Collaborative writing is a very useful technique in teaching. It was nice that every body could type at the same time and still it is possible to track each individual contribution. I think this is a very good way to get students involved in the discussion while they are relaxed at home and have time to think and take part in the group assignments.
One useful way is also to have it as questions and hide each students answer, so we can have all students answer without being biassed by the others responses, we can compare the answers and check if there is a common misunderstanding and we can plan one session to discuss this common mistakes. Also the other use of this tool is to ask student to write an article on specific subject all together and then they can edit each other's text and add more at this way the speed of making a report for the course would be very high and all students.
I would say that the time for written exams is over and we should think more on how to use this tools as course exams and evaluations.
It's time to open new doors :)
It was nice to read your reflections here and I think it is interesting your point about how these collaborative writing tools might be used to ward examination and evaluation of courses. I had a group writing assignment last year as part of the final examination for a course. I found it to be very challenging to work on because everyone had their content on their own computers and someone had to take responsibility to compile it all together. Having tools like ping docs or the KI commons would have helped I think!
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