Wikis

 "Multiple pens, one paper"

  Remember the times people wrote long letters to each other to receive or send information? Well, that's clearly old-fashioned, isn't it? But would you think that even emails are now becoming, in some respect, old fashioned too? Suppose two people are working together over a distance on the same project. Suppose this project is a translation of a document. Each writes his own piece separately and sends it to the partner. Then, they have to proofread each others' writing  and again send the documents to each other. Finally, one of them takes the pain to merge the two pieces and make the translation a holistic piece. Two pens working separately on two different pages.

  Now imagine those two (and you can have three, four, ten collaborators!) pens working on the same document! One of the writers translating  a piece, the other simultaneously proofreading or writing his own piece, a third one maybe helping the first two with the vocabulary, etc. Do you see the magic? Wikis do this magic. They create, what can be called, a real-time collaboration, a platform for multiple individuals to join their efforts at the same time, at the same place.  Intrigued? Here are two wiki platforms you can start from: Pbworks.com, wikispaces.com.

  On a final note, have a look at this simple yet informative video on Wikis. These people know how to explain things.
Wikis in plain English.