How Technology Can Promote Collaboration Between Students

Frederick C. Tolete

Some consider knowledge to be more of a construct of society than an absolute. In other words, it is not something with a life outside of us but a product of society. From this point of view, collaborative learning is valuable as this helps students to talk their way into writing and therefore to practice the intellectual discourse required for participation in the academic community. When students collaborate to share their skills with each other, teaching is in the background and learning is in the foreground.

When students leave the writing class, learning to work in a group is a transferable ability that they carry with them. Computer writing labs have also been noted to help make writing a shared activity, increase the frequency of collaborative writing efforts among students and influence the material, type and structure of their collaborative exchanges.

When students share a computer they can use both speech and writing to work on a writing assignment. They may address their written composition in either the target language or the popular first language they share. Writing in a digital media allows text to be manipulated openly. The writer is liberated from the linear atomic paper and pen constraints. Text can be continuously updated. This motivates the student to revise and thus build knowledge of writing as a process. Usually collaborative writing follows the procedure. Student A creates an utterance which is passed on to Student B. Then, by inserting something in the middle, adding something at the end or reposting something at the beginning, student B may add to A's utterance. Student B also has the option to remove something from A's utterance, or to use cut and paste to pass items around. The text is back to A and continuation of the cycle. Writing has been more of a communicative pursuit than a solitary one.

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The author is Faculty Head at Asian Institute of Computer Studies, Tarlac

City