Information-Sharing in the Classroom: Bridging the Gap between Online and Offline Learning Strategies

"Keep your eyes on your own paper. No cheating." This mantra, in one form or another, has been repeated over and over again in my classrooms for as long as I can remember. Beginning in about the fourth grade, my teachers began to repeatedly worry about students collaborating (the horror). They went to all sorts of elaborative measures to ensure that we could not help each other on our papers, tests, projects, or anything else remotely used to measure our understanding of multiplying fractions, the periodic table, and vocabulary definitions. One year, we used cardboard dividers during tests to ensure that every single one of the students could not even make eye contact. Another year, we had to sit two desks apart from each other during quizzes, a distance that was presumed to be large enough that students could only send telepathic messages to each other. The implementation of such ornate anti-cheating methods didnt stop when I entered the college classroom. I have personally experienced the use of proctors (teaching assistants charged with monitoring the student body during exams), blue booklets, and honor contracts in many of my higher education courses. I read once that in some college classrooms, cameras have been installed in order to limit collaborative efforts.

Only a split second away from these classrooms and related anti-collaborative efforts, the online world is rapidly expanding. The Internet possesses a completely different story when it comes to communal information. From the tweeting of daily statuses on Twitter, to the uploading photos of bizarre sharks to Wikipedia, technology has allowed us to quickly share information with the general public. Indeed, not only is collaboration allowed online, it is highly encouraged. Indeed, there are so many forums and formats to do so. We can tell each other whether we liked the shoes we bought at the store through online rating systems, we can share our opinions through YouTube videos, and we can describe the delectable dinner we had on restaurant review sites. On the World Wide Web, the line between author and reader is quickly fading.

The disconnect between the online world of collaboration and the drive to limit such collaboration in the classroom at all costs is somewhat strange, especially as the online world and 21st century education come into more frequent contact. But what if this conflict between collaborative efforts, like those done on line, and the classroom, with its somewhat anti-information sharing efforts, was simply erased? What if the classroom itself was collaborative? In March, I was given the opportunity to find out what information sharing looks like when integrated into the realm of the college education.

My class, "This Is Your Brain on the Internet," from the first day, has been different from most classes that I have enrolled in. Students are allowed to choose what they want to learn about the brain, the Internet, and social connections. Assignments are comprised of blog entries and class presentations. I have never had a course that has so challenged and pushed me to think on a daily basis. It was no surprise to me that our midterm assignment was also different than the average class midterm. We were given three directions. First, we were told to answer the question, "How have 21^st century technologies changed the way(s) we think?"- a topic that we had discussed since the course's beginning. Second, we had to do the midterm collaboratively, on a Google document. And it was due in blog format on March 7^th at 11:59 P.M.

In looking at the assignment for the first time, all I could was, "Thats it? Thats all we have to do? Its so easy!" Suffice to say, it was anything but easy. On March 1^st, a week before the midterm was due, one of my classmates began writing on the Google doc:

"Hi All! [This is Bernice :)]

Just to get the ball rolling on this, Ive outlined the main themes weve covered so far in class, as well as some answers to the question that our Professor. We dont have to use them all of the ideas- we can pick ones to write about or suggest other ones, etc."

It was exactly Bernice's suggestion, "suggest other ones [ideas]," that became problematic to the completion of the collaborative midterm. It was not that we could not come up with an answer, or that we kept procrastinating. Rather, we all had so many valid ideas concerning how to answer the question of 21^st century technology and its effect on the ways in which we think, but not all of our thoughts converged together on the subject. In fact, there were a number of disagreements. As the week went on, the idea thread basically became long commentary on each others thoughts (e.g., "on the contrary, I think that it has changed some of the more technical aspects of thinking"), but this commentary thread did not move us to completing a single, comprehensive midterm.

After seven days of debate, the due date arrived. We decided to meet face-to-face as a class, which we believed would help fix some of these communication issues. In the library, we carefully decided on a thesis statement, the argument that would run throughout the final version of our collective paper: "21^st century technologies have expanded the public space, but have not fundamentally changed the human thought process." There. We had it. We divided our supporting evidence for this thesis statement among ourselves. Along with Bernice, I was assigned the introduction and the conclusion for the final draft. Chris and Finn decided to write about music. Nana and Amitra signed up to write the section about a lecture we had attended. One girl volunteered to edit and post the midterm.

Despite the fact that the midterm, after this library meeting, solely took place in the online world, the world of face-to-face interactions still intervened in the collaborative process. Our editor, the keystone in the writing process, experienced a family emergency that prevented her from collecting and editing the midterm. Our class, in the face of this unexpected challenge, pulled together at the last second, gathering, spell-checking, hyperlinking, and posting the work that we had done individually. We turned in the midterm at exactly 11:59 P.M. The clock seemed to freeze for that moment, allowing us to finish our project. And everyone that night breathed a little easier.

In reflecting on our midterm, I am surprised at the shear amount of learning accomplished just through the collaborative process. As evidenced by the sheer amount of discussion posed on the Google document, we certainly were forced to think critically about the question posed, perhaps more so than had the entire project been done individually. The midterm became a project of engagement and problem solving. At the same time, we learned a number of important skills involving technology, such as using Google docs. 

This brush with collaborative efforts has made me realize that communal efforts in the classroom are certainly not as problematic as my elementary, middle, and high school teachers, as well as most of my college professors, made them out to be. We are more connected than ever through technology. In order to reflect and prepare students for this social change, more teachers perhaps should modify their teaching methods to include information sharing in their curriculum.