Learning and collaborative writing

The collaborative world in which we are moving requires new skills. It's all about learning to succeed collectively in overcoming challenges.

In this collaborative learning movement, writing with others becomes essential. A single individual carries a tiny part of reality. We need each other to develop complex thoughts and original solutions.

Collaborative skills

It is possible to observe various activities at the root of collaborative learning:

• Using the full range of language activities: expressing interest, sharing information, pooling ideas, free or guided discussion and dialogue, sharing meaning, reasoning from others' ideas;
• Problem-solving: expressing hypotheses, investigating or seeking information;
• Carrying out joint activities and projects: imagining, planning and carrying out tasks or activities, facilitating, steering and evaluating these tasks;
• Joint responsibility for tasks or projects;
• And finally,collaborative writing: planning writing projects, co-editing, helping and soliciting each other, cross-reading texts.
  

Collaborative writing encompasses several levels of involvement. Collaborative learning can be situated on a continuum. For a specific collaborative writing task, William Saunders (1989) proposes several stages of interdependence, otherness and synchronization:

According to this continuum, collaboration involves different behaviors and skills. The more responsibilities and intentions are blended, the more collaborative practice requires investment in the relationship with the other. Stage 1 calls for attention, stage 2 for in-depth review, stage 3 for organizing a process of mutual input, stage 4 for negotiating reciprocal interests, and stage 5 for sharing intentions and carrying out synchronous work. This is characteristic of a form of collective intelligence.

The closer the collaboration, the more :

• a sense of otherness: how does the other feel?
• self-confidence and trust in others must be high, for open discussions;
• interdependence grows: everyone is increasingly involved in each other's intentions.
  

Collaborative writing is at its best when it enables a group to learn and produce something that none of them would be able to learn or produce alone. It holds the power of creativity, mutual commitment, individual self-improvement and empowerment. Beyond the skills acquired together, the learning effects are felt in community life. Progress along this collaborative continuum requires the use of a number of methods.

A collaborative writing method: liberathon

The original source

Collaborative writing on a single object is a long-standing practice, as in Diderot and d'Alembert's encyclopedia. But isn't it more a case of writing in parallel, a juxtaposition of individual writing? The ability to share screens, texts and ideas has been facilitated by the Internet.

Screen-mediated collaborative writing has been on the rise since the 1970s, and there are methods for accelerating the production of collaborative text. Spotted in London in 2005, the Book-sprint probably stems from "code sprint" practices, which aimed to get computer scientists to produce lines of code quickly by working together in a circumscribed time and place. These methods inspired Liberathon.

The Liberathon collaborative dynamic

For a collaborative writing process to get off the ground, you need an experienced facilitator, time (around 2 to 5 days, depending on the ambition of the work in question) and suitable hardware and software. The facilitator gives clear instructions and guides everyone through the roles of author, who expresses ideas, co-author, who enriches a chapter, proofreader, who ensures that ideas flow smoothly, and editor, who corrects stylistic and spelling errors.

With rotating roles, a whole collaborative dynamic is put in place. Starting with a clearly identified work question, the liberathon method invented by members of the Floss Manuals Francophone association is based on key questions: Who are we addressing (who is the persona?)? What are the questions?

The process is structured around four main stages:

• Stage 1: Drafting a collaborative summary
• Stage 2: Writing of a chapter by two authors
• Stage 3: Proofreading by two other authors
• Step 4: Correction of stylistic and spelling errors
  

The instructions are simple, but the work is intensive to produce a book quickly, e.g. 100 pages in two days with a team of 8 to 10 authors. TheFloss Manual Francophoneassociation has produced numerous open-source manuals and books, and has become an independent publisher using its own platform accessible to all.

What a toolbox

For a collaborative writing production to work well, you need powerfulcollaborative writing tools. You can identify collaborative presentation tools, collaborative writing software for academics or for everyone.

In fact, there's a vast toolbox to choose from (non-exhaustive list)

• Sharing and organization tools: Booktype, Framapad, Padlet, Etherpad
• Spell checker: Antidote
• Organization of ideas in the form of Mindmapping diagrams
• Project production organization: Trello
  

Product types

Productions can be varied. They range from the production of a textbook, to a school newspaper, or the writing of a short story within a class, the writing of an article on wikipedia, the drafting of a white paper on collective intelligence, for example, the production of an expert summary for a consensus conference and the production of research reports or preparatory documents for events or decision-making.

Collaborative writing also contributes to the collective creation of a narrative that helps transform organizations and ways of thinking about the world. This is the example given by Lillian Ricaud in the transformation of a medical-social structure.

Conclusion

Collaborative writing can betaught at all school levels or as part of continuing professional training. Colligence offers collaborative writing workshops and publishes works by author collectives. The benefits of this form of writing lie in its liberating power in the face of the blank page, in creativity, in collective intelligence and the feeling of all creating a work together.

Source: Wikipedia

Wikipedia https://fr.wikipedia .org/wiki/%C3%89criture_collaborative

Edit an article on wikipedia http://editer.wikipedia.free.fr/creer.php

The liberathon method http://liberathon.fr/index.php?static1/methode

Collective intelligence http://axecoaching.com/pdf/livre_blanc_icvc.pdf

Case study: writing a short story http://www.cafepedagogique.net/lexpresso/Pages/2014/10/06102014Article635481769043774697.aspx

How to create a collaborative writing dynamic https://www.slideshare.net/sophiebocquet/ecriturecollab

Association Floss Manual Francophone https://www.flossmanualsfr.net/

SAUNDERS, W. M. (1989), "Collaborative writing tasks and peer interaction". International Journal of EducationalResearch, 13 (1), pp. 101-112.

Teaching collaborative writing https://ticetsociete.revues.org/1314

Case study in collaborative writing http://www.lilianricaud.com/travail-en-reseau/ressources/bibliotheque/etudes-de-cas/