Research and Media

Tag: open source learning

Collaborative Writing Practices for Cooperative Learning

Anders, Abram. “Collaborative Writing Practices for Cooperative Learning.” National Forum on Improving Undergraduate Education Through Active Learning Spaces. Minneapolis, MN. August 2011.

Real-time collaborative writing platforms are an exciting, new technological opportunity available for undergraduate education. Whether using Google Docs, Etherpad, or host of other applications, students can now write together in real-time with embedded chat, versioning histories, and instructor oversight. Collaborative writing not only adds interest, excitement, and novelty to writing practice, but also addresses a wide range of challenges for effective composition, communications, and writing instruction.

Collaborative writing helps students overcome first person, single author inertia at the planning, revision, and editing stages of composition. Real-time collaborative invention allows individual learners to experience a wide range of approaches, styles, and strategies for achieving the goals of each assignment. As a tool for revision, collaborative writing helps students gain the ability to view their own writing from a third person perspective. When applied to editing, collaborative writing takes advantage of open source efficiency for discovering and fixing “bugs” or errors. Beyond these practical or tactical strengths, collaborative writing exercises contribute to more cooperative, active, and student-centered learning in general.

See PREZI Slideshow:

Prezi Slideshow

Building Better Resumes the Open Source Way

Whalen, D. Joel, Abram Anders, et al. “Selections From the ABC 2010 Annual Convention, Chicago, IL.” Business Communications Quarterly. 74.3 (2011): 356-372.

“Building Better Resumes the Open Source Way”: My favorite assignment applies open source production strategies and crowd sourcing principles to the task of creating better bullet points and skills descriptions for resumes and job applications. My assignment not only provides a novel and engaging interface for student learners, but also overcomes a traditional pedagogical challenge. Students often recognize the difference between “good” and “bad” examples, but struggle bridging the gap between the two in their own writing. By crowd sourcing the invention and revision processes the “open source way” interrupts single author inertia and helps students realize a wider range and more refined applications of the available means of persuasion.

See Media and Materials:

Better Resumes Media and Materials

http://www.d.umn.edu/~adanders/betterresumes.html

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