The second week of MEIT CEdo515 continues to pique my interest about the possibilities for using collaborative online resources in teaching and group projects. Most people are familiar with word processing software such as MS-Word. I have been an MS-Word user for 10+ years but I must confess that I am a clumsy user. In our coursework we have been using Google Docs for online word processing. I was, and still am, amazed that I could do most of the things I could do with MS-Word.
In addition to reading Chapters 3 & 4 from the Joy Egbert textbook, one of our additional assignments this week is to examine online word processing applications. In our weekly readings from Joy Egbert, the author defines ‘collaboration’ and
‘cooperation’ in technology-supported communication tasks. Collaboration is where participants are all working together towards a common goal or solution. Cooperation is when participants work on a piece of the problem separately as part of the overall framework.The readings explained the concept but the exploration of the online word processing software really brought it home for me. What grabbed my attention is that one can share online word processing documents and collaborate real-time with multiple users. MS-Word allows me to place a shared file on a network drive, but the result is more of a cooperative effort than collaborative.
My study group met this past Sunday using TokBox and later Skype for audio and video sessions. The group was provided with the focused and specific task of completing questions from Chapter 2 of the Egbert textbook. Our instructor provided a collaborative word processing resource called EtherPad. Initially, we divided the first set of questions and worked on them individually (cooperative). On the second question set we all interacted and worked towards a common understanding of the questions to achieve consensus on the answers (collaborative). Throughout this experience with EtherPad, I could see what everyone was typing.
In hindsight, I can see where the course instructor took the very same components Egbert espoused and applied them to this week’s exercises. A lot of planning went into fostering the intended social interactions and it is something I will carry forward into my workplace.
Great image to capture what was a focus in last week's class! I too see the effort that Louis put into our group work assignments and will take that forward into my classroom in a very deliberate fashion in the coming weeks and beyond.
ReplyDeleteI wonder if my students who sometimes fail or struggle with face-to-face communication, such as in revision groups, will fare better when writing and revising real-time in Google Docs or WriteWith for instance? Will those collaborative efforts be less intrusive and discomforting than face-to-face communication?
Collaboration is a big topic in our school. I have some teachers working collaboratively online using Google Apps and having them share documents and use the chat capabilities. My administrators are impressed with its ease of use and how much sharing and collaborating is taking place. I hope that this rolls out to the rest of the staff as easily as this group.
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