Collaborative Learning

When a computer-based tool or application is used to carry out a specific task in a learning situation—that is, it is used for learning—more effectively or efficiently one speaks of learning with the tool or application. When, possibly, that same tool or application is used to enhance the way a learner works and thinks, and as such has effects that reach further than the learning situation in which it is used, then one speaks of learning from the tool or application. This article concentrates on the latter. It zooms in on the use of mindtools in education—computer programs and applications that facilitate meaningful professional thinking and working—because this is the epitome of learning from ICT. Mindtools and cognitive tools help users represent what they know as they transform information into knowledge and are used to engage in, and facilitate, critical thinking and higher order learning. These tools can be as simple as email and or discussion lists and as complicated as argume...

Il progetto ha coinvolto un centinaio di studenti di scuole superiori del Veneto impegnati nell’editazione di Wikipedia su voci relative ai Beni Culturali della Regione. L’attività ha stimolato l’acquisizione di competenze di carattere disciplinare e trasversale (competenze digitali in senso stretto, relazionali, etiche) sensibilizzando gli studenti alla partecipazione e al lavoro collaborativo finalizzato a produrre artefatti digitali percepiti come utili alla comunità. I risultati dimostrano, dal punto di vista degli studenti, una crescita dell’autostima, della motivazione ad apprendere, ed una maggiore consapevolezza del processi di apprendimento; per gli insegnanti si registra una notevole fiducia in Wikipedia che cresce dopo l’esperienza fatta e contribuisce a considerarla strumento efficace nella didattica, motivante e di empowerment personale e sociale.
This project involved a hundred high-school students in the Veneto Region, who edited Wikipedia entries about the region’s cultural heritage. The activity stimulated competence acquisition in the digital, relational, ethical and curricular spheres, and fostered students’ participation in a collaborative task aimed at producing digital artifacts perceived as useful to the local and broader communities. The results indicate students’ growing self-esteem, motivation to learn, and greater awareness of the learning process. Teachers demonstrated firm and growing trust in Wikipedia, as they increasingly consider it an effective teaching tool able to motivate, and as a trigger of personal and social empowerment.

There have been signicant advances in the eld of Implicit Rating as it is computationally
less expensive and less biased than Explicit Rating. Collaborative Filtering techniques are widely
used in Rating and Recommender systems for product based applications. Many techniques have
come up which try to predict user ratings based on history but there is still scope of improvement.
In the Implicit Rating system, in which only the past user activity is available but there are
no actual ratings, there is an uncertainty of interpretation. There are only few common implicit
rating based techniques and algorithms. This report focuses on a common matrix factorization
method for the implicit rating problem. We establish the importance of implicit rating and then
state advantages/disadvantages of various techniques while elaborating on matrix factorization.

Our poster describes a collaborative, experiential learning approach to teaching ANT 441: Advanced Bioarchaeology1. We employ collaborative learning (where students work on a common task, share information, support one another and then reflect on the process)1, as an alternative to what can be perceived as the overemphasis on competition in an academic setting. While a number of international field schools offer practical experience in the excavation of human remains from a cemetery context for academic credit, we found most students cannot afford these field schools, and/or must work during the summer months (when excavation opportunities are offered) to support their education costs. Our cemetery project provides a low-cost alternative where participants gain the basic skills to excavate, recover and document a burial, and acquire a clear understanding of the importance of contextual information for burial interpretation. We facilitate learning by establishing the project objectives, providing associated learning tasks, and guiding the weekly cemetery project meetings. Students are given the freedom to decide the analyses needed to achieve their goal, learn to articulate their rationale in using particular methods of analysis, perform collaborative data analysis and assess the accuracy and logic of one another’s contributions - becoming more experienced, independent researchers as a result. We promote the participation and learning of all group members by monitoring students’ learning, managing time and resources, and checking that students are on task and engaging with the group process. The course project is divided into a series of manageable learning assessments that build on each other, and increase in complexity. We found scaffolding reduces anxiety over completion of a complex assignment, gives those who procrastinate a solid starting point, offers more opportunities for support and feedback, affords the opportunity to make mistakes in a safe environment, and provides students with a solid sense of accomplishment as they progress through the steps. Students gain critical thinking, decision making, and problem solving skills through an iterative process as new variables are introduced, and ultimately comprehend the advantages and challenges of a collaborative culture of shared responsibility.

Introduction
Introduction by Patrick R. Lowenthal

Trends and Issues with Online Learning
From Reluctant and Reticent to Engaged and Enthusiastic: The Passage to Online Teaching
Susan Giullian

Preparing Special Education Teachers Through Online Instruction
Donna Sobel

Using eCollege to Facilitate Learning, Provide for Program Coherence, Manage Accountability Innovations, and Ensure the Evolution of a Principal Licensure Program
Connie Fulmer

Make, Share, Find: Web 2.0 and Informal Learning
Phil Antonelli

Technology in Action
The Advantages of a Ning Social Network Within a Higher Education Program
Laura Summers

Fresh and Forward-thinking: Using Blogs for Educational Purposes
Joanna C. Dunlap & Ellen Stevens

Hanging on by a Thread
Dorothy F. Garrison-Wade

Instructional Uses of Twitter
Joanna C. Dunlap & Patrick R. Lowenthal

Using Audio for Giving Feedback to Project Teams: A Useful Complement to Track Changes
Brent G. Wilson

Wordle… Just for Phluff?
Joanna C. Dunlap

A Teaching Video Project Brought to Closure
Farah A. Ibrahim

Improving the Design of PowerPoint Presentations
Patrick R. Lowenthal

Emerging Tools and Applications
Audacity
Ning
Blogger
PBworks
Bubbl.us
Picnik
Delicious
ScreenSteps Desktop
Facebook
Songza
Flickr
SkyDrive
Google Docs
Skype
Google Reader
Twitter
iSpring
Ustream
Jing VoiceThread
Media Converter
Youtube
MyPodcast
Zotero

Resources
Down-and-dirty Guidelines for Effective Discussions in Online Courses
Joanna C. Dunlap

Protocols for Online Discussions
Joanna C. Dunlap

Improving the Odds of Effective Collaborative Work in Online Courses
Joanna C. Dunlap

An innovative and interactive educational process is being developed in engi-neering classes at the University of Washington, using newly devised learn-ing strategies from industry and academia combined with a unique teaching approach: integrated teams. The teams have evolved in such a way that they currently consist of professors and industry leaders as integrators and cata-lysts; senior graduate students and field specialists as facilitators; and other graduate, undergraduate, and continuing education students with diverse experiences and backgrounds. They are fused together through experiential learning and real life projects in which all are stakeholders and have a chance to influence their outcomes in real time. This non-traditional approach, based on “compete and collaborate ” learning principles, creates a dynamic learning environment by incorporating teaming concepts into teaching, learning, and facilitation. The evolving methodology of this alternative has been applied in s...

The aim of this research was to explore whether the use of mobile technology contributed to develop thinking skills, learning and musical performance. The population included students with a BA and MA degrees who participated in the 'Composition and improvisation in real-time' course. They used technological-musical tools (Ableton Live and M4L), turning computer, tablet devices and smartphones into a 'laptop ensemble'. The research method included questionnaires that were given to students at the beginning and end of the course and in-depth interviews with students during and after the course. Findings indicated that the pedagogic model studied, which examined an innovative teaching-learning strategy, established digital-musical literacy and led to meaningful learning, while experiential experience during musical performance in the group.

This paper reports on the impact of the implementation of active and collaborative practices in ICT (information and communication technologies) classrooms. Both of these approaches convey a lot of responsibility from the teacher to the students and the hoping, as backed up by the literature, is to promote deeper learning and reasoning skills at a higher level. The question is: how do you do all that? This research describes a specific environment that makes use of collaborative tools, like wikis and forums within an e-learning platform and of specific CRM (customer relationship management) software. In order to analyze how this learning environment gets learners actively involved in learning and working together in productive ways, students were surveyed by responding to questionnaires. Several cause-effect relations underlying the teaching-learning methodology and the students ’ performance are discussed. 1.

Teaching chemistry particularly at a historically black college and university (HBCU) involves understanding and being aware of the cultural and intellectual diversity of the class. Therefore, it is imperative that instructional methodologies include creative and alternative pedagogical approaches that enhance student performance. Collaborative learning strategies were used to transform a failing biochemistry class into motivated, critical thinkers whose interest in research careers were enhanced through this process. Through collaborative learning we have decreased failing rates by 50% on biochemistry examinations. Attrition rates have dropped drastically and there has been a remarkable improvement on the final examination, which includes the ACS biochemistry examination, by 18% over two years. This collaborative approach has changed the way that students study chemistry and the way that instruction is delivered.

Keynote delivered for "Holocaust Remembrance and Representation," a conference to aid planning for the first Holocaust museum in Sweden.  This is a concise and, I think, quite accessible summary of a way of engaging Holocaust survivors and their accounts that differs from the conventional "testimony" model.  Based on nearly fifty years of work with survivors, the approach described here is grounded in multiple interviews (sometimes over years), deepening conversation, sustained exploration rather than simply declaration ("this I witnessed"), and collaborative intepretation and reflection.  Real relationships matter in what, how, and whether survivors retell ("learning together" as one survivor put it).  That approach also impacts whether survivors and their recounting live on in _other_ conversations which, the talk argues, is the only earthly way any of us live on.

Imagine that you have eight days to teach introduction to qualitative research. What would you include? How would you present the basics? Which readings would you require? How would you keep your students attention throughout each 6-hour day? The challenges of such a condensed course can be stifling but the potential is immense. In this presentation, I discuss the ways in which I engaged a class of first semester graduate students in an intensive hands-on, student-centered course in qualitative research. Outcomes of the class included four student researched small case studies, one student-faculty international conference presentation, and the development of a student-faculty journal publication. While these outcomes help to demonstrate an overall level of comprehension, I continue to think about the class as a whole. This presentation seeks to open discussion on the topic of teaching pedagogy within qualitative research in general and on student knowledge retention in particular.

Link: https://www.grao.com/es/producto/escriptura-i-perspectiva-ar07380315

En escriure sobre textos històrics, pot ser profitós manejar fonts diverses. Això invita a mirar el contingut dels orígens de la informació trobada des d’una perspectiva que introdueix la complexitat i que obliga a pensar, cosa que implica formular lingüísticament el que es pensa. D’aquí a la reflexió metalingüística sobre el text i sobre la situació comunicativa només hi ha un pas. Mostrarem de quina manera això s’esdevé a partir de l’experimentació amb una seqüència didàctica en una aula de quart d’ESO.

Although medical curricula are now better structured for integration of biomedical sciences and clinical training, most teaching and learning activities still follow the older teacher-centric discipline-specific formats. A newer pedagogical approach, known as Collaborative Learning Cases (CLCs), was adopted in the medical school to facilitate integration and collaborative learning. Before incorporating CLCs into the curriculum of year 1 students, two pilot runs using the action research method was carried out to improve the design of CLCs. Methods: We employed the four-phase Kemmis and McTaggart's action research spiral in two cycles to improve the design of CLCs. A class of 300 first-year medical students (for both cycles), 11 tutors (first cycle), and 16 tutors (second cycle) were involved in this research. Data was collected using the 5-points Likert scale survey, open-ended questionnaire, and observation. Results: From the data collected, we learned that more effort was required to train the tutors to understand the principles of CLCs and their role in the CLCs sessions. Although action research enables the faculty to improve the design of CLCs, finding the right technology tools to support collaboration and enhance learning during the CLCs remains a challenge. Conclusion: The two cycles of action research was effective in helping us design a better learning environment during the CLCs by clarifying tutors' roles, improving group and time management, and meaningful use of technology.

— This paper proposes a collaborative system based on WebRTC technology to improve digital universities e-Learning environment. It allows teachers and students, through a web browser, to communicate via chat, audio and camera. It also supports file transfer and screen sharing for computer connected lab equipment. All these features are functional in an IP environment without need for Internet access. For its design and realization, we had to implement a WebRTC signalisation server to manage real-time applications, using the three WebRTC APIs: MediaStream for the acquisition and synchronization of audio and video, Peer Connection for communication between user's browsers and RTCDataChannel for file transfer, Chat and Screen Sharing.

La necesaria innovación en los procesos de enseñanza aprendizaje de las Matemáticas, teniendo como referente el vertiginoso avance de las Tecnologías de la Información y de la Comunicación TIC, que evolucionan los ambientes escolares, obliga a indagar sobre nuevos modelos de intervención pedagógica en el aula, mediante recursos digitales, muchos de ellos disponibles en repositorios virtuales, a la manera de Objetos Interactivos de Aprendizaje, OIA,  como los puestos al servicio del sistema educativo en el área de las Matemáticas, por la Red Educativa Digital Descartes. Dichos modelos deben ser puestos a prueba para determinar su fiabilidad y eficiencia. Por ello dentro del programa de investigación: «Apropiación Pedagógica de las TIC en las Escuelas Innovadoras del Centro de Innovación Educativo Regional CIER Occidente», se llevó a cabo el proyecto de investigación: «Evaluación del Impacto del Uso de Objetos de Aprendizaje Interactivos a través de la Herramienta Descartes JS con Estudiantes de Matemáticas de Cuarto y Quinto Grado de Básica Primaria», por parte de la Institución Universitaria Pascual Bravo, en las Escuelas Innovadoras Débora Arango Pérez de Medellín y Primitivo Leal La Doctora de Sabaneta, y cuyos resultados son objeto, del presente artículo.

Understanding how groups talk, think and act is essential for contemporary educational practice. The body of research within assessment of collaborative learning, dialogic learning and oracy is substantial, but the practical outcome of this research is currently limited.

If we value the capacity for learners to talk, think and work collectively, we must produce pragmatic and practical tools for observation, assessment and intervention.

This paper acts as a field work study in which differing assessment methods from across collaborative learning, dialogic learning and oracy are trailed within varied collaborative and dialogic events. This paper reflects upon the applicability and impact of using these methods in an attempt promote further study, with a long term goal of refining methods of assessment into a practical toolkit for educators and to inform the design of group work activities in the future.

There is an enormous need for education to teach students what are termed 21 st-century skills. One might ask why this sudden shift and attention are given to certain skills. Reality provides an answer. In the job market, for instance, the traditional way of teaching seems to produce more jobless people simply because the requirements of the economy do not match the desired result of 12years, at the minimum, of learning in schools. Why do not we update the methods of teaching? People say, "If it is not broken, do not fix it." Actually, it is broken. Therefore, teachers attempt to focus on the teaching of 21 st-century skills through some strategies and techniques. In this study, the researcher investigates the existence of 21 stcentury skills, mainly the Four Cs; Critical thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, and Communication, and the effectiveness of some strategies used to promote these skills.

Sharing knowledge across projects is a necessary challenge to ensure the competitive advantage of organizations. With temporary structures, multiple roles, multiple activities, and limited time, the project-based organization needs to retain the knowledge gained in a project and share it with others. “Lessons learned” processes are implemented in order to systematize the transfer of this knowledge, with the main challenge being the mobilization of people to record their experiences in a database. The stored knowledge, however, needs to be validated before being shared and appropriately classified in one of the three main categories: Best Practices, Lessons Learned, and Points for Attention. This study shows the benefits of a checklist / action plan for ensuring the effectiveness of the validation stage, since failures during this stage may jeopardize the initial effort to mobilize project teams to record their experiences and learning.

งานวิจัยครั้งนี้มีวัตถุประสงค์เพื่อ 1) ออกแบบรูปแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงด้วยวิธีการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเพื่อพัฒนาทักษะด้านการทำงานร่วมกัน 2) ประเมินรูปแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงด้วยวิธีการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเพื่อพัฒนาทักษะด้านการทำงานร่วมกันโดยผู้เชี่ยวชาญ แบ่งออกเป็น 2 ขั้นตอน คือ 1) การออกแบบรูปแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงด้วยวิธีการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเพื่อพัฒนาทักษะด้านการทำงานร่วมกัน 2) การประเมินรูปแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงด้วยวิธีการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเพื่อพัฒนาทักษะด้านการทำงานร่วมกันโดยผู้เชี่ยวชาญ กลุ่มเป้าหมาย คือ ผู้เชี่ยวชาญด้านการออกแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงและผู้เชี่ยวชาญด้านการเรียนการสอนด้วยวิธีเรียนรู้ร่วมกัน จำนวน 5 ท่าน ได้โดยการเลือกแบบเฉพาะเจาะจง (Purposive Selection) เครื่องมือที่ใช้ในการวิจัย คือ รูปแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงด้วยวิธีการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเพื่อพัฒนาทักษะด้านการทำงานร่วมกัน แบบประเมินรับรองรูปแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงด้วยวิธีการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเพื่อพัฒนาทักษะด้านการทำงานร่วมกัน สถิติที่ใช้ในการวิเคราะห์วิจัย ค่าเฉลี่ยเลขคณิต และส่วนเบี่ยงเบนมาตรฐาน ผลการวิจัยพบว่า 1) รูปแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงด้วยวิธีการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเพื่อพัฒนาทักษะด้านการทำงานร่วมกัน ประกอบด้วย 4 องค์ประกอบ คือ 1.1) การวิเคราะห์ปัญหาการเรียนการสอน 1.2) การเตรียมก่อนการเรียนการสอน 1.3)  การจัดการเรียนการสอน ซึ่งประกอบด้วย 2 ขั้นตอน 1.3.1) การเรียนผ่านอุปกรณ์เคลื่อนที่ 1.3.2) การเรียนในห้องเรียน 1.4) การวัดและการประเมินผล
2) ผู้เชี่ยวชาญจำนวน 5 ท่าน ทำการประเมินรูปแบบการเรียนการสอนมีความคิดเห็นว่า รูปแบบการเรียนการสอนผ่านเอ็มเลิร์นนิงด้วยวิธีการเรียนรู้ร่วมกันเพื่อพัฒนาทักษะด้านการทำงานร่วมกันมีความเหมาะสม

With the dawn of a new educational act, it’s easy to blame policy like No Child Left Behind (NCLB) for the lack of sustainable museum-school collaborations or partnerships. While policy has advanced the formal educational world, perception has prevented legislative growth in the museum sector. This dissertation attempts to explore the communicative barriers beyond NCLB with a review of relevant works, a small case study at George Washington’s Mount Vernon, and a survey conducted between teachers and museum professionals.

The recent shift in museum pedagogy gives voice to the idea that museum’s role in society goes beyond the care and preservation of material culture, to an educational responsibility to the public. As educational institutions, museums are natural partners for schools, but long-standing collaborative programming or partnerships are often rare. Understanding the differences in the two institutions is a vital first step for bridging the communicative gap and the relationship between museum and schools. For teachers, the accountability atmosphere is often difficult to deal with, and having a viable partner can take some burden off the stresses of standards. Are teachers, and subsequently policy makers, seeing museums as a way to fill this need for educators? Or is the previous perception of museums holding them back as viable resources?

En la educación interactiva a distancia el aprendizaje colaborativo se convierte en una estrategia importante que soporta la interacción y el
trabajo en grupo entre los actores, permitiendo desarrollar procesos de adquisición y construcción de conocimientos. En la inteligencia artificial
la colaboración se realiza con la ayuda de agentes, ontologías y bases de conocimiento. Las ontologías permiten definir y representar los términos que se usan en un cierto dominio, para que luego puedan ser reutilizados y compartidos. Este trabajo plantea una ontología, utilizando la metodología Methontology para su desarrollo, que representa el modelo del aprendizaje colaborativo, los elementos que lo conforman, así como las reglas de los procesos de gestión en la interacción siguiendo las pautas propias de una ambiente empresarial.