Collaboration is a tool

One question I keep running into is about students seeing each other's work. People are worried about what will happen when students have access to their peers' work. This should be an advantage, not a concern. With regular access to the internet, students will always have access to others' ideas. This is a reality of the 21st century, and it is our responsibility to prepare students for this reality. We need to learn how to use this to our advantage rather than fighting it.

I am regularly using wiki spaces for students to turn in their work on iPads. They have the ability to see what other students are doing. What I am finding is that they actually don't look unless I tell them to. I designed an activity for my sophomores where they uses online discussion to further their understanding of the novel as we read through the chapters. When we finished the novel, they did a reflection about their own thinking of the novel then searched through the online discussions to research what other students thought. They will be working on a paper that combines their own thinking with that of their peers. This is synthesis of ideas, not cheating. This is actually a much more difficult skill than simply analyzing the novel.