One of the true powers of the modern web is the power to collaborate with others. A couple of days ago I wrote a review of a service called Friends with Brainefits that enables students to study on Facebook with their Facebook friends. Writing that review got me to dive back into my archives for other collaborative studying tools Here are three of my favorites.

Open Study is a collaborative study service developed and funded in part by Georgia Tech, Emory University, and the National Science Foundation. At its most basic Open Study is a message board for students in search of help answering difficult questions. Students could use it just for that purpose, but Open Study provides more than that. Open Study offers students the option to create or join online study groups, subscribe to other students’ updates, and provides students with a place to record their notes online. Students can register for Open Study using their email addresses or connect to Open Study with their Facebook accounts.

Study Blue is a website for students to share and collaborate on the creation of study tools. High School and college students can share notes from class, create multi-media flashcards, email, and share calendars using Study Blue. Students can establish study groups or search for study groups already creating on Study Blue. One of the better features of Study Blue is that students can use it by signing in with their Facebook login credentials. Students may forget the login information for a stand-alone website but they never forget their Facebook login information.

Nabber is a service for learning a new language with the help of others online. Think of Nabber as part vocabulary studying tool, part social network. Here’s how Nabber works; you can browse for vocabulary words and phrases translated by other members of the Nabber network. Likewise you can contribute your own translations to the network. Nabber provides space to not only give a translation, but also to provide an explanation of the translation. If you come across a Nabber member who is making a lot of good contributions, you can follow that person to keep up with all of the translations they contribute.