The Usefulness of Collaborative Online Learning

EDU922 has been an interesting experience, allowing me to consider the usefulness of collaborative online learning. Overall, the activities in EDU922 seem to have been designed to have the student become familiar with the idea of e-tivities by working through a set of tasks similar to those in Salmon’s book/model, starting with level one “access and motivation” (Salmon, 2003, p12) and working toward higher level learning, such as week seven’s, critical reflection on practice (stage 5). I feel this has been a fairly successful approach, increasing participants’ familiarisation with what they would expect their own students to experience when collaboratively learning online, as well as with the model itself.

My early posts suggested some suspicion towards Salmon’s model of learning, for example, my first posted stated:

“Specific interest in this module would be that I am not always an advocate for collaborative / group work so I am hoping to be proven wrong” (Gardner, 2010a).

My early suspicion partly influenced by a conference presentation where I had deliberately played devil’s advocate in criticising the conference theme of collaborative learning (Gardner, 2010b). I perhaps still had on my mind the potential to limit online learning’s flexibility by making students progress reliant on collaboration when I posted:

“The ...example...is an interesting one as surely the best solution...would be [to] encourage ongoing communication and collaboration on a topic, not restricting...into cohort groups” (Gardner, 2010c).

I am also always sceptical of models and labels that bracket people or concepts, as complex as learning, into groups and/or stages as they tend to overly simplify the issues involved. For example I would agree w...

... middle of paper ...

...Thinking: Cognitive Development in Social Context. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Salmon, G. (2003). Etivities - The Key to Active Online Learning. London: Kogan Page.

van Blankenstein, F. M., Dolmans, D. H., van der Vleuten, C. P., & Schmidt, H. G. (2009). Which cognitive processes support learning during small-group discussion? The role of providing explanations and listening to others. Instructional Science , 1-16.

Weller, M. (2002). Delivering learning on the Net: the why, what and how of online education. London: Kogan Page.

Wenger, E. (2006, June). Communities of practice. Retrieved March 17, 2010, from Etienne Wenger: http://www.ewenger.com/theory/

Willingham, D. T. (2005). Ask the Cognitive Scientist. Retrieved March 15, 2010, from The American Federation of Teachers: http://www.archive.aft.org/pubs-reports/american_educator/issues/summer2005/cogsci.htm