Collaborative Writing in the Classroom

How is Web 2.0 changing the way we write? And how can it change the way we teach writing?

We recently ran into a very interesting free website, MixedInk , that can be used for a collaborative approach to writing in the classroom. Here is a guest blog posting by the founder of MixedInk, Vanessa Scanfield.

Collaborative Writing in the 21st Century Classroom, by Vanessa Scanfield, CEO, MixedInk.

Advances in technology are provoking broad structural shifts in business, media, and government. These new technologies are enabling (and, in some cases, forcing) organizations and individuals to adjust in order to capitalize on new opportunities. Success now hinges upon an organization’s capacity to take advantage of a distributed workforce, employ democratic decision-making, and harness collaborative relationships.

Schools are reacting by incorporating 21^st century skills into the classroom. While the term itself is a bit vague, the overarching concept is that students should be moving beyond traditional curricular elements, delving into civic engagement projects, honing their critical thinking and collaboration skills, harnessing technology to produce better work products, and demonstrating the cultural awareness and leadership needed to succeed in college and beyond.

Teachers today have adopted a range of innovative tools to meet these demands.

• Classroom blogs, like Extreme Biology, supplement class discussion and highlight student work;

• wikis, such as Anatowiki, enable students to build a collective knowledge base;

• social networks, such as the Flat Classroom Project, connect students across classrooms, schools, and even countries;

• podcasts can make challenging class projects; and

• Twitter enables real-time participation and provides a new, creative outlet for writing.

These tools offer engaging learning solutions that reimagine the classroom as a place where students provide valuable contributions and learn from interacting with one another, rather than a space built simply for the one-way transfer of information.

I co-founded a startup, MixedInk, which helps to build a range of 21^st century skills across the curriculum. We offer a free, online collaborative writing platform that enables students to weave their ideas and language into a single text.

To use MixedInk, a teacher first sets up a project for the class to collaborate on a collective text. Over a period ranging from days to weeks, students write original versions of the text, edit others’ work, and weave different versions together to form new ones. Throughout the process, students comment on submissions and rate different versions to bring the best-written, most popular ideas to the top. In the end, the class can explore the strengths and weaknesses of the top collective text(s).

This demo video provides a helpful overview:

MixedInk Demo from MixedInk on Vimeo.

Simply by participating in a MixedInk project, students are exposed to a wide range of their peers' work. As they remix the best parts of various essays, students are challenged to critically evaluate the quality of what they read. When students rate and comment on submissions, they must analyze why they prefer some texts and not others. Perhaps most importantly, students hone their ability to recognize compelling concepts and their capacity to synthesize these ideas seamlessly into a single text. Those of us who have worked in groups to write grants, press releases, marketing materials, and mission statements know well the lasting value of this particular skill.

In January, Slate Magazine invited its readers to produce a collective inaugural address using MixedInk. In addition to borrowing language from other contributors, those who participated were able to borrow from the inaugural addresses of all the previous presidents. More than 400 people, including many students, collaborated to produce an eloquent speech, which was published at Slate.com on inauguration day. Though originally intended for an adult audience, the project offered a unique learning experience for the classrooms that participated.

Educational tools like MixedInk are built to nurture students’ creativity, harness their enthusiasm, and ensure their readiness to succeed in an increasingly digital world. In the comments, let us know which new media tools you have incorporated successfully, how you have used collaborative writing in the classroom, and suggestions for how to incorporate collaborative writing across different subjects.

Comments

[mirc]

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