such as Wimba, Eluminate, Citrix, and Web-ex are currently defining educational and corporate communication and creation outside of traditional environments such as databases or course management systems. Live or synchronous work on documents with shared desktops allow multiple collaborators to see, hear, and do together. Other changing collaborative environments like those of instant messengers are starting to incorporate desk top sharing for students and workers. Pronto, the latest of the Wimba collaborative suite products, allows students to initiate a chat with services or other students on campus. Students can share homework documents or other desktop applications to work on the same project from their dorm rooms or different cities (http://www.wimba.com/products/). Tapscott and Williams in their book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything, outline four principles of good collaboration. If those four principles are applied to the technologies we use, they can be evaluated against one another on a common criteria. Peering, sharing, globalization, and openness are the four principles applied to technology by Tapscott and Williams to explain the strength or value of the technologies adopted by industry for collaboration. The same technologies have similar values and uses in education. According to Kathrine Bailey and Samantha Penney in their white paper Don't Make Me Collaborate! :

"He is referring to openness as open source or collaborations where anyone canmake contributions or edit content as well as referencing the trend of corporationsopening up content for outside contributors (Tapscott & Williams, 20).Peering is the abolition of hierarchy in favor or horizontal organization, allcontributors have equal importance. (Tapscott & Williams, 25)Sharing in Tapscott and Williams’ definition covers the sharing of created contentand the release of that content into collaborative environments for editing, contribution,and comment. Sharing also refers to creating a mass shared computing platform in whichusers link their computers together physically to share computational power to solve aproblem (Tapscott & Williams, 25-27)

Finally, acting globally in Tapscott and Williams’ definition, “. . .has no physicalor regional boundaries. It builds planetary ecosystems for designing, sourcing,assembling, and distributing products on a global basis.” (Tapscott & Williams, 29-30)."

When Google Docs in its current form is evaluated against these characteristics of good collaboration, it is found to meet all four needs. Other technologies, such as Wimba fail in the sense that they are no longer opensource, however those who have paid for license or the ability to develop for profit for the platform meet at a lesser degree the openness requirement of the four principles.Administrators can find many collaborative uses for the Web 2.0 tools, but administrators must also be able to show value for the choices that they make and show that the tools are the best choice for their situation. Using ISLLC and possibly Tapscott and Williams' work, a scale for productivity and value to an administration could be established. When working online as a group the choice of writing tools comes into question when one or all of the members are unfamiliar with the technology. Even if they are all familliar with online collaborative technology, they may all have different levels of experience with the technology. It is important to then choose a technology that can be easily used by everyone in the group. A program like Google docs offers users a familiar environment in which to actually compose the document as it uses a similar format to that of Microsoft Word. The only difficulty that may present a problem for users is how to initially share a document with others within the group. Therefore it is always useful to go through a tutorial program for whatever technology is chosen for the collaborative effort, if one is available. Once familiar with the technology it is fairly easy to use and with the multitude of technologies available online, finding one which everyone can use is not a difficult process.On a more practical note, TBR has been using Google Docs for spread sheets that are check lists for dates and needs for state wide software implementation. Administrators from each campus have access to the document and can add their portions of the info. A primary admin gathers the info for reports or actions needed. Another use is that of a TBR wiki for transitions and planning for technology initiatives. State wide input has eased the transition by creating a large group of experts in different areas who provide help with tasks such as conversions and planning for training or implementation. Also through Google Docs training materials can be synthesized quickly by a larger group with the same focus and not require replication from campus to campus. Thus, the activities in the collaborative environments save time per the Tapscott and Williams' model.

References
Bailey, Kathrine and Samantha Penney. (2007) Don't Make Me Collaborate! White paper. MTSU Technology Conference. Retrieved February 12,2009 from http://frank.mtsu.edu/~itconf/proceed07/collaboration.pdf

Tapscott, Don, and Anthony D. Williams. Wikinomics: How Mass collaboration Changes Everything. New York: Portfolio (Penguine Group),2007.

http://www.wimba.com/products/