Facilitation of group written projects is a challenge for instructional designers working within a distance learning setting. The following provides suggested practices for facilitating such projects using web based collaborative writing technologies.
Read this document on Scribd: Facilitating Group Written Projects
Facilitating Group Written Projects 1 Running head: FACILITATING GROUP WRITTEN PROJECTS Facilitating Group Written Projects with Distance Learners Jennifer Maddrell Old Dominion University Facilitating Group Written Projects 2 Best Practice Facilitation of group written projects is a challenge for instructional designers working within a distance education setting. How will learners collaborate at a distance? How will they add new written contributions? How will they share their work? How will they view the work of others? How will edits be made and revisions tracked among participants? A recommended best practice is to facilitate a distance learning group’s written projects using web based collaborative writing technologies. The following provides specific suggested practices for facilitating such projects. Select Appropriate Media Web based collaborative writing technologies fall into two general categories, including wikis or online tools which mimic desktop word processors. Wikis are collaboratively produced web pages which allow all participants to add and edit content. In contrast, online word processors offer similar document creation features as desktop word processors, but allow online collaboration from those participants established as content creators and editors. While an evaluation of specific technologies is beyond the scope of this article, the most commonly used wiki platforms and online word processors are highlighted in the Resources section below. However, given the multitude of web based collaborative writing technologies, it is important to carefully review and match the features of the available products with the requirements of the given instructional activity. Further, as some organizations and educational institutions filter or block web sites including some of the most popular web based collaboration platforms, it is necessary to ensure the media will be accessible to learners and will integrate with existing technologies. Facilitating Group Written Projects 3 Teach the Technology While web based collaborative technologies are becoming increasingly popular, many learners will not know how to use the specific technology prior to participating on the collaborative writing project. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that learners know how to perform basic tasks, including how to access the chosen tool, sign in under the appropriate login, create new content, edit content created by others, view the revision history, save the work, and print the document. Establish Expectations for Participants In addition to teaching about how to use the technology, it is important to address the unique aspects of having multiple participants collaborate on a single document by establishing clear expectations for participants, including their roles, rights, and responsibilities. While the specific provisions will vary based upon the nature of the instructional project and the characteristics of the learners, expectations should be established and communicated to all participants. These expectations should address the learner’s own contribution, including the assessment criteria regarding the quantity and quality of posted content, as well as the roles, rights, and responsibilities of the learners as members of the group, such as the editing protocols and the copyright provision established for the collectively produced document. Depending upon the nature of the instructional project, opening the collaborative project to participants outside of the learning group is an exciting possibility when using a web based collaborative writing technology. It expands the learning environment to new voices outside the virtual walls of the distance education classroom. However, that openness comes with potential pitfalls, including the possibility for vandalism and unsocial behavior, which must be considered when developing the online environment. Therefore, a decision must be made on whether to set Facilitating Group Written Projects 4 access rights as either (a) no access, (b) limited read-only access, or (c) full read-write access for outside participants. Rationale Distance education is characterized by the separation of the learner from the teacher and other learners (Moore, 2007). Unfortunately, the physical and time separation can make collaboration among learners difficult. Written collaborative projects can become more cooperative than collaborative meaning that the group members may work on separate pieces and bring the individual contributions together to create the final document (Lamb & Johnson, 2007). When the decision is made to assign collaborative written projects to distance learners, contemplating media to facilitate written collaboration and to help overcome the physical and time separation becomes an important instructional design consideration. While relatively little quantitative research is available to assess the effectiveness of wikis and online web processors within an instructional setting, these new and promising technologies are being adopted to support learner collaboration in group writing projects (Carr, Morrison, Cox & Deacon, 2007). Instructors and designers are turning to these technologies as a means of providing learners with the ability to jointly contribute on the same document, see real time edits made by others, track revision histories, efficiently publish the document to the Internet, download the file to the desktop, and print the current version of the document (Carr et al., 2007). However, until participants become familiar with the features and unique aspects of working with these new tools, they can become frustrated by the collaborative content creation process and feel uncomfortable editing the work of others or having their own words and thoughts altered (Ebersbach & Glaser, 2004). Further, learners may be uncertain how their Facilitating Group Written Projects 5 individual contributions will be assessed within the collaboratively produced project (Carr et al, 2007). Therefore, teaching learners about the chosen technology and establishing expectations regarding the roles, rights, and responsibilities of participants, including the task description and writing strategy, will help overcome these challenges within the collaborative process (Posner and Baecker as cited in Passig & Schwartz, 2007). Resources As noted, it is beyond the scope of this article to suggest specific web based collaborative writing technologies. However, Mashable.com recently published a list of the most popular online word processing tools – see http://mashable.com/2008/02/11/13-word-processors/. In addition, a comprehensive list of wikis is available on the Wiki Farms web site – see http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiFarms – which includes many of the wikis evaluated by Athabasca University for use in distance education settings, such as EditMe, MediaWiki, seedwiki, Socialtext, Swiki.net, and WikkiTikkiTavi (Challborn, & Reimann, 2005). Facilitating Group Written Projects 6 References Carr, T., Morrison, A., Cox, G., & Deacon, A. (2007). Weathering wikis: Net-Based Learning Meets Political Science in a South African University, Computers and Composition, 24(3), 266-284. Challborn, C., & Reimann, T. (2005). Wiki products: a comparison., International Review of Research in Open & Distance Learning, 6(2), 1-4. Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/229/859 Ebersbach, A., & Glaser, M. (2004). Towards emancipatory use of a medium. the wiki, International Journal of Information Ethics, 2(11). Retrieved from http://www.i-r-ie.net/inhalt/002/ijie_002_09_ebersbach.pdf Lamb, A., & Johnson, L. (2007). An Information Skills Workout: Wikis and Collaborative Writing. Teacher Librarian, 34(5), 57-9. Retrieved from Education Full Text database. Moore, M. G. (2007). Handbook of Distance Education (2nd ed.). Routledge. Retrieved from http://books.google.com/books?id=MA9-Q73SeesC Passig, D., & Schwartz, G. (2007). Collaborative writing: Online versus Frontal., International Journal on E-Learning, 6(3), 395-412. Retrieved from Education Full Text database.