Collaborating in online environments

Collaboration can take on many forms in the online enviromment. The tool I chose was Google Circles.  The reason for shifting towards google circle rather than Facebook as the collaboration space is many learners preferred not to use their Facebook page for the learning space to preserve their privacy.

Google Circles works nicely as learners can share information within their circle, without others having access.

It is used in group based activities where learners come together, perform problem solving tasks, set individual tasks, conduct research and come together to comment and review.

Voicethread was an interesting tool. I had heard of it before, but not used it.  I like the flexibility of voice or typed comments, but found it a little difficult to delete a comment.  It appears to be facilitator-driven, which may not work for all collaboration tasks. If we were to use the example of Google Circles for a comparison, Voicethread would not be an appropriate tool to use.

Some of the other suggestions I found interesting were:

"Forums", I use forums quite a bit with my learners.  I do stipulate that they must comment on at least one other post to encourage collaboration.  I will also ask learners to critique another's post or upload (peer evaluation).

"Web Conferencing" has been an integral part of my teaching.  The suggestion of international speakers or academics has never occurred to me, something that I will incorporate in future.  I have linked Google Docs through a web conference and students have worked collaboratively on a task.

"Video Story Telling" is a fantastic idea, and I will be investigating that further to incorporate in my online environment.

The web has a vast majority of information available for us to explore the various tools for e-learning.  It is our position as educators to decipher how this tool best suits the task.