Why Collaborate? Why Collaborate with Computers?

Incorporating computer collaborations into writing classes may be easiest for those of us who already use collaborations in our face-to-face classes as well as those of us who use computers with our classes, even if we have not yet combined the two. After all, we bring to the effort our experience as well as a commitment to either the pedagogy or the medium or both.

Even without access to the Internet or to a state-of-the-art networked computer classroom, we can take advantage of the computer as a tool to support collaborative planning, research, writing, editing, peer review, and publication. The software-and hardware-specific aspects of computer-mediated collaborations may vary; however, the theoretical and practical elements remain the same for a single standalone computer and shared disks as for wireless laptop projects and high-speed Internet connections. For examples of low-tech activities that simulate computer networks and Internet applications, see Cybersimulations: Low-Tech Variations of High-Tech Applications for Learning Communities by Dona J. Hickey, University of Richmond, and Donna Reiss, Tidewater Community College.

Collaborative projects give students a sense of community that contributes not only to college retention but also to academic success, in particular among first-year students. No wonder the learning community concept and the first-year interdisciplinary team experience are becoming more popular on college campuses. Recreating for undergraduates the small-seminar environment in which graduate students thrive can involve whole-college programs for first-year students or a collaborative learning approach within an individual classroom. The latter is of course easier for an individual teacher to plan and implement.

We are in good company when we design activities for our students to work in teams: Dewey, Vygotsky, Freire, Bahktin, and Bruffee all emphasize the social interaction that fosters and supports learning. In their book on collaborative authorship, Lisa Ede and Andrea Lunsford cite from Paolo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed (1968) that "literacy is best taught in the social context of people’s own lives" (112). Cooperative activities in which group members take responsibility for individual roles and contribute their results to the group, for example, or collaborative activities in which students compose together may lead to a decentralized classroom in which the teacher becomes a guide or facilitator for students who teach and learn together. For teachers who worry that this student-centered approach will undermine their importance or authority, John Trimbur offers assurance that even when a teacher is not present in the group, the assignment is "imbued with the teacher’s presence" (Ede and Lunsford 120).

For writing teachers, Kenneth Bruffee’s collaborative learning theories and strategies have been of particular importance, and adapting them to new technologies has supported collaborations among teachers as well as collaborations among students. Bruffee recognized the promise as well as the danger of these technologies, which could "fulfill their educational promise only if we exploit their potential as mediators of intellectually constructive, educationally productive social relations: collaborative learning" (99).

Information technology has given us new approaches for fostering collaboration in the teaching of writing and in communication throughout the curriculum. NEXT: How To Collaborate with Computers

Collaboration in the Online Classroom: Why and How: Home/Index | Why Collaborate? Why Collaborate with Computers? | How To Collaborate with Computers | References and Resources | developed by Donna Reiss February 2000 and updated 20 September 2000, 15 September 2004