Collaboration+&+Community


 * Collaboration & Community**

flat = Description =

Using learning technologies, collaborative communities are developed by creating engaging learning environments and activities. Since resources can be structured around ability, age, __classes__, or groups collaborative communities allow for personalized learning and increased flexibility. The use of collaborative communities can also improve learner participation, interest, and learning. Flexibility and appeal increase when learners can access their learning from school, __work__, or home. Using technology to build a learning community through collaboration eliminates the use of paper and is a great way to __go green__!

Collaborative communities run the gamut from simple tools that allow for collaboration on documents (Google Docs, Zoho) to __social networking software__ (Facebook, Ning), to classroom management systems (Moodle, Blackboard) to virtual worlds (Second Life; these will be discussed in another section). The characteristics they all share are that they accommodate simultaneous, multiple users, and these users can access the community anytime, from anywhere.

There are four different types of basic learning communities: curricular, residential, online, and professional. In higher __education__, curricular learning communities are __classes__ that are linked or clustered during an __academic__ term, often around an interdisciplinary theme, and enroll a common cohort of __students__. Residential learning communities have been in place for decades. __Students__ that are enrolled in a common learning community are often assigned to the same residence halls and/or are mentored by upper-class peers who also reside in the same location. An online learning community is a common place on the Internet that addresses the learning needs of its members through proactive and collaborative partnerships. Through social networking and computer-mediated communication, people work as a community to achieve a shared learning objective. A professional learning community is defined as educators committed to working collaboratively in ongoing processes of collective inquiry and action research to achieve better results for the students they serve. Professional learning communities operate under the assumptions that the key to improved learning for students is continuous, job-embedded learning for educators. Professional learning communities are an extended learning opportunity to foster collaborative learning among colleagues within a particular work environment or field. These are found at various levels in __education__, businesses, and even in the community. =Purpose =


 * To collaborate and work together using available tools to achieve a common goal
 * To connect with others of like interests or goals from around the world
 * To collectively share information, expertise, and intelligence
 * To reunite with people of a common background
 * To cultivate cooperation, teamwork, "capacities for [listening] tolerating or resolving differences" that recognizes "all the voices in a group", civic responsibility, and exercising democratic principles.1

=Features=

(from Read Write Enterprise: [|http://www.readwriteweb.com/enterprise/2009/04/the-online-collaboration-tools-guide.php#more]) (from Collaboratin Tools at http://learn.creativecommons.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/collaboration-tools.pdf)
 * online collaborative creating, writing, and editing
 * synchronizing across computers
 * sharing multiple files and discussion boards
 * sharing windows and documents
 * strong communication capability
 * easy to understand interface
 * expectation of collaboration

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Mobile Devices can be used in collaborative projects in various ways. First, modern mobile devices are built to view and share online information no matter where you are. So if you are collaborating with group members outside of the state or even out of the country you can still collaborate within seconds. With the connection to the internet, mobile devices can view many things (but not all!) that regular desktop machines can. They can edit and share Google documents, edit wiki spaces, upload files and so much more. You can have online e-meetings with online voice chat, text and web cams. With the digital age and technology leaning more towards tablets and mobile devices we should expect to see new and exciting innovations when it comes to collaborative projects.

=Collaborative Gaming=

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An __education__ game is one that this designed to teach students a specific subject or skill. Such games offer interactive play with an engaging story line in order to provide psychological benefits for learning. Often, collaborative games are modeled after Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games such as World of Warcraft. These games can teach the struggles and benefits of collaborative activities. They also teach users about goals, rules, adaptation, problem solving, and interaction by creating a story line that draws the students into the game. With the advent of mobile devices and other forms of interactive entertainment, schools at all educational levels are embracing collaborative gaming as a supplemental tool for teaching.

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= Strengths =


 * Accessibility**
 * Allows for interaction regardless of location
 * Can be accessed from any Internet-connected computer (and nothing needs to be installed or upgraded)
 * Can be accessed by anyone, or be provided with limited access
 * Allows for nearly instantaneous feedback
 * Can be asynchronous
 * Can be synchronous ( [|Twitter], IM)
 * Can be associated with Content Managment ( [|Moodle] )


 * Collaboration**
 * Fosters teamwork and collaboration
 * Encourages information sharing
 * Provides audience-centered information sharing
 * Fosters collective intelligence with differing experiences/knowledge to problem solve
 * Allow for creative expression


 * Connectivity**
 * Captures and leverages institutional knowledge
 * Provides increased perspectives
 * Provides global perspectives
 * Heightens awareness
 * Connects vast resources
 * Provides opportunities to connect with experts
 * Provides extensions of workshops and conferences
 * Results in great acceleration of knowledge among professional communities
 * Allows for nearly instantaneous feedback


 * Contribution**
 * Allows contribution from various individual with differing backgrounds
 * Fosters dialogue and debate
 * Challenges individuals to contribute knowledge to the community
 * Encourages the asking of questions

=Weaknesses= At times people can forget the value of the face-to-face meeting or fail to realize that print has no tone and is up for interpretation. In this context verbal language will never be replaced because humans are gifted with unique futures of conversation. They can share their feelings, thoughts, and emotions by way of communication. What I mean is that verbal communication can not be replaced. Verbal Communication tells you that how a proper message has to deliver to a particular person. As right posture and gesture deliver right message to an individual, on communicating in wrong way, it creates misunderstanding about you.The way of expressing your views is very essential as it deliver a message from your side. All must express their feelings in a way so that it is understandable. In business, the verbal language of professionals is unique and decent as they are representing their company. If a company reprehensive delivers wrong message to its clients, the deal can never finalized. People use various symbol in their respective professions as it takes less time. Whenever you deliver such message to anyone, it is very essential that it must be understandable by next person. All these characteristics of language will never be replaced by any other kind of communication, not even by technology. Technology helps a lot, but it doesn't cover all the aspects to become as meaningful as verbal communication.
 * Professional Advantages for Teachers:**
 * Expand repertoire of teaching approaches
 * Continually revise their course content
 * Acquire new scholarly interests
 * Build mentoring relationships with one another
 * Participate in collaborative and cooperative learning
 * Experience problem-based learning – all working together to achieve the solution/goal
 * Feel team empowerment
 * Feel reduced isolation
 * Become better informed
 * Strengthen teaching and learning via testing new curricular approaches and strategies
 * Share for more effective resource utilization


 * Academic concerns**
 * Security of information shared online and protection of student work (from *Horizon Report 2009, K-12 edition")
 * Safety and privacy of students
 * Limited participation outside of class (no Internet access)


 * Corporate concerns**
 * Because the concept is fairly new, organizations have not revised or updated their information security policies to allow teams to use this type of tool
 * Lack of control for companies that are not comfortable allowing large groups of people to control brand

> =Considerations=
 * Logistics**
 * Discontinuity if used sporadically
 * Difficulties when connecting with individuals in other time zones
 * Tone is often set by initial contributors
 * Need for moderation of discussions
 * Accuracy of the information
 * Little control over what gets posted (most tools have no built in moderator feature)
 * Accountability - equal among members
 * Commitment and motivation may vary - everyone must participate together
 * Must be collective and inclusive

Using technology for collaboration and community is a wonderful thing, but young users beware! The internet has many predators out there waiting for their next unsuspecting victim. Here is a great website that would be useful for parents or educators to read before sending their children or students out on the open web! [|**http://www.safekids.com/**]

"In cooperative learning, the development of interpersonal skills is as important as the learning itself. The development of social skills in group work-learning to cooperate -- is key to high quality group work. Many cooperative learning tasks are put to students with both academic objectives and social skills objectives. Many of the strategies involve assigning roles within each small group (such as recorder, participation encourager, summarizer) to ensure the positive interdependence of group participants and to enable students to practice different teamwork skills. Built into cooperative learning work is regular “group processing,” a “debriefing” time where students reflect on how they are doing in order to learn how to become more effective in group learning settings (Johnson, Johnson and Holubec, 1990)." 1

Collaborative elearning communities have the potential to "extend learning by creating a structure in which people can learn from informal interactions." this does not occur by itself. it should be planed by "structuring opportunities for people to network, communicate, mentor, and learn from each other can help capture, formalize, and diffuse tacit knowledge." ( see: http://www.donblake.com/wroe/resources/buildingcommunitiescollaborativelearning.doc )

Just because a structure for collaborative community e-learning has been established and even if interaction is taking place, an e-learning collaborative community may not exist. The following are indicators which can be used to identify whether or not an e-learning collaborative community has formed: (see: [|http://www.bgu.ac.il/~aflaloc/tealea/CommLear.html] )
 * Active interaction and sharing of resources among students
 * Collaborative learning evidenced by comments directed primarily student to student rather than student to instructor
 * Socially constructed meaning evidenced by agreement or questioning, with the intent to achieve agreement on issues of meaning
 * Expressions of support and encouragement exchanged between students, as well as a willingness to critically evaluate the work of others

Teachers must determine the appropriateness of each tool in a school setting. Some tools have created an education version which is more strictly monitored or at least has the ability to allow a moderator. Some schools will not unblock all tools for use by students or teachers. There may be tools that better integrate with the current IT network and policies. For example, for user accounts, a collaborative tool may utilize the network accounts already in use by the faculty, staff, and students. Moodle is an example of this.

A challenge in __education__ is that online collaboration and community tools are developing faster than institutions’ ability to decide how to use them and what kinds of policies to have regarding them, (not to mention training all staff in their use.) For example, although some studies have indicated Wikipedia is more accurate than older, closed encyclopedias, many teachers will not allow Wikipedia as a resource for students. Why not?

This [|YouTube video], (a collaborative student project,) illustrates the gap between students’ communication and learning habits and the average classroom, which hasn’t changed much since the 1800s.

There are 23 school districts in the Harrisburg area, and some, (such as Hershey,) are making use of online tools to encourage student collaboration and increase digital literacy, but there is a huge variance from district to district, from building to building, and even from classroom to classroom. The same is true for colleges. Change is happening though. Another example is one of the subgroups in the Capital Area Intermediate Unit 15 uses a Ning group to communicate with its members, not an email list.

A recent article in Learning Solutions Magazine 2 titled “[|Collaborative Learning - for the people, by the people]”, states: //“Disruptive innovation, in the form of social software, is sparking new philosophies about formal and informal use of collaboration to support learning. . . . The basic reason is simple. Information moves too fast. . . . Today, product releases happen every three months instead of every three years. Customers define your brand through online communities faster than you can think about creating a branding campaign. The pace at which workers must learn outstrips anything we have seen before. . . . Traditional training programs will not be able to supply the large pipeline of knowledge, skills, and information that your workers will need.“//

Bottom line, instead of companies having a huge staff that creates trainings, some companies are turning it over to the employees as a group, to create needed training in a collaborative fashion. (A challenge experienced by both business and education is feeling comfortable with giving up control of content.)

As another example, if you shop online, how often has your purchase (or non-purchase) been decided by reading the customer reviews? In the online store at Apple, in the customer [|review section for a particular style of laptop bag], when many customers reported a handle quickly becoming loose on this style and recommending others not to purchase it, a company representative responded in the comment section that they would investigate the problem. The problem was fixed rather quickly, and it was reported in the same customer review section that the problem was fixed, and they offered free bag replacements to customers who had experienced a broken handle on this model. The entire timeline from first complaint to offers of replacement bags was just a few months.

"How Cloud Computing Works"
 * Cloud Computing** allows for the users to access information over the internet instantly through your PC and mobile devices. You can share photos, movies, contacts, e-mail, documents, etc. via the cloud. The cloud computing architecture also allows for the user to connect to the network through a control node. This gives the client the ability to access the database and the application servers on the computer network. This makes it much easier for users and administrators to manage the system. They can share the applications and files through one system. This eliminates problems of having to install programs and files on every individual’s computer. For more information check out the article, by Jonathan Strickland,

If you have a computer you probably have used “cloud computing,” Gmail and Google Docs are two common examples. Dropbox and iCloud are other storage applications that allow you to save files on and access them immediately anywhere. These applications can be exceptionally useful in a collaborative community. It allows all members of the group to work on an edit projects instantly. Google Docs can be worked on simultaneously by several members. Once again this makes collaboration much easier because you are not restricted by your location and makes it much easier to find time to work together on the project. For more indepth uses of cloud computing refer to the article "What Cloud Computing Really Means."


 * Open Educational Resources (OER)** are educational materials that are ‘digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and re-use for teaching, learning and research” (//Wikipedia//, “open educational resources”, retrieved March 2010). An [|OER learning module] whose purpose is to give an overview of the OER movement and available tools, says these free resources include “//learning objects (quizzes, crossword puzzles, flashcards, animations, etc.), audio lectures, audio+video lectures, entire courses, images, sounds + music, journal articles and textbooks.//” OER is part of a global effort to make knowledge available to anyone who wants it, for free.

__Schools__ such as U. of California-Berkley and MIT have already made many of their courses available online for free. YouTube even has a section just for universities, and iTunesU has a section for college courses. (Even our local HACC has courses on iTunesU.) Of course, currently one doesn’t earn credits learning this way, but who knows how things will be in the future? Might future students be able to take a proctored test on the material, and if they pass, get credit for the class? It will be interesting to see. This would seem more like the type of certifications network engineers can get currently: study the material however you wish, and if you take the test and pass, your knowledge is recognized by earning your certification. Perhaps future students will earn certifications in Calculus II, British Authors of the 1700’s, African Art of the Middle Ages, Quantum Mechanics, Flash Design I, etc. For more on this topic, check out Wired Campus’ [|article] “As Grants Run Out, Universities Pony Up Cash for OPenCourseWare” (March 2, 2010.) Or their February 12, 2010 [|article] “North Carolina State U. Gives Students Free Access to Physics Textbook Online.”

=Leading Tools=

Conversations
[|Skyp] Free online communication tool used for video calls, conference calls, and also used for screensharing. [|Wimba] Wimba Classroom 6.1, cornerstone of the Wimba Collaboration Suite, is a live, virtual classroom environment with robust features that include audio, video, application sharing and content display, and MP4 capabilities. LinkIn A networking site for professionals to connect and share business information. MixedInk MixedInk's collaborative writing platform allows groups of any size to weave their best ideas and language into a single text. Cutting-edge government agencies, news organizations, advocacy groups, and businesses use MixedInk to gather meaningful input and give their communities a voice Twitter //Twitter// is an online social networking service and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters Edmodo //Edmodo// provides a safe and easy way for your class to connect and collaborate, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices. Edmodo also offers polls, a quiz feature, links, embedded video, and allows teachers to post class events on a calendar. Edmodo has a great, informative page to help you get started using quick video tutorials for each step in the process. [|https://support.edmodo.com/home#entries/25546009-video-tutorials]

[|BigBlueButton] BigBlueButton is an open source web conferencing system built on over fourteen open source components to create an integrated solution that runs on mac, unix, or PC computers. In the true sense of open source, we invite you to try out and participate in our project. Yammer Blogspot Content Moodle Open source course __management system__. Popular in 9-12 and higher ed.
 * Yammer, Inc.** is an enterprise [|social network] service that was launched in September 2008. Unlike [|Twitter], which is used for broadcasting messages to the public, Yammer is used for private communication within organizations or between organizational members and pre-designated groups, making it an example of [|enterprise social software]
 * Blogger** is a [|blog]-[|publishing service] that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries

[|SilverLight] Free __Microsoft__ tool for creating internet applications and media. Works on all major operating systems and web browsers.

[|Joomla] Open source course __management system__. Used by individuals, businesses, and large organizations to create websites and web applications.

[|Drupal] Open source content management system. Used to build online communities around similar interests.

De.licio.us The future of Delicious is up in the air. However, it's easy to transfer your Delicious bookmarks to Diigo by simply exporting your saved information. You can also link your Diigo account to Delicious, so that anything you bookmark in Diigo is automatically transferred to Delicious.

[|Diigo] Social bookmarking tool. Allows users to highlight, bookmark (using tags), sticky note with the option of others seeing it. Organizes information that can be shared with groups of users.

Glogster A web 2.0 took used to create digital posters.

[|Glogster EDU] Fee based Glogster accounts used by students and teachers to make interactive posters, collaborate on class projects. __Teacher__ can use the platform to manage students and classes.

[|Kidblog] Kidblog is a free, closed environment that allows teacher and students to blog about class topics. Parents can access Kidblog to view the conversation, but cannot contribute to the discussion. Teachers have total control over who may post and whether posts require teacher approval to become visible. The simple user interface allows even very young students to participate in a blogging community. It is probably intended for users in grades 3-6.

**Connections**
Facebook Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February of 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg and his college roommates and friends. Its membership was originally just for Harvard students, but was then extended to students at other universities before its wider opening to anyone over age thirteen. It is a site that helps a person keep up with his/her friends and to make new ones. Each person's own page is now based on a timeline of his/her life with pictorial representations of said life. Also included is targeted marketing vis-a-vis the likes and interests indicated by each person.

[|Ning] Ning is a social networking service that allows an individual or organization to create a singular, individual, community web site separate from any other social networking platform. It began as a free service, but now is fee-based. In fact, it allows customers to charge people to be members of their networks. Ning was founded by Marc Andreessen and Gina Giachini. This is Andreessen's third company, along with Netscape and Opsware.

Discover Educator Network Powered by the Discovery Channel, Discover Educator Network is a global community of educators who are interested in using digital media, sharing resources, collaborating and networking with each other. Blogs, webinars, and events members may use and subscribe to, allowing them to keep up-to-date on technology in education.

[|AllthingsPLC] PLC stands for Professional Learning Communities. AllThingsPLC helps members keep abreast of new research, articles and tools that can enhance student achievement. There is no marketing allowed or fees incurred. This is simply educators networking to share knowledge, ask questions, and get expert insight into the issues teachers face in the classroom every day.

[|ScholasticTeacherShare] Scholastic Teacher Share is a global network of teachers collaborating and sharing lesson plans, learning strategies, and what they have found that excites their students and actually works in the classroom. Teachers can join groups that share interests, like "Fourth Grade Language Arts." Lesson ideas and even full lesson plans abound in this site.

[|Promethean Planet] Promethean Planet is an interactive community of teachers based on using white boards in the classroom. Ideas for using the whiteboards, tips for how to make the most of Promethean Boards, and access to actual lessons using whiteboards are all part of being a member of this global community of educators.

[|eTwinning] The "twinning" in the name e-Twinning refers to the fact that this site pairs schools into "twins" that can then work together and collaborate on projects, activities, lessons, and all kinds of interactions. Being twinned with a school in say, Turkey or Norway, promotes cross-cultural exchanges of information between students and teachers at each school. The European Union is the primary target of the web site and is administered from the UK.

[|Twiducate] Twiducate is a free micro-blogging site similar to Twitter that exists to link elementary and secondary teachers and students to one another in a fun, Web 2.0-style experience. For the most part it exists to promote learning outside of the classroom. It was created by Jennifer Alman for Full Sail University's Collaborative Culture class.

Pageflakes Pageflakes is a personal web portal in the style of NetVibes. A user can direct RSS feeds, email, Twitter, Facebook, and any other subscriptions, like The New York Times into one web page. The user can then log onto Pageflakes and see all updates to his/her personal online subscriptions and RSS feeds. It is a personal aggregator that can turn a home page into a one-stop-shop for all feeds.

[|Sakai Project] Sakai bills itself as a __learning management system__, a research collaboration system, and an e-Portfolio solution. Sakai OAE says that it re-imagines technology-supported teaching and learning and research, to promote an open academic environment.

[|Tumblr.com] Tumblr is a free microblog-hosting and social networking platform. It promotes creativity through the ability to upload multimedia objects to a short-form blog. As of February 2012, Tumblr had over 46 million blogs with over 18 billion posts. It is most popular with the teenage and college-age demographic.

[|Edmodo] In addition to being a great conversations tools for students, Edmodo contains options to allow professionals to connect and collaborate online. Teachers from all over the world will post questions and ideas for teachers in different content areas. If a teacher posts a question, other teachers with suggestions will answer and perhaps post resources.

Collaboration
Adobe Buzzword **Adobe Buzzword** is a word processor you can use to collaborate, review and comment documents online. Very similar to other software options, Buzzwork allows you to organize your text in paragraphs, use bulleted or numbered lists, change fonts, insert images and tables, and check spelling. The Cut, Copy, and Paste commands function the same as any word processor. Within the application, they work with all text, tables, or images, or all three in one selection. Useful collaborative features include assigning user roles and document access, document editing and commenting, ability to view document history and ability to share lists of documents.

Mindmeister **MindMeister** is a brainstorming program which allows users to brainstorm ideas and organize them into creative structures called mind maps. **Mindmeister** is a great way to organize thoughts and initiate planning processes. The program works much like concept mapping, in that it allows you to branch and connect various ideas to one another.

[|PiratePad] **PiratePad** is a simple tool that makes it easy for users to share information or something they creating on a basic notepad. Users can begin creating their pads right away. The tools available include all basic text editing functions, left and right alignment, bullet points, redo and undo. Users can change the view size as well. **PiratePad** also allows users to import or export files and save revisions made to an existing file. The time slider lets users observe the editing history of the public pad exactly as it happened. A chat room is also included on the public pad so users can edit together and collaborate as they go. [|Sharepoint] **MicroSoft** **SharePoint** is a web application platform typically associated with web content management and document management systems. **SharePoint's** multi-purpose design allows for management, scaling, and provisioning of a broad variety of business applications. Microsoft's application is more aimed to the business world, offering application sections which focus on business wide communities, content search options and tools and components to create do-it-yourself business solutions.

Wikis: Wikispaces or PBWorks Eduwikis **Wikispaces** is a host service where members create document sharing locations called wikis. **Wikispaces** allows wiki owners the capability of collaborating, sharing, editing and commenting on documents and projects. Popular with education facilities, teachers and students are finding wikis an easy option to organize and manage notes, assignments and projects.

**PBWorks** is an online team collaboration site which offers educators options to encourage student-centered learning by building web pages, embedding text, image or video files and posting documents. **PBWorks** provides access to information sources, book lists and links to information pertinent to collaborative projects. Also, it makes distance learning more interavtice and collaborative.

**Eduwiki** is an online learning community dedicated to collaborating, communicating and connecting educators from around the world. Focused on educational wikis, **Eduwiki** is a hosting site much like the other two mentioned and offers many of the same options but is located solely in the US.
 * note: these tools are organized by the 4 c's of Web 2.0. Many tools could be classified into more than one section due to the several capabilities or uses of that tool. They are place into the category that they best embody currently.

=Open Source Options=

Open Source is a philosophy and practice that distributes a product like software free to the public. It usually allows the users to modify the design and even its specific uses. It usually promotes new aspects and diversity of a product that a single author may not have developed alone. This peer production allows for a more approaches to solve a single problem or many problems. The open source idea is now being applied to science problems that can benefit larger population. It has been used in farming and biotech production recently.

Advantages

 * No dependence on the creator to fix bugs or to update
 * No cost to the user; free to use, distribute, and change
 * Easier to customize as you can simply edit the coding
 * More people have the coding, so there are multiple sources for support

Disadvantages

 * Usage/information overflow can overwhelm members
 * Ability to see alterations to document but no one person in charge of the approving changes.
 * Usage interference and working "on top" of each other.
 * If the document/password gets into the hands of a person who should not be editing or is not enough of an expert.

Google Docs **http://www.docs.google.com**

[|CoFFEE] media type="youtube" key="eRqUE6IHTEA" height="265" width="320"

Zoho.com

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Footnotes:

1. - Smith, B.L. MacGregor, J. “What Is Collaborative Learning?" in //Collaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education.// National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment at Pennsylvania State University, 1992. 2 - Little, Josh. "Collaborative Learning - for the people, by the people." //Learning Solutions Magazine// March 2010: n. pag. Web. 11 Mar 2010. .