Mine, or Ours? Reflections on Collaboration

As I was viewing Rheingold’s presentation on collaboration, my sense of his historical example possibly showing humans needing to “share meat” between families from hunting, started to turn the wheels in my head about collaboration. Although my experience in the classroom has been that most students are reluctant to participate in team projects, including myself, when the students actually dive in and begin the process of collaboration, they usually have a great experience.

Maybe it is the fact that collaboration sometimes takes us outside our comfort zone, especially in the online learning environment. However, in order for us to be more culturally aware and to learn how others think, we need to collaborate. We cannot become a change agent and be globally aware without collaborating. So, inherently, I would think there is a basic need and instinct for humans to collaborate, but there is also a reluctance or fear of the unknown.

As Rheingold mentioned, I don’t think we are there yet. Collaboration in many forms is still undeveloped and not always productive. In the online learning environment there is still much work to be done to produce effective and engaging collaborative experiences. The constructivist would approach this with more social networking or a more collaborative learning environment that requires collaboration in order to build knowledge. Google docs and wikis, along with Skype and chat are other ways to meet both asynchronously and synchronously and will help the effectiveness of collaboration.

Facebook comes to mind, but for me, it is not the best collaboration instrument and I would choose to view it negatively (especially since I just deactivated my Facebook account yesterday due to all the privacy issues). Some of the collaboration in the strictly social networking applications only tells me what someone is having for lunch or who is on vacation. While this may appeal to burglars or those monitoring their food intake, it is quite ineffective and a time waster to me.

A more effective example of collaboration would be a research study conducted this year that focuses on using Google Docs as a collaboration for project-based learning. The study is an interesting read and since I am just now beginning to explore Google Docs, I find it interesting to think about the possibilities for myself and my students. Check out the link below:

O’Broin, D. & Raftery, D. (2011). “Using Google docs to support project-based learning.” AISHE-J 3(1), 1-11 retrieved from ojs.aishe.org/index.php/aishe-j/article/download/35/29

Rheingold's Video: