Collaborative+Document+Creation

= Examples of Collaborative Document Creation =

Writeboard
Rachel Arredondo

Writeboard is a collaborative document creation tool that can be used between a number of people. This tool quick for anyone to start up. On the homepage you can create your document to be edited by naming the document, then provide your email address. Once the writeboard is created you can begin typing! Once the document is complete you can invite people to view and edit your document as well as leave comments. Once the document has been edited by another person, you will be able to compare your document with the newest edited document. One of the challenges I faced when using this tool is the format of the document when typing. In order to indent or make a word bold or italic, a special code needed to be entered. For example, to make the word "Introduction" bold, you would have to type *Introduction*. This actually slowed my typing down, but I feel if this is a tool that you use often, these are codes you could catch on to. The strength of this tool is the option to invite anyone to edit. I feel that this would be useful for teachers to communicate back and forth to share activities and edit them. Or it could be useful as an assignment for students to share a paper and to edit the others. This would help their editing skills. I also like the option to compare and contrast your original document with one that has been recently edited. I think this would be helpful in seeing what improvements were made and choose whether or not you'd like to accept them. I think that this tool would be better for high-school students, or any teacher. The tool would be difficult for anyone younger to use.

Here is my example: [] Password: 5130Bales

Adobe Buzzword
Jessi Williams

Adobe Buzzword is a website used for collaborative document creation. The site is free to join, but you do have to set up an account with the Adobe website to use this tool. The site can be used to collaborate on different types of documents, but PDF files are the most common type of file used. You can collaborate with as many coauthors as you would like and create different roles for various authors. Also, you can control the amount of access different collaborators have, which is really neat. This site is great, because you can access your work from any computer and keep track of the changes different people have made to the document. Buzzword has many different features and is a really fun tool to explore and leane to use. You can insert graphics, change the font color/background color, create checklists, make in-text comments, and do many other things with this website.

Teachers could use this program in many different ways. Preschool directors could communicate with teachers, teachers could communicate/work with with their coworkers, and teachers can communicate/work with parents. You could use the site to update parents with images of their kids at school, write letters and then let the other teachers edit and make any changes necessary, and coordinate school events with teachers and parents. The possiblilities are really endless with this program. It is creative, innovative, user-friendly, and funcitonal.

I used the program to create a checklist. I would collaborate with the other teachers at my school and ask them to make any changes/edits necessary. The checklist is for items needed for a fall festival so each teacher may have different requests. After each teacher had contributed I would print off the list and send it home with students.

You can check out my Buzzword document at :

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Google Docs
Ashley Underwood

Google docs is a collaborative document creation website using the G-mail system as it's original base. Though users do not need a g-mail account to access a google doc, creators //must// have an account to set up a document. Google Docs is very simple to use and it saves your edits automatically every 10-15 seconds. Though not instantaneously available to the users, the edits can be seen within 30 seconds of the most recent Save.

The example I created using Google Docs is one I think teachers could use very often and very efficiently. They would only need to set up ONE single document and it can be edited, deleted, and re-created for as many uses as many times as he/she may need the whole year. There is no need to keep sending out mass e-mails. The parents can access the page forever after the initial invite has been sent. The page I created is an example of how a teacher may get in touch with parents about volunteers needed for a field trip and how they can sign up to volunteer. Also, it gives the teacher a chance to send out notices about things coming home with the students that the parents may need to look at. The parents will be able to edit the document to become volunteers and also add any questions they have about the field trip, the items the students should bring, and the consent form that was sent home.

To check out my collaborative document click this link: [|Google Doc]

Also, a teacher could use Google Docs to keep students on track for projects. If the students are old enough to have access to an e-mail account, or if they are allowed to use their parents', then the teacher can send out reminders to the ENTIRE class at once about projects, tests and other assignments. This would allow students to talk to the teacher and the other classmates about setting up study groups and possibly getting assistance with a particular assignment. The teacher would be able to monitor the posts and send suggestions to his/her students

Wet Paint
Alex Erisman

Wikisineducation on Wetpaint is a very cool collaboration page that could easily be used to support creative activities in an early childhood setting. Anybody can create their own personal wiki on wetpaint, and anybody who is a member of that specific page can edit the wiki. This could be used by a teacher to either show pictures of activities to parents and their children, or even to place instructions on how to do cool activities at home. When browsing through some wetpaint wiki pages, I saw teachers who posted everything from coloring pages to word games on their classes wiki. This website could be used by parents to show other parents and teachers what their children are creating at home-doing this would give everyone else ideas of things to do with their children at home. Just like the googledocs description above, wet paint can also be used as a communication device between parents and educators. It allows you to post comments, share photos, and share other websites. In the example that I've created to give you a good idea what Wet Paint is all about, I posted pictures from "activities" that children in a made up classroom had participated in that day. The teacher of this website would theoretically update this page at least once a week (preferably towards the end of the week), and use it as a recap of what the children did that week.

Wet Paint is incredibly easy to use and is very fast and efficient in loading pictures and other documents.

Click here to go to the example wetpaint page that I created: http://mssmith1stgrade.wetpaint.com/?zone=addthis

**Storybird**
Nikki Gibbs

Storybird is a great website to work on student's writing skills and sequencing. It is fun and very simple to use. On this website you can collaborate with others to creat stories. You can join in on other's stories or you can collaborate with a friend. It gives you pictures that you can create stories from or you can upload your own pictures for stories. This site helps to encourage creativity by writing stories and improves their writing ability.

Teachers can use this site to pair up students and they can take turns creating a story of a certain topic. This site makes it so that the people creating the story automatically take turns creating and editing. When they are finished they can share thier finished work with the rest of the class. The teachers can also use this tool by involving parents into collaborating with their students to create a story. When the students are at school they can create a page, and then the parent's can create a page on their own time. When the stories are finished the students can share them with the class. Or the parents can create a story with their child at home and the child can share it in class.

I used this site to create my own story and it was incredibly fast and easy to use. All I had to do was pick which pictures I wanted to use and then I just click-and-dragged the pictures onto the page I was creating and typed in my text.

Click here to see my example storybird: []