Thursday 23 August 2012

True collaboration?


One of the key questions in Ware's keynote concerns how to encourage true collaboration among students in online exchanges. Students tend to focus on information exchange and possibly comparison and analysis, but rarely move on to collaboration and product. She relates this to the way in which the affordances are set up, and whether they allow participants to truly collaborate. Can we guide our students by sanctioning certain ways of interaction?

3 comments:

  1. Good question, Therese! Possibly not by sanctioning but maybe by practising more, feedback and evaluation. From my experience, everything usually starts with an interesting (!) topic; then the outcomes of virtual collaboration are better within a certain project with clear and set goals and tasks, within a time frame; not to forget institutional and technical support; a certain netiquette and project philosophy; furthermore, the distribution of tasks is very important, who does what how why and when (also depending on personal interests, talents and skills), just like in real life :). To my mind, adolescents are adults with a bit less experience. What do you think?

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  2. Thanks for your comment, Inge-Anna! Good to know that you are with us virtually. I agree that it is a complex issue, but also think raising awareness among students is an important starting point.

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  3. Very much so, Therese. Ware's keynote was very interesting. I'm glad I could take part. Looking forward to the next keynote!

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