Humans are social beings and need social interaction with other humans. The evidence is all around us in the world we live in, especially evidenced in the expansion of social media. It is the expansion of social media that is precipitating the buzz of collaborative learning. Technology has the ability to connect learners around the world and makes meeting convenient without barriers due to distance. According to Rheingold humans are distinctly social, but the "prisoners dilemma" which he states has made them unable to collaborate due to mistrust. He referees to the prisoner dilemma as one having the goods and one having the money, but neither will let go due to mistrust and both end up losing out (Reingold, 2008). Continued collaboration builds trust and if carried out long enough a collaborative trustful environment evolves. Technology has been used to build such environments and ebay and wikipedia are examples of collaborative environments that will not work without trust relationships.
Rheingold
Rheingold
Collaborative learning has shown to increase the willingness of teachers to share in discourse with students, higher expectations for students, and greater respect for student ideas, (Bruce, 2013). One of the ways in which technology can foster collaborative learning is by the use of massively open online courses(MOOC), which learners can take courses online and share learning with other learners. The technology is readily available and easy to use and use such tools as, YouTube, Googe Hanouts, Wikispace and Skipe to mention a few (Horizon 2013)
Reference:
Bruce, C. D., & Flynn, T. (2013). Assessing the Effects of Collaborative Professional Learning: Efficacy Shifts in a Three-Year Mathematics Study. Alberta Journal Of Educational Research, 58(4), 691-790. http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=6bb6fa59-3008-4f0f-a9b1-5ba8c14a6253%40sessionmgr111&vid=8&hid=112
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Cummins, M., Estrada, V., Freeman, A., and Ludgate, H. (2013). NMC Horizon Report: 2013 Higher Education Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Retrieved from:
Rheingold, H. (2008, February). Howard Rheingold on collaboration [Video file]. Retrieved from
http://www.ted.com/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html
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http://www.ted.com/talks/howard_rheingold_on_collaboration.html
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I have taken many courses via distance learning and/or online, I have found that the quality of the discussions are so much better in an online or distance course than in a face-to-face environment. In the classroom, you always have some students who will do all of the contributing, another group that will never willingly chime in, and the last group that could not care less. With the online or distance courses, it works a lot like what we are talking about with the MOOC, everyone must contribute, and people who would be too shy or reserved to speak up in a classroom become quite articulate and have great ideas when freed of the f-2-f aspects of a brick-and-mortar class. With the MOOC, I can see the great potential for collaboration and all of this would be done at the highest of learning levels. Sounds like a win-win to me.
ReplyDeleteHi Debbie,
ReplyDeleteI like what you had to say. I agree that "collaboration builds trust and if carried out long enough a collaborative trustful environment evolves." It is difficult to not act out on difficult feelings when another person is hard to get along with. I find that when things are not going well at efforts to collaborate, people tend to display difficult emotions, not bring their creative self to the project, or act out in some way.