Collaboration


 * 1) What is collaboration?
 * 2) What are 3 ways in which students collaborate in your classroom and are they successful?

Collaboration is the act of students working together to achieve a common goal. In my class, students collaborate but simply pairing & working together to either answer a question or series of questions pertaining to the lesson we are involved with. A second means of collaboration is think-write-pair-share, which is similar to the first, except for the fact that it is more structured. Students will be asked to work individually to respond to a certain prompt, topic, etc. They will write down their findings & then pair off with another student or students. While working together, they will compare their findings & collaborate to piece them together into a logical group response. A third means of collaboration is a simple (or not so simple) group project. They work together over a period of time to create & present something encompassing a big idea & supporting details pertaining to a given topic. As far as success, it works for the most part. Students generally enjoy the opportunity to work together & learn from eachother. The potential drawback, of course, is that sometimes certain students carry the entire load while others just try to coast on teh work of their partner(s).


 * 7.2**


 * 1) How can expanded use of technology help develop depth and breadth for our students?
 * 2) What is the difference between cooperation and collaboration?
 * 3) What are the challenges in getting students to collaborate rather than just cooperating?

Expanded use of technology helps students develop depth & breadth. It can lead to the increased development of resiliancy & adaptability (learning to adjust when things don't go as planned) along with the honing & broadening of certain skills to the point of mastery. It also helps increase communication. Cooperation & collaboration are different things. Cooperation is working together in basic terms. It's being generally helpful & staying out of eachother's way. Collaboration is working together in the sense that everyone has a task or a role that comes together to achieve a common goal. There are always challenges to getting students to collaborate, especially middle school students. One challenge is getting each of them to understand their individual roles & how important it is for them to come together. You always have some students who take their work seriously & others who don't. They are more inclined to try to coast based on the work of their partners.

A voicethread is basically a slideshow that contains images, documents, & videos. Users can comment on them in several ways: via microphone, text, audio file, or video. I like the idea of the voicethread. It can basically transfer a whole group discussion onto one page. It would be great in a classroom setting because it gives students over their comments & they can hold eachother accountable. It is a great tool for collaboration. They can use it to work together on homework, projects, etc. They can create their own slideshows & explain them verbally all on that one page.
 * 7.3 **
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 * Voicethread **

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 * 7.6 **
 * What skills do your students need to be successful & how can the use of technology help our students achieve those goals? **