How Technology Can Encourage Student Collaboration

You probably already know: Tech tools can be great for collaborating. But it can be overwhelming, trying to figure out where to start. After all, with so many choices out there, where to begin as a classroom teacher?

Before even worrying about which tool to use, it's essential to consider your end goal(s): What are you trying to accomplish by integrating technology into your lesson? Are you hoping to assess group work? Foster discussion? Practice collaborative brainstorming or writing?

In addition, it's smart to be wary of potential pitfalls when using technology for student collaboration. While it's tempting to launch into an exciting classroom activity or assignment with the technology in mind, it's important to have an established culture of collaboration and teamwork. Even with the best intentions in mind, if students have been working individually for weeks on end, your plan might not work without some scaffolding in place. Also, consider whether your students have equitable access to technology—especially if your tasks require access at home. Lastly, be aware of how much time your students are already expected to spend on screens. Striking a balance can be important.

Start with Digital Citizenship

During collaborative activities, you're often stepping aside to allow students that agency to make decisions as they work with each other. Anytime students are working together in online spaces is an opportunity to practice positive digital citizenship and online etiquette. Make sure to set clear expectations, and encourage students to pause, think, and act with positivity and empathy online.

Tools for Multimedia/Multimodal Collaboration

Google's suite of education tools offers straightforward ways for students to work collaboratively on any given documents. But if you want to venture beyond the basics, there are plenty of tools out there for students to work on presentations together.

Try: 

• Canva is a visual presentation tool with many templates for creating infographics, videos, digital posters, and more. Here's some information on getting started with students.
• WeVideo is a "freemium" video editing tool, meaning that many features are free, but advanced options require a paid account. Here's a video tutorial showing how to set up a collaborative student video project.

Tools for Student Discussion (including SEL)

No matter whether it's face to face or online, fostering student discussion can be tricky. Fortunately, there are multiple tools out there that will help you do just that. For teachers in remote settings, there are breakout rooms on Google Meet and Zoom, which allow you to group students in various ways in order to discuss, work on a specific task, then return to a whole class setting to discuss findings. And here are a few versatile tools that may help you establish collaborative student interactions:

Try: 

• Flip (formerly Flipgrid) is a versatile, social media-like platform that allows for asynchronous video discussions. After posting a text, video, or image prompt, students can discuss and respond on the site. This may help engage students who are less likely to speak up in real time during classes.
• Discord. For those of you who are more tech-savvy, Discord is a platform originally designed for gamers, but has potential for classroom use. You can set up teams of students for text- and voice-based collaboration, discussion, and much more. Check out our Teacher's Essential Guide to learn more. And if you're looking for SEL discussions, Kikori is a great place to start for a variety of collaborative activities.

Tools for Collaborative Writing

For years, Google Docs has been a mainstay for collaborative writing in the classroom. After all, students can synchronously or asynchronously work on a document and provide comments, editing, and revision to each other's work—or refine a single document with multiple authors. But there are other tools and possibilities out there for collaborative writing.

Try: 

• BoomWriter is a cool option to not only get students collaborating, but it can also introduce an element of peer approval in the form of voting for the "best" chapter in an ongoing story!
• StoriumEdu uses a gamified approach to get students writing together. Students familiar with role-playing games will be especially excited by this tool.

Tools for Brainstorming

At the beginning of any collaborative or group task, it's always useful for student teams to compile ideas. There are plenty of digital tools that allow for just this.

Try: 

• Digital whiteboards are great for brainstorming together, and there are lots of great choices. Miro is a nice (free) option that has templates students can use, which might help cut down on the time spent mastering every aspect of the tool.
• Padlet. At its simplest, Padlet lets users create boards to brainstorm, organize, and present everything from photo albums to Q&As, timelines, portfolios, and more. Check out this video tutorial to learn more about getting started with this versatile tool for student collaboration.

Tools for Feedback and Reflection

Anytime a technology tool allows for product sharing and commenting, you've got the potential to harness it for feedback and reflection. To promote student ownership of their work, why not consider having students provide feedback to their peers? Doing so can help students refine their ideas, improve their work, and develop critical thinking skills.

Try: 

• Google Forms. With the ability to create surveys, polls, open-ended questions, and more, Google Forms is a great tool for teachers—and students—to collect structured feedback.
• Screencastify is a screen recording tool with many uses, and this tutorial demonstrates how a teacher can talk through and annotate a student document while recording. Using this same process, students can provide feedback on each other's work.