Enhancing Learners' Collaboration in Real-time with Scribblar

Language learning does not occur in isolation but through interactions among learners. As learners learn in classrooms, they not only interact with their instructor who supports their understandings through scaffolding but also, work together thus socialising with one another in order for the learning goal to be achieved. Thus, learning is a socially-situated activity which relies on the verbal and non-verbal interactions among students and between students and the teacher. Students are encouraged to collaborate more in the classroom, when they are given total control to accomplish engaging English tasks with the possibility of acquiring uniformed grades. Through this process of interdependence for a common goal, social relationships are formed which metamorphoses into a process of acculturation which then offers a potential to help construct their identity as a user of the English they are learning.

With the advent of ICT, ensuring collaboration in a fun and intriguing way is possible through the use of  technology. Therefore, this week, I will be discussing how English teachers can reinforce positive interdependence and collaboration through a virtual tool called Scribblar. 

Scribblar is an online collaborative tool that allows users to initiate and develop written academic tasks such as writing an essay on a topic, in real time. It is a tool used for editing, redrafting and completing texts in a virtual space whereby, users can make use of  the audio and text messaging features to communicate in order to enhance their understanding in creating a given task. 

Features and Functions

On the Scribblar tool, there is an interactive whiteboard which opens for every user. In addition to this, as shown on the left-handside of the image, there are 10 features which affords users with the possibilities of typing in their ideas, erasing, drawing, picking texts, inserting shapes, enter symbols, upload images or documents, and share smileys. On the topmost right corner are options for discarding new changes and copying any finished task to another location. Users make use of the 10 tools to create virtual written real-time conversations such as: to do list; brainstorming a given essay etc., whereby each user add their ideas while seeing that of others at the same time.

In addition to the features above, there are three other affordances that Scribblar  provides for users. These are: chatting, video and audio recording. While brainstorming on a given topic, users can collaborate by chatting with each other in order to seek further information that could help with the given task. The video and audio functions can also be used by the room members to record information which can be shared on the tool.

Benefits

Knowledge Construction

When teachers encourage students to use Scribblar for a given language task, usually to write a creative story or debate essay etc., students are able to co-construct knowledge hence, it is a tool which promotes the theory of constructivism. Through working together, learners can collaboratively share ideas to develop a whole new knowledge different from their individual perceptions or opinions.

Online Collaboration

With Scribblar, users are able to collaborate virtually with one another. As they brainstorm on a a given task, and attempt to complete it in real-time, they are able to ask questions from each other using the voice and text features, and afterwards, utilise the feedbacks got to achieve the particular task. 

Autonomy

When learners collaborate on Scribblar to accomplish a given task, they have more opportunities to share their ideas and learn from one another without the teacher's intervention. They therefore, take more responsibilities for their learning especially when  teachers avoid intervening and allow them to achieve the given tasks on their terms. 

Limitation

Just like any of its kind, Scribblar cannot work when there is no internet to back support it.

Interested in trying this tool out with your students? Sign up for a free account here. Also, to learn more about Scribblar, watch the Diese Stephan's video below:

Image credit according to order of use:

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay 

scribblar.com

free images from freepik.com 

video by  Diese Stephan