CSCL Module Five: Comparison of Collaborative Tools Using Defined Roles

You will need to go to the Module Five Wiki designed for your group and perform four steps to successfully complete this lesson.

Overview of the Four Steps

Step 1: Each member chooses a collaboration tool to research. In this step, each student will work independently to research a collaboration tool that would be appropriate for a collaborative writing task. You will practice the skill of finding a tool that suits the task, researching the tool, and summarizing the tool's benefits and disadvantages. In this step, you will be assessed individually on your effectiveness in researching a tool and communicating the essential information about the tool to your group. The interaction during the first step focuses on coordinating your research.
Step 2: Decide what role each student will play in writing the comparison. As a group, you will decide the role each student will play in step 3, collaboratively writing a comparison of the tools. You will post the roles in the wiki and explain your decision-making process. In this step, you will be assessed as a group on your effectiveness in creating, defining and negotiating the roles you will play. This task is open-ended. The interaction requires group communication. The skills practiced include creativity in deciding and defining the roles, communication and negotiation to assign the roles, and written argumentation skills to justify your decision about the roles you chose.
Step 3: Compare the collaboration tools chosen in step 1. As a group, you will write a brief text which compares the collaboration tools chosen in step 1, recommends the best tool out of the three for the task, and explains why the tool is the best. The report is posted in the wiki. In this step, you will be assessed as a group on your effectiveness in writing a concise comparison paper that could be used as a recommendation and justification choosing this particular tool for the given task. You will practice group interaction skills and written communication skills. You are required to study different topics but come together and share the information to make a final report. You will have to solve a problem with no clear solution. The task is to evaluate the tools in qualitative terms, not quantitative. Both communication and coordination will be required of the group. This task could require file sharing and negotiation, depending on the roles that were defined in step 2. Interaction may be synchronous or asynchronous.
Step 4: Reflection. You will reflect individually on the experience, including on the success or failure of the role assignments. Reflections are written in the wiki. This step will be assessed individually on the clarity and thoughtfulness of your answers. You will evaluate how role definition affected your group project.

Additional Guidelines

You are welcome to use communication tools other than the wiki. However, the wiki will be the primary source for your assessment. We encourage you to make as much of your work visible on the wiki as possible.
You may add pages to the wiki.
Example scenario for this lesson

Excerpt from the Module Five Wiki (Groups, please work directly in your wiki.)

The Assignment

This assignment will teach you to evaluate collaborative tools for writing, and to determine whether defining roles is effective in group learning situations.

In the first step, you will independently research a collaborative tool for writing, keeping in mind that the purpose is to find a tool that you can have students use in a future assignment.

You will complete 4 steps. You can divide them up by day, such as Day 1 for Step 1, Day 2 for Step 2, or you can choose to finish all four steps in a single day. However, the steps must be done in order.

Step 1: Each member chooses a collaboration tool.

In this step, each student will work independently to research a collaboration tool. The tool can be anything: Skype, a Wiki, a Bulletin Board system, or can be more comprehensive, such as Sakai or Moodle, but it should be a tool that would be appropriate for collaborating on a writing assignment. The group will have to work minimally together to make sure each person chooses a different tool, but other than that, this part of the project is to be done independently.

Keep in mind the following questions when picking and writing about the tool:

How will this tool facilitate communication?
Does this tool introduce any barriers to communication?
Will the students be able to adapt to this tool easily, or is there a steep learning curve?
Is this a tool the college needs to support (such as Sakai or Moodle) or is it on its own website (such as PBWiki or Google Docs)?
- Are there concerns with asking students to use a tool that is not under control of the school?

Assignment: Write one paragraph each and post to wiki.

Step 2: Decide what role each student will play in writing the comparison.

You will decide as a group how to define and assign the roles each will play for Step 3. You can discuss the question of roles on the wiki itself, through email, the bulletin board, or through another medium of your choice. These roles can be divided up however the group wants, but the group must provide justification for the reasoning.

The purpose of this part of the assignment is to determine whether defining roles beforehand helps in the collaborative process.

Example: The group decides that Lucy, who considers herself a great organizer, will make a chart showing the similarities and differences of the three tools, and she will post that on the same wiki page showing the research findings. Frank will put Lucy's chart in narrative form, since he considers himself a good writer, and George will edit the text for grammar, punctuation, and clarity since he is an English professor. Since the role assignment process, the second component of the lesson, was conducted off the wiki, they are to post a brief statement on the second page of the wiki telling how they went about dividing the task. George volunteers to do that.

Post three roles, who has each, and the reasoning for the decision.

Step 3: Compare the collaboration tools chosen in step 1.

In this step, you will apply the research you did in step 1 and the role definition from step 2. You will collaboratively write a brief paper describing the advantages and disadvantages of each of the three tools you researched, which tool is best suited for a writing task, and why you chose that tool. Outside links are encouraged, but not required. Keep in mind the questions from step 1.

Collaboratively write a brief paper describing the three tools researched during step 1.

Step 4: Reflection.

In this step, each of you will reflect on the project. The reflections will be posted on the wiki, but the reflections themselves are done independently. Answer these questions in your reflection:

How did you feel about the role definitions and assignments?
How did you feel about the role you played in the report?
Would you take that role again? Why or why not?
How do you think that defining the roles before completing the collaboratively written report affected the project?
What would you change about this learning experience?

Post individual reflections on the wiki.