curriculum integration idea : Group writing June 11, 2007
Posted by Captain in Blog2teach ideas, Teaching ideas, curriculum integration.Tags: curriculum integtion, group writing, lesson ideas
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Group writing
Have you tried group collaborative writing with your class? Probably, you know writing as a group has advantages like creating more ideas and promote peer learning. Having a group of students writing on the same topic can promote peer interaction. A blog can also serve as a platform for writing group blog. Multiple users can write on the same blog at the same time. Currently, blogger and wordpress support group authoring function. Students write in the group writing blog can read their peer’s work and comment on others’ writing.
This is particularly good for community based writing.
Here is an example how multi users can write on a single blog. The example is a group blog of WebHeads. They are a group of international English teachers who share a passion on using IT in their teaching. They attended a TESOL convention in Seattle, 2007. They use this group to share and communicate with each other. What is interesting about a group blog is that different people can post, edit and comment freely on the same blog. It is a truely collaborative environment. Although the topic is not about teaching but still you can see how different writers can post their articles on the same blog.
Discussion Questions:
What is a group blog good for?
What application can we use ?
Is there any project possibility with this group blog function?
It would be very nice for inter-classes cross-curriculum writing project
Group blog is really a good for project learning. Most students find it difficult to write up a report as a group. They tend to divide the report up into different chunks and complete them individually, which leads to incoherence and inconsistence. With the help of group blog, they can view and edit the report anywhere at anytime, and amend it when necessary.
Group blog can also benefit in creative writing as well. Asking a big group of students to create an imaginative story can be fun as well.
Group writing is very suitable for shy students. These students are willing to write down their ideas. Written comments made by their peers are not so intimidating. They may gain self-confidence and respect from peers through contributing their ideas.
I have not tried it before but it sounds very interesting to me and also students. To some extent, students may find the task more interesting and challenging and hopefully they will be more motivated to finish the task.
Group blog is good to stimulate ideas among one another, there is more fun as the group gets bigger.