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Eric Minick Jan 2002 1) which "collaborative technologies" do you know about? The interesting question here, is "what is a collaborative technology?" Maybe that's the intent behind the question. We could take a defination like: Technologies which encourage / facilitate groups of people to solve problems as a team rather than individually. With that, language would be the most crucial example. In the realm of cool technology which assists, the EDC comes to mind. Somewhere in the middle are things like instant messangers (and the telephone), Swikis and open source licensing. 2) which "collaborative technologies" have you used? Everything I've listed I've also used to one degree or another. I tend to use language an aweful lot while my exposure to the EDC is very limited. 3) "discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the "collaborative technology" which you do know best? " Instant messanging and chat rooms provide a good example. They provide a good mechanism for individuals working alone on an aspect of a problem to quickly get insight and advice from teamates working on other aspects. To its credit, where portions of the problem are simple and collaboration is inefficient individuals can do their own thing while still having the resources of the team when they require collaboration. Unfortunately, simple instant messaging doesn't provide mediums for communication other than short text messages. It also doesn't provide any tools which facilitate bringing computation into the design. 4) "can you think of any theories, conceptual frameworks, specifications which would guide you in developing "collaborative technology"? " Ease of use would be a primary concern. It must be easy enough that with only minimal understanding of the technology a person could contribute. Ideally, the functionality would also be powerful enough to satisfy advanced users. Ease of use would make the tool accessible, a variety of tools which facilitate commmunication and understanding would make it useful. 5) have you ever read a book (or books) about collaboration? No. 6)"discuss the following statement: "collaborative technology will have little success in non-collaborative environments" " Of course this would be true. However, most environments are to one degree or another collaborative. In an environment which is largely non-collaborative but has some collaborative aspects, a collaboritive technology could make things increasingly collaboritive. However, collaborative technologies will generally be wasted on professional hermits so the statement rings true.
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