Collaborative Writing

There may be a lot of different uses for a wiki with writing, but I’m on the fence as to whether I would really dive into wikis. The only use I ever saw to fruition was in creating a classroom contract. Students would begin with a sentence already posted by the teacher and then add beliefs they thought were important. Think worked so well, we were able to have both fifth grade rooms get involved a help author a belief statement. To fully utilize a wiki, I would see it as a complete collection of thoughts and works, including a place to store files/student works. When we saw Elizabeth Boeser’s example wiki’s, I thought it was a wonderful way to study a book and a wonderful use of a wiki. I’m hesitant to think elementary students could take on the management and analysis/synthesis of such as project, but I have been surprised with what students are capable of.

Maybe my past experiences with wikis have tainted my view of their use, but collaborative writing can also take place via Google Documents. This summer I was part of a class where 10 of us worked on a word, and later a spreadsheet, simultaneously. It was great to see what people were coming up with as they typed it. One possible use is to have students work in groups on a jigsaw activity and then enter their information simultaneously on a Google Doc. Wiki’s are limited to one person at a time, and could lead to possible waste of time. For my “elementary” needs, I’m a Google Docs convert.