Writing and Collaborating

No longer are students bound within the classroom walls.  Technology allows them to collaborate and work with students all over the world.  There are many places to find projects that connect classes together.

I have used ePals before to find short term projects or just to have year long writing buddies.  One year my students were pen pals with a class in Italy only instead of exchanging letters, we exchanged emails.

A couple of years ago a 4th grade class I worked with wrote stories using Storybird. This is a great book authoring site where you choose beautiful artwork from the site and write a story inspired by that artwork.  The book these 4th graders wrote were to be sent to Haiti.  One of the official languages on Haiti is French.  So the 4th grade students collaborated with a high school French class about 60 miles away through Skype, email and through the Storybird account.  The French class edited the books, gave suggestions on the storyline and then translated the book into French.  The books were bilingual books with and English page and corresponding French page.

There are so many ways to collaborate with other students.  It will take a little up-front work from the teacher, but the benefits are so HUGE.  The students are writing with and for a real audience.  They take more pride in their work.  The younger student love meeting and talking with the older students.

Here is another example of an 8th grade class working with a  3rd grade class.  Check out their writing project Writing Project.  They used 2 apps Book Creator $4.99 and Scrap Pad $4.99 that do cost, but I think the results were very worth it.