Collaborative Technologies: Convince the Profs, "Persuade" [i.e., strong-arm, if necessary] Students

Here's the deal as I see it:

Google Docs and Spresent could be great for college and graduate students who as a result of conflicting schedules, find projects requiring collaboration difficult to accomplish.

The disincentives of these tools come out of the fact that students are basically shortsighted. If something doesn't make their life easier right now for this project, they may not want to use it. Although Google Documents and SPresent are easy to use, there is always a learning curve with a new program. Students may be reluctant to take the time to try something new now unless they perceive a benefit now. Second, students would need to be convinced that the prof was tracking student contributions. In collaborative situations, it is easy for one person in a group to take on more responsibility than others. Since there is no authorship in a Spresent or Google Docs., it might act as a disincentive to students concerned about receiving credit for their fair share of the work.

Both of these issues could be overcome if you could get the faculty on board. If the faculty required use of these collaborative tools, then students would have to learn how to use them. Further, if faculty reassured them that their work was being monitored, students would understand that their contributions were being acknowledged by the grade-giver.

The question then becomes, whether professors would be comfortable using these programs? I think that depends upon how accepting of how open to technology they are. Most of the professors that I have had at SCILS have been very willing to employ technology in the classes and have encouraged us to use it whenever possible. I think that they would be willing to utilize and encourage these kinds of collaborative tools if they understood how to use them. In addition, exposing students to these collaborative tools before they graduate will yield more productive and knowledgeable media specialists. These graduates will continue to enhance Rutgers' reputation within the library community, a win-win for everyone, don't you think?