Collaborative Writing Project

The Collaborative Writing project from Fall 2010 is complete. We've created a short video to demonstrate how we used Google Docs and Blackboard Vista to accomplish this with Professor McMorrow. This project was intended to fill two class meetings, hoping the students would use the time to engage in team learning by creating a memo that would advise entry level lawyers on legal ethics in a practice area. The areas were determined by Professor McMorrow.

Students were allowed to select their topic of interest and were placed into groups from there by filling out an entry survey created on Google Docs. This collaborative project would simulate the workplace – working with different people, different levels of proficiency, picking up where someone left off, etc… To accomplish this we created a shared space for each group, which also allowed Professor McMorrow access to drop in anytime, through Google Docs. From here the students had an opportunity to review each other’s work by downloading a copy of another group’s memo and then reposting it with comments and feedback by utilizing a Blackboard Vista discussion forum.

Finally, a final evaluation survey, also created in Google Docs, and revision history, another helpful feature in Google Docs, allowed for Professor McMorrow to obtain feedback on the collaboration, technology, and the overall assignment.

If you would like to explore opportunities for creating collaborative workspaces please contact us at lawedtech@bc.edu.