Collaboration in networks

 Very interesting post in this 3 types of collaboration. I like your cluster of activities.

Collaboration could also be “within the institution governance” and “outside the institution governance – social networks & COP”.

Connective collaboration could be the most challenging one, as this requires certain degree of “1) a shared sense of mission 2) mutual respect 3) trust 4) a commitment to continual improvement.” for that type of collaboration to be sustainable. My response to your post here is an example of such collaboration with you and the wider community, when others join in with you, though it is at a very early stage.

The compounding collaboration is more related to the Master-Apprenticeship model, where On-the-job training has been practiced for decades, and could still be very effective if it relates to skills based training and learning. I have been involved in this sort of collaboration in the past decades.  It is still one of the most useful models of collaboration amongst team-based learning.

For advanced knowledge & skills that requires reflective learning, then the academic discourse and debates amongst scholars (peer reviews) in journal articles would be the highest forms of collaboration. I would suggest that this could be a combination of connective and compounding collaboration when it is outside the institution, and all three when it is done inside the institution.

Would there be a fourth form of collaboration? This is a networked collaboration with adaptive, agile and “just in time” sort of collaboration. The nature of collaboration changes in both scope and direction as the individual or collective vision changes. The actors morph along the social media platforms and could collaborate in different modes – from the centre in an ad hoc manner to the peripheral, then gradually return to the centre with a focus of collaboration, with a complex pattern, basing upon the needs and expectations of the actors.  This is adaptive emergent collaboration.

Systemic Transformation

What do we mean by systemic transformation?

Education starts with the learners, for the learners, by the learners.

That is the education that would prepare learners for the challenges, and is relevant to them.

It takes one year to grow crops, ten years to grow trees, but tens of years to grow people.

Let’s start with growing people, via networks, technology, media, and systems.  

Writing Pedagogy

In this new writing pedagogy,

Making Connections

In these online spaces, students and educators write not just to communicate but to connect. Whereas publishing was once the end point in the writing process, it is now a midpoint, the place where the interaction with readers and subsequent conversations begin through comments on or revisions and linking. Sharing one’s writing with a potential global audience is a means to creating networks of learners who share an interest or passion. Their interactions can continue for a lifetime. But while this sharing creates all sorts of opportunities for students, it also creates a new level of complexity that requires they become adept at navigating a more transparent life online and at managing a much more distributed conversation that is carried on asynchronously in many different places. Figuring out how to help students manage those shifts is, in large measure, where schools are struggling right now.

Collaboration and Risks

That collaborative aspect is another important shift to consider, as the Web continues to facilitate more and more opportunities for people to create together. Tools such as AppJet’s EtherPad, a Web-based word processor that allows people to work together in real time, Diigo, a research tool and knowledge-sharing community, and wikis provide spaces for students to roll up their writing sleeves and create together—an act that, again, adds another layer of complexity to the writing process but one that most see as an important skill moving forward. That has implications for every teacher.

The challenges for educators, teachers and learners however would be:

1. Are the learners ready to share their work with others, and display such work in their blogs or wikis opening to public?  What proportion of learners are willing to share such work?

2. Are the learners feeling safe, secure and confident when posting their work onto blogs and wikis?  How would these learners respond to critical comments and spams?  Are they looking for protected space in their blogs?  Are they “open” enough?  How about the privacy issues?

3. Are educators (teachers, coaches, learning technologists, librarians etc.) encouraging their learners to post their work onto their blogs or wikis and share them with the global audience?  Are these blogs or wikis part of the assessment?  Are learners offered choices of blogs and/or wikis?  Are FB, blogs, or wikis mandatory or voluntary tools in a course?

4. What level of support would be given to the learners when using blogs or wikis?

5. Are educators and teachers required to exercise a “duty of care” when their learners are learning through the internet?  What sort of care and precautions are necessary in an online “teaching environment”, especially if the learners are teenagers?

I have more questions than answers.

How would you encourage a culture of  collaborative writing online? Wikis? Blogs?

 What are the implications?