RSA
#4 Facilitating Collaboration in Online
Learning
“Facilitating Collaboration in Online
Learning” is a fantastic article by Caroline Haythornthwaite. She examines why collaboration is important
and what outcomes we expect. She also
discusses how online communication is different that face-to-face learning and
the challenges that it poses.
One of the most important parts of online
collaboration is figuring out how people will communicate with each other. The group should have common goals and
communication practices. Haythornthwaite
makes a distinction between collaboration and coordination. When people coordinate online, they may be
working independently and then creating an end product together by piecing it
together. (p. 12) This reminded me of
the challenge of writing common assessments as a department. Oftentimes, we are just trying to coordinate
but not actually collaborate. But common
assessments are a prime example of when collaboration is really necessary.
There are challenges to collaboration
though. Haythornthwaite says “…peer-to-peer
exchange depends on time, effort, and trust among peers. Sharing may not
occur when there is competition for scarce resources, where knowledge is power,
or where time is so short that engagement with peers is outside the bounds of
possibility” (p. 11).
Online communication can be fraught with
barriers to building a community. Although people can sometimes express
themselves more freely; they miss out on the social cues that come from
face-to-face communication.
(Haythornthwaite, p. 15)
I think this piece does a great job
exploring some of the benefits to online collaboration but also some of the
pitfalls. When planning a professional
learning community, it is important to figure out what the goals are before you
commit to one model or resource. For
example, Edmodo may work well in some cases because teachers will be passing
along their completed lessons, websites or assessments. However, if a PLC is designed for more
in-depth collaboration online, a format like Google Docs would be better so
that members could work together on something without having to be in the same
place.
Haythornthwaite,
C. (Feb 2006). Facilitating Collaboration in Online Learning.
The Sloan Consortium, volume 10. Retrieved June 23rd from http://sloanconsortium.org/jaln/v10n1/facilitating-collaboration-online-learning
