Learning Through Collaboration

: Image via CrunchBase

Blogs are everywhere. People use them to share their personal lives, their opinions, ideas, news, and just about anything else you can think of. There is so much information out there, and so much to share, that it might be useful to use a blog to enhance learning.

WordPress and Blogger are easy programs to use to create blogs. You can create multiple blogs at each. It could be that you want to create a page to share professional information, as well as a page to instruct your students. Make the blog required reading. Put videos, photos and relative links there. Allow the students to comment to create lively online discussion. By this strategy, you can use the blog to guide students in the positive benefits of web communication.

Teachers must continue to learn to be good teachers. Encourage other teachers to create blogs, and use them to share information about things you’ve learned or opportunities to learn more. The blogs can become excellent learning tools and professional discourse applications among teachers.

If you have a personal web page, build a personal blog into it. You might even invite students to be guest bloggers. Assign essays or reports and reward those who produce quality work by posting their report on your blog. Being recognized in the blogospere may mean more to a child than an A+. By doing this, you’re also encouraging life long academics for the child.

Blogs fall into their own kind of collaboration scheme. As bloggers network and communicate they are, in essence, working together to solve problems, share knowledge and enhance learning in the technological age.

Link the blog to twitter and facebook accounts so that students, contemporaries and parents can stay up to date and interactive with your work. By involving everyone, the education of the kids can only benefit.

What Is Collaborative Learning?

You may not be familiar with the phrase “collaborative learning.” The concept itself is not new, but it is beginning to enjoy resurgence, so you may be hearing it more often.

Simply put, collaborative learning is when learning is done in groups of two or more. If your child comes home from school and says that she is in a reading group made up of two good readers, two average readers, and two readers who need a little more help, and she’s one of the helpers, then she is participating in a form of collaborative learning.

Likewise, when students are assigned to a group for a project, and one is responsible for finding out information on one part of the project, another on the other part, and still another on the conclusion or findings, this is a type of collaborative learning. Each is responsible for a portion of the work, as well as checking up on each other to make sure everything is being done correctly.

Not every subject can be taught through collaborative learning, nor will every child benefit from this specific learning technique. Those subjects that provide a base of knowledge, however, such as reading, usually lend themselves to this concept.

And while children do learn certain things together, they are still responsible for filling in the blanks, especially when it comes to group projects. They must remember that their part isn’t the only one that will be on a test; rather, everything they have learned through their efforts together will be included.

You can find information on collaborative learning by using such sites as Canada 411 to find local education resources. Once you have learned more about it, if your child’s school is not using this technique and you feel it may be helpful, you can approach the teachers or administrators with the idea using the information you have learned.

Use a Blog to Enhance Learning

What Is Collaborative Learning?

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