We’re all learners here!

Participation in online collaborative projects, both local and global, serves to create rich learning experiences for all involved. Student as learner, as well as teacher as learner, build connections through involvement in projects that relate to their interests and provide choice and decision making opportunities. It’s a platform where individuals develop the ability to learn quickly and share their skills. Collaborative learning involving the use of Web 2.0 tools provides practical experience in digital citizenship, leads the the growth of digital literacy and provides opportunities for development of a personal learning network.

This presentation will explore the experience of online collaboration as a genuine learning opportunity for all involved. It will use the experience of both an international collaborative project and one local to Australia to examine the benefit of this experience to both students and teachers. The Internet, by its nature, is a place where one can explore and learn through this exploration. This provides an ideal opportunity for teachers to embark on a project with confidence that the skillset required will build along the way.

The essential ingredient before setting off on the journey, however, is a level of digital citizenship knowledge that will ensure protection of a student’s identity, their understanding of both ethical and social behaviour conventions and the responsibilities of being a member of a community of online learners. These are essential skills for today’s students. As they begin to build their digital identity, one from which there is no escape, the authenticity of an online collaborative project provides a genuine learning experience.

Planning is an essential component of a collaborative project. Success is dependent on the development of trust relationships between teachers who have shared objectives and goals for learning. Culture, geography and pedagogy all have a role to play. Time zone differences and geographical separation are both an impediment to communication and an opportunity to discover difference. A project with clear outcomes and objectives will provide a framework and ensure project success.

Using the tools of the read/write web extends the learning opportunity beyond the academic environment. The tools used for academic outcomes here are the same ones the student can use to collaborate and create in a recreational sense when school is out. In this way the learning becomes an holistic process. It can extend from school to home and becomes part of a process of building networks that are simultaneously both formal and informal tools for learning.

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