Thanks Faten, you have some great ideas! I agree with the benefits of collaboration and that and ideal place for collecting and posting stories is a wiki - usually you can add different types of media to a wiki posts, embedding video and other tools, so you can also use a wiki for non-written stories too.
It is also true that the teacher must be careful of the way the students use the wiki - for this reason the teacher should be the administrator or moderator, able to delete harmful or inappropriate comments. If this does occur, it is the teacher's role to discuss this problem in class and maybe even create a collaborative story about the importance of respect!

Hi Janet, I agree that VoiceThread is a good tool for practising speaking exams - it means that students can practise the individual speaking tasks alone at home and they can then send the teacher the link to add feedback. This is good for shyer students who may feel nervous speaking in front of the whole class. This is not collaborative, but perhaps the student could be persuaded to send the link to some of the other students for them to add their opinions - positive peer feedback can be much more rewarding than teacher feedback, especially for teenagers!

That's fantastic! And because it was the students' idea they will be so motivated! You could show them one or more of the tools we have looked at during the session and get them to write reviews of the book, summaries etc. You could try Storybird, Little BIrd Tales or one of the other book creator tools and ask them to find or create pictures that reflect the ideas, characters, themes and events in the book.

This is great, Elizabeth. Will you use VoiceThread?

Thanks so much Juan!

Thank you LaQuita!

Task 3 I'm using a wiki to collaboratively create an Information Literacy Continuum. While that's not storytelling, it has given me some idea of how to work collaboratively in one. They are very easy to manage, but you would definitely have to have "buy-in" from everyone in the class. I am not sure how visually inspiring wikis can be. I know the ones I've created haven't been :-) A wiki would be a great way to bring all the different tools together in one place, though. I can see the advantages of that. It would be important to not clutter the environment too much for young learners.

Hello Teresa! I also love the sandbox. It is my goal to return to some of the resources and explore them further. It is amazing at the user friendly resources that are available.

Great ideas Faten. This may be a great way to get those learners who are not as eager to contribute in class to feel more comfortable to share in this type of setting. Many times the learner may have some great things to share but are afraid to do so.

Janet, I also love the idea of using VoiceThread to practice speaking. Many of the assignments that I share with the students do require presentations. This would be a great way for the students to prepare and get feedback from their peers.

Thanks for sharing Elizabeth. I love this idea. I am thinking now of doing something like this.

Task 2: I have never used VoiceThread, but I think it is one more resource/tool that I am interested in using. I might create a presentation about a book that the class is reading. The students would write a book review and then share their book reviews via VoiceThread. They would rate the book and explain their reasons for giving the rating.

Task 3:
1. There are many pros and cons. The students are able to share and communicate with other. This is a chance for that shy student to share without being uncomfortable. It is also a great way to allow students to learn from each other. That is, it will encourage thinking “outside of the box”. On the other hand, the teacher must monitor the responses that are shared. Students must show respect when sharing comments/feedback. There must also be guidelines in place if the students do not participate.
2. As students add comments the teachers should encourage deeper thinking and also use these comments to provide for discussion of other topics. This information can also be used to create additional or extended assignments.
3. An idea would be to use google docs to complete a collaborative writing assignment. This is a great way for students to comments/additions/feedback to the assignment. Perhaps the students could highlight their responses in different colors and add their names to their responses. Because this information is written the students could return to the document and read the comments several times before writing their responses. This would be great for the visual learners. A con would be that only one person can edit at a time. Therefore, the students would need to wait until others respond.
4. An extended lesson might be for the students to write a reflection of the information that has been shared. Also, they might complete an assignment in which they share how this information applies to another topic leading to a new discussion/story.

I am a bit late with my comments, because I had a very busy week at my workplace (As usual)But I will try to do everything assigned.
2. What are the benefits of asking our students to collaborate? What skills can they learn?
To be tolerant to new and different ideas, to learn to work with people they dislike, to manage and control their time, job division etc. and to be responsible for the whole group work.Moreover, the students with good knowledge of technology can help those who are bad at this.

Task 2: Explain how you would use VoiceThread to make collaborative stories in your class.
I would get students answer some critical questions related to the story and have some discussion on the characters of the story. They may characterize them as positive or negative and give their own reasons.
Students can also describe the characters of the story they have read using some new adjectives of appearance and personality. What is more, to make it more appealing, we can upload the pictures drawn by kids themselves

Hi Bonnie!
What a beautiful memory you have shared. It shows us that we all have a shared humanity regardless of where we live.
I wonder if the questions would be the same if we replicated the project in our present time. I guess many would.

Hi Faten!
I completely agree that creativity and collaboration are strong socializers.
The excitement of building something together, using what they are learning, and later talking about it is a remarkable experience!
Thank you for sharing!

So many things we can do with Voicethread. You name it, there is something we can do. I love voicethread!

Faten,
Even when the cons happen, we have the possibility of having very positive and productive interventions.
In fact, these would be at points where students really need our scaffolding and guidance.
Talking about what came up in the wikis is also a great exercise of group reflection and accountability.
Thank you for sharing your perspectives!

Hi Janet,
I can feel your enthusiasm!
Thank you for sharing so many ideas.

Hi Elizabeth,
Lovely project. I wish I were one of your students!

Thank you Bonnie for your feedback.
It makes me very happy to see that you are not enjoying our group but also sharing it with colleagues. Together we can start an educational revolution!

You are totally right Michelle!
Will just add that the internet is also much cheaper and democratic as it allows more classrooms to join.
In the past teachers had to buy film, develop pictures, buy envelopes and stamps, and still go to the post office!
This would make it hard for teachers to do it on a continuos base with many groups. Happy technology has evolved in a more inclusive way!!!

Thank you Juan for your positive feedback.
I think you are one of the active members of this session. Unfortunately, I can't find enough time to be as active as you are. :(

I´ds like to congratulate everyone, specially the moderators for such informative and enlightening week. Unfortunately I couldn´t participate in it more actively. I hope I can do it next week though. Thank you very much for everything.

i just finished watching and listening to the webinar. sorry I missed the time. We had a great grandbaby on Thursday so my time as been occupied! I directly sought out Claudio's blog site. Wow! I can't wait to try it with my students. There were so many ideas. I think this would be a great site for teachers to have as a sub plan backup, too. Everything is detailed and ready for you. What a wonderful way to use video.

Sorry I’m late. End-of-term activities are killing me. Anyway, here I am.
Task 1 – I like collaborative stories. Last year I was involved in a state project and I tried to have one of my classes produce collaborative stories using Storybird. I divided my 12-year-old students in 4 groups and asked them to work from home because we had no computers at school. I gave them all the instructions with a presentation on their Interactive Whiteboard and asked them to take turns to write a short story in English about friends, school or family. All of them chose to write about friendship. You can take a look at one of the texts produced in the blog I created last year for my EVO reflections ( http://mrp4evo.blogspot.it/2012/01/creative-collaborating-writing-tools.html). This year I have started another project on a larger scale, joining an on-going collaborative writing initiative with other schools. They are trying to create an e-book: each class from a different school is working on a chapter of the book; they are writing in Italian, we are writing in English. It’s tricky. I hope I’ll survive the task. I think I have a lot to learn.
Task 2 – I could use VoiceThread to ask my students to describe a past celebration (to revise Simple Past and Vocabulary about holidays/celebrations). I would give them pictures and a title (ex.: Something mysterious happened at last year’s food festival) and I would start the story and each one in turn would add something to it. I have to keep activities as simple as possible to involve the majority of students. Some of them are not good with digital tools and they would not get involved.

Task 1: Since I am currently a teacher trainer, when I think about collaborative storytelling, I think first of collaborating with my teachers to create stories. I think there are certain challenges in doing this, especially when not all of my teachers are used to working with computers and internet technology. Perhaps that is a reason to try it, though, because it will introduce my teachers to using more technology in the classroom. Hopefully they will get as excited as I am about it!

Collaborative stories are stories created by multiple writers. I have created a collaborative story with my students. It was a story about occupations. Every learner drew a picture and made a sentence about what they wanted to be when they grew up. We then put them together in a book.It was not digital but it was fun. The students enjoyed seeing their work " published".
When students work together it builds confidence, build team player skills, and most importantly allows for maxium creativity.

I organised and moderated global collaborative stories and poems on facebook. I also did live online collaboative stories/poems in wiZiQ - an online teaching platform.