Collaborative Technologies

 

1. Which "collaborative technologies" do you know about?

    a. EDC at the L3D Center

    b. Blackboard Learning System

    c. Conferencing - MS Exchange Server, NetMeeting.

    d. Bulletin Board Service - WebBBS

    e. Swiki

 

2. Which "collaborative technologies" have you used?

    I have used the Blackboard Learning System
in some of my undergraduate Computer Science courses. This is a web-based system where
students and instructors share course and personal information
management through a convenient interface (much alike Swiki).

 

3. Discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the "collaborative technology"
which you do know best?

    a. Strengths:

        i. Content Management:
learning materials were available to students anytime and
anywhere; the site was authored to fit individual class
needs and preferences; students could access supplemental resources through a Blackboard button
on each page.

        ii. Communication:
discussion boards, live chats, whiteboards, and
collaboratively browsing websites enabled collaborative learning.

        iii. Assessment:
the instructor 'uploaded' quizzes and tests with scheduled "release" and
"recall" date/time; statistical
reports generated helped the instructor
understand what topics needed to be re-done in class; the instructor could
also easily track (and report) student grades and content usage on the
course website.

    b. Weaknesses:

        The only weakness I perceived
in using the Blackboard system was the increasing impersonalization of
the course. The delicate balance between learning in a "classroom" setting
and learning in a "web" setting was difficult to maintain.

 

4. Can you think of any theories, conceptual frameworks, specifications
which would guide you in developing "collaborative technology"?

    John Dewey's philosophy on education and
his research on situated learning lead to the idea of a collaborative technology.
He was the first to address technology (in education) seriously and promoted
activity-based education. He criticized the idea of experience as only
personal and directed from the world to a person's mind and instead he
viewed experiences as emerging through social interactions between people
and the world in which they live. As he result, he conjectured that through
the sharing of experiences only is learning promoted. "A collaborative
technology is a tool that enables indiciduals to jointly engage in active
production of shared knowledge." He said that meaningful knowledge is that
which resolves confusing, unsettled, puzzling experiences and forms them
into more unified, coherent and controllable understanding of problems.

 

5. Have you ever read a book (or books) about collaboration?

    No, I haven't read any book on collaboration.

 

6. Discuss the following statement: "collaborative technology will
have little success in non-collaborative environments".

    I do not believe there exists any environment
that would not benefit greatly from collaborative technology (i.e. non-collaborative
environments are ceasing to exist). In recognizing the concept of distributed
cognition, I think environments that were once considered traditionally
non-collaborative (like one-way directed classrooms) have now changed such
that they require the interplay of such technologies to facilitate the
learning process. Hence, there will always be a need for systems that promote
collaboration and these will be highly successful, given adequate motivation, in any given environment
(assuming the technology is tailored to the environment).