Week 7: Collaborative Working

As part of this elective we worked in small groups to create wikis, short movies and an animation. This involved using various software and tech.

I believe that the developments in technology facilitate the ability to work collaboratively without having to meet face to face. In particular the ability to communicate with others via social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter has enabled me to contact my peers to discuss academic matters. We also made use of Google docs and Etherpad in order to share information with one another. This meant we could all work on our own in our homes but we were collaboratively working by the magic of Web 2.0.

However I must, as always, be critical of this.

I personally believe that it benefits the process of collaborative working to physically get together and work in the same place, it means that everyone is fully interacting with the task in hand, rather than updating their Facebook update or tending to their online farm.

The use of Etherpad was effective for our group as we were able to arrange times to meet up on the pad and discuss how we would create our Wiki and short movies. There were, however, some problems when some of us lost connection, couldn't make times due to other commitments or had to leave during an online session. These tools work effectively, but everyday life does get in the way. I believe that had we met up at a location to work together then we wouldn't have had some of these problems.

A good point was that we could contribute to the pad and the other members of the group would receive our contribution the next time they logged in.

Another programme I have discovered is Google Wave. Google have been marketing it heavily as a collaborative learning tool for the classroom.

So, would I use the internet as a resource to enable collaborative working in the classroom?

Of course.

The children, as digital natives, know about this technology. They use it to interact with one another everyday, so it would be foolish to discard it from the classroom. The class teacher needs to research and think thoroughly about how the web can be used in this way and eliminate any potential threats before it is used.

 Dazzle 