Zopler - Collaborative Storytelling

Zopler is an interesting free service for collaboratively writing stories. The basic idea behind Zopler is to enable the creation of community-crafted stories. Here's how it works; as a member of Zopler you can start a story with as little as one sentence or as much as 1000 words. Your story starter can include images too. Then you can make your story starter public or private. If you make it public, any Zopler member can add to it. If you make it private, only those people that you approve can add to your story. Contributions to stories can be voted up or down by other contributors to the same story.

The video below provides a short overview of Zopler.



Applications for Education
Zopler could be good way for students to collaborate on creative stories. You might have students write a collaborative story about a shared event like a field trip so that they can all get their version of events into one piece. One word of caution, if you use this with students make sure that the stories are marked as private so that random contributors don't post inappropriate comments on their stories.

Schedule Project Due Dates in Wikispaces

If you assign wiki editing due dates to your students' wiki projects, Wikispaces has just launched a new feature just for you. Events is a Wikispaces feature that allows you to schedule due dates for Wikispaces Projects. When you schedule a Wikispaces Event you can specify a lock time for your project. Once that lock time is reached no one is able to make any further edits to that page. Watch the short video below to learn more about Wikispaces Events.



Applications for Education
Wikispaces Events doesn't change the way that students use Wikispaces, but it does make it easier for you to manage your students' work in Wikispaces.

Hackpad - A Simple Wiki Platform

Hackpad is a new, simple wiki service that I learned about from one of Jackie Gerstein's Tweets earlier this week. People who have used services like TitanPad or PrimaryPad will notice a lot of similarities in the user interface between those services and Hackpad.

At the simplest level Hackpad can be used for collaborative note-taking and writing outlines. Beyond that Hackpad allows you to include video and images by simply copying and pasting links into the document that you're working on. If you have Dropbox files that you want to link to, you can do that on Hackpad too. The layout options on Hackpad are very limited, but you can create a table of contents with links in the margins of your Hackpad page. To organize all of the Hackpads that you participate in, you can create a Hackpad collection in your account.

There are two sharing options for your Hackpad pages. You can make the pages public and open to everyone with the link or the pages can be private and viewable only to the people you invite. Joining Hackpad can be accomplished by using your Google account, your Facebook account, or by creating a Hackpad-specific account.

Applications for Education
Hackpad's tag line is "the best wiki ever." I'm not sure that it's the best wiki ever, I'm still partial to Wikispaces, but Hackpad is quite nice. If you're looking for a clean, simple platform for your students to use to create outlines together, share notes, or build reference pages, Hackpad is definitely worth giving a good look.

New Discussion Option for Google Docs Presentations

Last March Google introduced threaded discussion comments to Google Documents. That feature is great for suggestion edits or asking questions when you're collaborating on a document with other writers. I have used the feature for that quite a bit over the last year. Yesterday, Google announced that threaded discussion comments is an option for Google Docs Presentations.

Using the discussions option, collaborators can comment on a part of a slide or an entire slide. Discussions will allow collaborators to have threaded conversations in the margins of a presentation. By including the @ symbol before a collaborator's name you can reply directly to that person. Discussion comments can be tied to a specific part of a slide. Discussion comments can be removed when the suggested edit has been completed. Learn more in the video below.

Applications for Education

Discussions in Google Docs Presentations could be a great tool to use when editing students' presentations. You can tie comments directly to a part of a slide to suggest to students that they change color schemes, font size, or resizing an image.

Web 2.0 Collaborative Projects in the Middle School

I am the library media specialist for my school and part of my job is to assist my faculty with the integration of technology in the curriculum. As such, I am always searching for new ideas to use in collaborating with my classroom teachers. Showcased below are a few of the Web 2.0 tools I have used with classes along with details of specific projects I have helped students to produce.

Cacoo is a free online diagraming tool which allows real-time collaboration. Teachers can sign up for a free Academic Plan which allows them to add student users. *Please note the Academic Plan is free through June 30, 2012 after which it will be half the price of the Team Plan.

The Project:
After studying Georgia's barrier islands for the term, students used Cacoo to create a food web of native plants and animals. The class was divided into groups of four students. All four students in each group had individual Cacoo accounts and were required to work collaboratively via Cacoo to design one food web. As an added challenge, group members were not allowed to talk about the project but were required to “chat” online within their Cacoo accounts instead.

My Observations:

Teaching the kids how to use the program took half a class period as students caught on very quickly. We had a few problems with students returning permission forms, forgetting passwords, and one group not working well together. Since group activities and the guidelines for group work were very familiar to students, group problems were quickly resolved. I found no technology problems with Cacoo at all and will use the tool with future projects. I do wish they would reconsider the upcoming price increase for the Academic Plan.

Weebly is a free site which allows users to create websites and blogs using widgets. Weebly for Education enables teacher users to create free accounts for students to build their own websites.

The Project:
After studying all year about New York City, our 8th grade gifted groups take a five-day guided bus tour to the Big Apple. Upon their return, students create websites about their trip and are required to use their own digital images. Requirements include at least four categorized pages on the site and a minimum of 10 articles about New York City.

My Observations:

Teaching classes to use Weebly took one class period and required mini-sessions during the week-long project for some reteaching of the multimedia and blog sidebar items. Good web design techniques(compared to bad) as well as using complementary color schemes were also a part of the lesson. Since students had been studying the topic all year, they already had a vision for the content. As soon as I completed instruction, kids quickly got to work on their designs. Weebly was a very simple tool for their websites and I would use with students again.

Photo Story 3 is a free software download from Microsoft which enables users to create slideshows using your own digital pictures. The program allows you to edit photos, include text, add motion, insert narration, and create your own soundtrack. Please note the program is  Windows-based and is not available for Mac.

The Project:
Students created book trailers on their favorite fiction book to share. Similar to movie trailers, a book trailer is a video advertisement for a book produced to encourage viewers to read it.

My Observations:
I always start with a project introduction a week before we begin working with Photo Story 3. To grab their attention, I show several examples of trailers and talk about persuasive advertising techniques. Students work on storyboarding for the next week in the classroom to graphically organize their thoughts. Once they come back to the media center, teaching how to use Photo Story 3 takes one full class period before they can begin creating their book trailers. More details including examples, a rubric, and a project timeline can found on my book trailer post.

One of my 8th graders chose to create his book trailer on Peak by Roland Smith.

Fotoflexer is a free online image editor which allows you to perform basic editing options as well as some advanced features. You can create an account to save a project you are currently working on to login later to complete.  


The Project:
Students must select an online image to edit and employ techniques taught during the Fotoflexer Media Literacy lesson.


My Observations:
Most of my students have no idea how much editing is done to photos. I start my lesson by showing some before and after celebrity photos. We discuss that our perceptions of a normal body image are impacted negatively by these examples. 




I also show classes how edited photos are used to manipulate the way we think. After our class discussion, I show students how the pros edit photos. 

I use Fotoflexer because it is very simple to use but it also has some advanced features under the “Geek” tab. My favorite tool is the Smart Scissors which allows you to cut out a portion of an image for placement in another. The kid’s favorite is the distort tab which allows a plus-sized model to lose 30 pounds with one mouse click.


About the Guest Blogger:

Denise Borck has been teaching for 20 years at the middle level, the last twelve years of which have been spent in the library media center. She loves being able to share her love of reading with her students as well as her interest in technology. Denise has been selected as the 2012 Teacher of the Year for her school and the 2010 Media Specialist of the Year for the Coastal Region District of Georgia. You can follow her at http://dborck.wordpress.com or at http://wjms.bulloch.k12.ga.us/media_center_home.

7 Tools Students Can Use to Manage Group Projects

Any teacher who has assigned group projects to students has at some point had to help those students organize and equitably distribute work. (Or has had to listen to students complaints about other group members not pulling their weight). Here are some tools that you can have students use to manage their responsibilities when working on group projects.

Pegby is a good website for organizing the tasks that you and or your team need to get done. Pegby is set up like a corkboard with index cards stuck to it. The corkboard has three columns to place your index cards on. A column for things to do, a column for things in progress, and a column for things that are done. Each index card can be assigned to a person, can have files attached to it, and can have due dates assigned to it. You can use Pegby as an individual or you can share your corkboard with others. Watch the video below to learn about Pegby.

Pegby in Two Minutes from Pegby on Vimeo.

Teambox is a free service that allows you to create and manage a collaborative workspace for team projects. Within your workspace you can create a calendar of due dates, chat with team members, send emails, and most importantly post and edit files. If you create a group on Teambox, you are automatically the administrator of the group. As the group's administrator you can send invitations for others to join the group, determine who does and doesn't have editing rights, and monitor all group member activities in the Teambox. Embedded below is a video overview of Teambox.

Teambox online collaboration software from Pablo Villalba on Vimeo.

Enter the Group is a new free service offering collaborative project management for groups. Enter the Group features a calendar, messaging, and file sharing for your group members. If you want to keep your project just between friends, you can create a private group. If you want the whole world to see your project, you can make a public group. To get started you can create an Enter the Group account or sign-in using your Twitter or Facebook credentials. Once you're logged in, click "create new project." Then specify some details about your project and invite others to your group. It really is quite easy to get started.

Todoist and its sister service Wedoist are easy-to-use task management services for individuals and groups. Todoist is the service for individuals and Wedoist is the service for groups. It takes just a minute to register and begin using both services. You'll notice with both services that the user interface is very clear and intuitive. When you create projects and assignments by default they are arranged chronologically, but reordering them is a simple matter of selecting an up or down arrow. To help you keep track of your to-do lists wherever you go Todoist offers desktop clients, iGoogle Gadgets, a Google Chrome extension, and three mobile applications. Todoist can also be integrated with your Gmail account. Embedded below is a video introduction to Wedoist.



Trello is a free service designed to help individuals and groups manage tasks. Trello's user interface features a basic virtual corkboard-like space to which you and your collaborators can pin task cards. Task cards can be arranged into columns such as "to do," "in progress," and "completed." You can name and arrange the columns however you see fit. Each task card on your Trello board can be assigned to individuals in your group. Trello allows you to create and be a member of multiple boards. The video below offers a detailed introduction to Trello.


Wiggio is a collaboration tool designed to make scheduling group meetings easier. Wiggio is also intended to be used as a resource for group planning of projects. Some of the excellent features of Wiggio include a group calendar, a mass messaging system that works with cell phones and email, and a group polling system. For groups that are working on projects together Wiggio offers a shared folder for files and links. Watch the video below for an overview of Wiggio.



Ta-da List is a simple to-do list creation tool built by 37 Signals. Ta-da List allows to you to create a to-do list in 30 seconds. Just sign-up and start building lists. Your lists will be hosted at a unique url assigned just to you. Direct your browser to that url to check items off of your lists or to create a new list. Your Ta-da Lists can be used individually or you can share it with a group.

Think Binder - A Place to Share Notes and Chat

Think Binder is a new website that gives students a place to create online study groups. In each group students can share files, share links, chat, and draw on a collaborative whiteboard. Students can create and join multiple groups. As you will see in the video below, getting started with Think Binder takes just a minute.
Embedded below is my brief video overview of Think Binder.

Applications for Education
For students working on group projects, Think Binder could be a good place to organize their findings and hold brainstorming sessions through chat. The collaborative whiteboard space could be helpful for drawing diagrams of ideas for group discussion.