inventio
creative thinking about learning and teaching
February 2000, Issue 1, Volume 2 In this IssuePast IssuesAbout inventioEditorial Board
  
Shibboleths and the Techniques of Technological Idolatries
 by Alan Altany

  

© Copyright 2000 by Alan Altany. The right to make additional exact copies, including this notice, for personal and classroom use, is hereby granted. All other forms of distribution and copying require permission of the author.

 

The Process of Collaboration

A typical collaborative writing project that has been used to produce such projects as videos, power point, role-playing and dramatic presentations, religious dance and simulated ritual involves collaboration at the following stages:

  • group or team formation
  • topic selection or analysis
  • exchange of email addresses
  • delegate, decide, research, write, integrate and present the topic via the class list
  • posting to the mentor of a list of all in the group who have actively participated in the project (each group has the power of excommunicating a member(s) who simply refuses, in a patterned way, to join in the work, with my final approval required
  • responses of the others in the class
  • each member of a group sends me by individual email a critical reflection upon the collaborative learning process that was just experienced
  • discuss with the class the strengths and weaknesses of the collaborative effort.

Collaboration in a totally online course is especially challenging and inviting. The learners are separated by space, but not time. The use of email, an email discussion list and a chat room for synchronous exchange was both frustrating and fruitful. Not everyone could or did arrive in the chat rooms at the designated times, but in an electronic course gave students an opportunity for planning their work in real time. As much as the technologies used, what was important was constructing a virtual community where only one's printed words manifested one's presence and participation.

The decision to ask members of the course to introduce themselves to others on the class by being creatively personal seemed to help to build this community. Each learner posted an introductory message in which each person essentially wrote the first paragraph or page of her or his autobiography, focusing not upon factual information , but upon insightful ways to let others glimpse a little of their thinking or inner life. Not only was the ice broken, but doors swung open.

Rating
Collaborating