Collaboration
15 tools in 15 minutes
A Presentation by Mark Clarkson
Section A - Collaborate with traditional documents
Tool #1 - Your bog standard Office package
Description:
Share a computer between 2 (or more)
Hot seat - have students move from machine to machine
Advantages:
Quick, simple, familiar, easy to set up
Disadvantages:
Can be chaos, leaves little time for work, classes easily distracted
Tool #2 - Wikis
Description:
A simple multi-page website
Heavy on content, light on design
Requires an account/login
Plenty of free hosts available
Advantages:
Excellent for building up a large bank of structured information
Audit trail (who did what, and when?)
Disadvantages:
Requires an account/login
Not suited to simultaneous collaboration
Best set as home/project work
Tools #3,4 & 5 - Online Office Packages
Description:
Create and collaborate on documents, spreadsheets, presentations, databases and more
Advantages:
Specific applications & tools
Collaboration by invitation
Familiar Layout
Disadvantages:
Requires yet another account
Not suited to simulataneous collaboration
Section B - Simultaneous Collaboration
Tool #6 - Etherpad
Description:
Real-time collaboration
Simple, text based content
Advantages:
No need to log in
Incredibly quick and simple
Saved revisions kept indefinitely
Chat section for use as a backchannel
Disadvantages:
Anonymity
Anyone can edit/delete content
Text only
Tools #7 & 8 - Twiddla & Skrbl
Description:
A whiteboard approach similar to Etherpad
Advantages:
No login required
Quick and easy access
Simultaneous collaboration
Disadvantages:
Difficult to manage more than 2 or 3 users
No audit trail
Limited drawing tools
Section C - Collaborate in new ways
Tool #9 - Blogs
(External, Internal, Posterous]
Description:
Could be teacher led or pupil led
Using external hosts or installed locally
Posterous makes it quick and simple
Advantages:
Opportunity for online feedback
Builds over time - easy to look back
Regular feedback from a range of sources
Disadvantages:
Time taken to set up
Effort needed to sustain momentum
Another login
Tool #10 - Wallwisher
Description:
A digital post-it shower using text, images, audio & video
Advantages:
No login required to post
Can use a range of multimedia 
Anonymity
Disadvantages:
Limited moderation options
Videos often blocked in school
Screen resolution issues
Tool #11 - Voicethread
Description:
A stylish and feature-laden take on multimedia commenting
Advantages:
No login required to comment
Record audio/video and doodle at the same time
Include your own avatar - ownership
Comment in any format you like

Disadvantages:
Risk of inappropriate comments
Blocked by some filters
Counter-intuitive to set up
Section D - Collaborate as Educators
Tool #12 - Twitter
Description:
Much hyped, but incredibly useful
Personal Learning Network - literally hundreds of likeminded people talking about education, technology and more
Advantages:
Huge potential for sharing ideas
Crowd sourcing
As one hemisphere goes to sleep, another wakes up
Disadvantages:
Can quickly eat buckets of time
Have to remember that posts are public
Tools #13 & 14 - Skype & Flashmeeting
Description:
Video conferencing tools - 1 on 1 or larger meetings
Discuss issues in real time
Advantages:
Speak to other educators face to face
Take part in group discussions
Location irrelevant
Camera and microphone not essential
Disadvantages:
Terminal shyness
Family may think you are hearing voices...
Thoughts and Caveats
Collaboration is a always a little risky - but worth it!
You MUST have a reason for collaboration - students have to know WHY
The communication skills will always be more important than the tool
Be prepared to head off in unexpected directions - this is often a GOOD thing!
Assessment can difficult, but then you don't make a pig fatter by weighing it
ALWAYS have a plan B in hand (and prefereably C, D and E)
Best to have a very specific short-term goal
Long term projects require a lot of input and motivation as well as regular feedback
Contact Details & Links
Email: mwclarkson@gmail.com
Twitter: @mwclarkson
Blog: happyhippy.edublogs.org
Google Profile: google.com/profiles/mwclarkson
Delicious: delicious.com/mrclarkson
Links: TBC
Oh, and Prezi is Tool #15