It wasn’t too long ago that collaboration in the classroom meant that two teachers were working together, side by side, on a project. If a teacher wanted her students to collaborate with students in another school, be it across town or across the country, pen pals were really the only option.
There are many web tools available to today’s educators that make participation in a collaborative project much easier. I used several of these tools to work with K-8 students a week ago while in Mexico.
The Ocean Studies Wiki was the vehicle I used to help third graders understand animal adaptations and the ocean food web, to stir the imagination of eight graders in a co-taught creative writing class, and to help kindergarteners improve their knowledge of Spanish. Voice Thread was a heavily used collaborative tool for this project.
Speech students from a neighboring district also participated – they voiced questions about the ocean for me to answer.
I returned to my schools to face some very excited students and teachers and was pleased that a few more educators in my world had were now aware of how easily they could use collaboration to enhance their curriculum.