"A participatory culture has relatively low barriers to
engagement, strong support for creating and sharing, some type of
informal mentorship, a degree of social connection and the importance
that members believe their contributions matter."
(Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education
in the 21st Century, 2006)
People are tethering themselves to each other, crisscrossing the Web as they Twitter everything from the mundane to the sublime. Willaim Kist
The capability for teachers to be able to provide personal feedback in a timely manner, not only make students better but also make teachers better.
Blogs, Wikis, Docs: Which is right for your lesson? A Comparison Table
When students participate in collaborative group work they need to be able to explain their ideas and enter into negotiations when those ideas do not align with others in the group. Learning how to collaborate can therefore also help students to develop skills of debate, flexibility, cooperation, compromise and listening.
The bottom line is that digital writing tools such as blogs, wikis and collaborative word processors (e.g. GoogleDocs, Etherpad) can enhance the writer's workshop principle of good conferring, in which we allow the writer to do most of the talking and guide him to better writing through careful questioning and feedback.
“Snowflakes are one of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they stick together." Vesta M. Kelly
When scaffolding is part of your writing workshop, you can teach students how to respond to each other online as well, potentially increasing both the quantity and quality of responses that they may have received before only in class.
- By going to one main web site (docs.google.com), and logging in with a user name and password, students can gain access to all their documents as well as all the documents others have shared with them....just quick and easy access for our students to share their writing with us and each other.
- Students and teachers can offer feedback in a variety of ways, including:
- Inserting comments
- striking through text
- changing font color
- highlighting text
- tracking of revision history is another benefit.