11 posts tagged “collaboration”
Not only are the conversations on the Association for Authentic, Experiential and Evidence-based Learning (AAEEBL) site lively, but there are some great resources being shared that members have developed. For example, this list of resources around reflection for learning compiled by Helen Barrett. The particular focus is ePortfolios, and it is a good place to start if you are looking for ideas and would like to join in the conversation.
A
sunny day and a pleasant stroll across campus set the scene for the
Ning session Ed and I facilitated today with students and academic
faculty from Te Hononga: Unitec Department of Architecture Maori
Studio. Already keen Moodle users, students and faculty were looking
for ways that students could be empowered to create their own space,
add their own multimedia, try out ideas and designs in a safe space,
receive feedback, work in groups on projects, and keep online journals.
In response, Rau Hoskins and I set up a Ning site and today's session
was to explore and discuss some of the potential uses of the site, and
answer questions.
Rather than have a 'how to...' session students have been encouraged to access Anthony Armstrong's great online resource...a step-by-step Ning tutorial (with accompanying .pdf should you wish to download key points).
A
decision was made to keep the Moodle site as the showcase for work and
projects everyone is collaborating, and to use the Ning site a test and
prototype area, as well as somewhere to get to know each other better.
The Ning site is already buzzing with student activity, which is great.
It will be fascinating to see the momentum build.
Today,
on the auspicious day of 9th September 2009 (09.09.09) Vickel Narayan
and I facilitated a workshop with the Department of Management and
Marketing as a requested follow up session to a more generic Web 2.0
session, which Vickel had previously run with the group. Prior to the
workshop we worked with the department to identify outcomes that they
would require from two Ning sessions (number 2 in October) - this helped
ensure that participants voices were 'heard' beforehand, and also that
we didn't run the session that we thought they wanted, as opposed to the session that they actually wanted :-)
Session
1, today's, was a hands-on session that focussed on utilising a Ning
space for their Department which could be used as a way to build more
of a community, communicate and share. There was also conversation
around negotiated guidelines, which they would later need to discuss.
The agreed guidelines would be used to shape interactions they all felt
comfortable with within the online forums, the 'identity' they shared
with colleagues, and the content that was considered appropriate.
By the end of the session all participants had joined the Ning, added a profile and photo, posted to a forum, written and posted a blog reflection, and searched for, embedded and shared a video.
Session 2 will focus on using Ning with learners.
After
a start where there was some trepidation, the room was filled with
laughter and talking. One participant commented in their blog at the
end that they were really happy that everyone was involved and having a
bit of fun! A further participant came up and said she had been really
anxious before attending the session as she felt she would not be able
to do or accomplish anything. In fact, she had achieved a lot and was
really over the moon.
Watch this space for the next installment.
I
have just finished working on a mindmap that tells the story of Susie
and her use of Web 2.0 tools to conduct research for her assignments.
The mindmap: Susie Web 2.0 Research
is designed to give an idea of the complex web of information, ideas,
sharing, evaluation and analysis that can go on (in an ideal world)
when the potential of the Web 2.0 is exploited fully.
The Scenario
Susie is studying at Unitec NZ for a Bachelor of Architectural Studies. She is in her second year and has just received the rubric for her next assignment, which is a paper that focuses on analysing architectural sites, discussing a hypothetical development, which demonstrates, for example how to ensure the environmental sustainability of the project.Susie and her classmates initially sit around with their laptops and discuss strategies, ideas, and deadlines. They set up a Mindmeister mindmap and make sure that it has been shared with everyone in the group, and then they brainstorm into it while also consulting Wikipedia for insight into some of the key terminology and concepts, as well as for inspiration. Susie meanwhile Tweets a couple of questions out to her Twitter community (several of who are architects) around environmental sustainability. Before the group sign off they also set up a PB Works wiki site, and a Twine account to collaboratively bookmark any of the useful resources they find online. A discussion around key tags and categories, along with the necessity for annotation plus a brief evaluation, helps ensure that the resources they discover are actually useful. Finally, the group members check that they have Skype contacts and mobile phone numbers for each other.
Over the next couple of weeks Susie starts her research. She searches Google with some of the key words and phrases that she brainstormed with her classmates, and brings up a host of tools and resources. She explores an online community of architects, and finding someone whose work she likes, Susie emails her with some questions about design. She also watches some videos around the subject, attends a couple of Webinars for architects, accesses a metasite that collates urban planning links specific to New Zealand, searches Flickr for designs, takes a tour of Paris on a site that uses a mashup, and logs in to Second Life to visit the Architects Community and the virtual library. During the time she is doing this, she publishes some of her initial thoughts in her blog and receives some comments from around the globe that challenge some of the ideas, or give suggestions how they might be expanded. She is also able to access some raw data made available in open databases around soil and geology, which she collates and displays in Gapminder – an online tool that transforms the data into a dynamic longitudinal representation of soil erosion tendencies. Every time she discovers a resource she thinks is useful she adds it to the group Twine, and she and her group have read, summarised and referenced three journal articles each and added them to the group wiki.
Finally, she pulls all of her ideas together into a mindmap that forms the framework and structure for her assignment (using the notes function on the mindmap tool to help her remember key points and sources). She types up her assignment adding links, images, and references as she goes. Her last steps are to add her reference list (which she has been keeping online in Noodle Tools), and then to run the assignment through a free online plagiarism checker tool to check for unintentional errors.
Recently an email dropped into my Flickr inbox asking if I would like a photo I had taken of Rangitoto and licensed under Creative Commons to be included in a map project (the seventh edition of the Schmap Auckland Guide). Schmap not only offer maps. You can also 'emplore' a destination online through the combination of maps, photos and reviews. Widgets are available that can be embedded into your blog(s), and you can use the maps on your mobile device. It seemed like a great project that really started to dig into some of the potential of Web 2.0, and the sum of the whole being much greater than the parts! :-)
I
was wondering if to include this posting, but after thinking hard I
realised that in fact it had been a fantastic experience and one that I
wanted to share.
In November 200
8,
a group of 5 friends (colleagues at Unitec NZ) got together to spend
some time together while also getting fit and healthy. A plan was made
to begin training during the lunch hour, and to spur us on a goal was
set to compete in the More FM Women's
series - to be exact on Sunday February 22, 2009 in the Pt Chevalier
duathlon (Auckland) . This was quite a big ask, as several people had
never competed in a duathlon before.
We managed to meet on
several occasions, and all did a wee bit more training outside of
lunchtimes too. There was a great sense of working together to achieve
something - a connection beyond that normally experienced in the
general run of work projects. As the day loomed near, a couple of
people suffered injury, and others had family commitments, but myself
and Kelly were determined to still compete. This was Kelly's first
duathlon, and she shared tales of cycle training with the whole family
that had me in stitches! Before the day we swapped notes on what so
rt
of breakfast was advisable (full, cooked breakfast not such a good idea
:-) and met at some unearthly hour on the Sunday morning of the
competition.
The air was buzzing - people everywhere setting up bikes etc. To settle my nerves (Kelly wasn't nervous!) I went for a warm up trot around the block, and then we were underway. It was a tough race (a short distance which required a fair bit of anaerobic effort), but there were women of all ages, and fitnesses giving it their all - with families there to support them. Kelly did a fantastic job, and we shared a heart-felt (if rather soggy) victory hug at the end.
There was a sense of mutual achievement (emphasised by the results that we got the next day - Kelly had finished in the top half of the field in her first competition, and I'd won by a couple of minutes). I guess it's a long-winded way of saying that when there is a real goal...a real purpose for doing something collaboratively, it's much more likely to succeed. Even though some of our friends didn't make it to the competition, it took someone to come up with the idea, the group to form, the purpose to be set, and then for the support to continue. It could be a model for almost any project...it was as much about the process of training and working together, learning about each other and ourselves, as it was about the achievement of the end goal - but one, I feel, would not have happened without the other.
A few days ago I was out running and listening to podcasts, one of which was by Sarah Robbins-Bell entitled "Social Media and Education: The Conflict Between Technology and Institutional Education, and the Future" (which can also be watched as a streaming video).
I was very impressed with the accessible way that she described the
potential of Web 2.0 and social media with learners, and the potential
of these types of ICT to enhance teaching.
She emphasises the role tertiary education in helping students develop critical literacy skills to enable them to evaluate and analyse the resources and information that they locate, and the knowledge creation that they become involved in. Key concepts that she mentions are active participation and collaboration, especially in blended sessions...if the students are on Facebook instead of participating in a session it is to do with the design and facilitation of the session...not, necessarily, the learner.
The Educause site provides the following summary of the session: "Today's technology enables users to form and join communities of common interest to learn and share information. In opposition to the privileged learning spaces of higher education, social media encourage learners to seek out their own answers and construct knowledge as a community rather than as individuals. Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and Second Life offer new learning spaces, but how do they fit into the learning expectations of institutions?"
Over the last few days I have been using a new tool - Twine
-designed for bookmarking, describing, tagging, sharing, finding and
commenting on resources and tools on the Internet. I've found it really
easy to use, and it has performed seamlessly on both my Mac and my PC.
There are also a wide range of people using Twine, especially around
the subject of eLearning, Web 2.0, and collaborative creation of
knowledge. So far, I have found no down sides!
I was listening to an Educause podcast today which featured an interview with Martin Ramsey - founder and facilitator of LAMP ("a collaborative community of learners, linked via a common software platform and a shared learning and collaboration philosophy, across five states in central Appalachia"), which was awarded the Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration.
One of the things that Martin Ramsey mentioned was the four "C"s - he was referring to schools, but it struck me that it was relevant for most institutions or businesses who are operating in the same area. The first C he mentioned was 'competition' - so organisations specialising in tertiary education might be seen as in direct competition with one another; if one enrols a student, that student will only study at one of the institutions. The second C was 'co-existence' - institutions rub along beside each other and pretty much ignore the fact that there are other institutions in their line of expertise. The third C was 'cooperation' where institutions work together, but never let the notion of best interests out of sight. The final C was 'collaboration', where institutions work actively together to create something that would not be possible if they had not decided to do so. As such, resources and ideas are shared, and a community grows around the collaboration.
Instead of institution you could put colleagues, learners, researchers...food for thought.
Image source: "Cute_c" by Moonshine Design_sd
This Slideshare presentation gives an interesting visual overview of Web 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. The vision of Web 3.0 has a business focus, seeing entrepreneurial potential in everyone who publishes on the Internet (i.e. "user generated business"). The Web 3.0 content publisher takes on a 'managerial' role (compared with the 'delivery' role of 1.0, and the 'delivery and creation' roles of 2.0).
I'm not exactly sure yet (need to think about it further), if I agree with Johannes Bhakfi's vision of Web 3.0, or what the implications may be for education if he is correct. Any ideas? Thoughts? Comments?
One comment that has already been posted to his Slideshare presentation: "Actually, Johannes, I have strong scepticism to the WEB 3.0 idea. When money intrude into creativity, they kill it. The true creators don't think of money, if they do - then money will rule instead...".
