| | | |
 Uploading ....Webinar Goal #6Use wikis, word processing tools, and Wave for collaborative writing - Next Page - Goal 7
There are several Web 2.0 tools available that enable people located at a distance to collaborate with each other on writing projects or other types of tasks. Here are a few ways that thi scan be accomplished.
As far as embedding the tools into the VLE, you have different options depending on the tool that is selected. For a word processing tool such as Zoho Writer or Google Docs, you probably don't want to embed the entire editing tool into the course since many students will find that confusing. You may, however, want to embed the public page into the course so that others can review it and possibly leave comments on it without having to leave the course. Embedding a wiki is a bit different since it will open its own editing tool right in the same window or frame of the VLE. This would allow students to add content to the wiki without leaving the VLE, although it will also work well (sometimes better) of they do go to the wiki application natively.
Here's a screen shot of this very wiki embedded into the Desire2Learn content stream. You can then give page editing rights to all students, a group of students, or no students at all. I've also used the wikis from PBworks and WetPaint - they're all good.
If they open the page editor, this is what it would look like inside the D2L frame.
Another possibility for collaborative writing woulod be any one of the online word processors, such as Zoho Writer or Google Docs. These tools allow you to have any number of editors and they have a public page that can easily be embedded into the VLE, as shown below with a Zoho Writer page embedded into D2L. Similar to a blog post, there is even a place where readers can leave comments on the document.
Another collaborative tool (or solo user, if you prefer) is Zoho Notebook. This is a tool that you have to experience to believe. Basically it allows you to create a multimedia notebook - notice the tabbed pages on the right side of the screen. On any given notebook page you can mix together text, hyperlinks, audio players, video players, live web pages, still images, spreadsheets, web forms, and just about anything else that you can imagine. If that's not enough, you can also place each of those items anywhere you want to on any of the pages. Try doing that with Dreamweaver or some other html editor. You can't.
This last tool is not yet ready for prime time (as of March 2010), but I'm including it as an attempt at giving you a glimpse of what the near future might look like. This is an embed into D2L of the full Google Wave tool. Google Wave has been heralded as the next big breakthrough in online communications (not yet true, but we'll see).
|
|
|
| | | |
|
