This topic may be rudimentary, but I am interested in having a conversation about how technology can facilitate collaborative narrative or “social editions” of texts and how these texts can enhance a curriculum.

A prime example of socially-edited text would be fan fiction; how these and other “living texts” are created in the context of an online community with ample feedback and communal editing are surely applicable to the composition or creative writing classroom, but may be pertinent elsewhere, too. Should we shelter student work from a larger, online community, or would having them participate within a larger beyond-the-university environment benefit their understanding of themselves as writers in a larger context?

But maybe these texts don’t need to be created and published online in order to achieve the same kind of communal narrative. Social editions might be anything from class soundtracks to digital photo albums/blogs.

These online communal texts might also work in the linking of interdisciplinary communities within the university—allowing for cross-course collaborative projects.

I’m curious to see what you find to be the relative value, practical application, and logistical framework for such a tool in your own courses or if you see the forming of interdisciplinary/intercourse projects as something we should be doing more of.