It seems like only yesterday that collaborations consisted of a group of people meeting in a physical location discussing topics in an attempt to draw closer to a paramount answer but distance education has amended this modeled. As stated by Seiman, more people are accepting the idea of participating in distance education (Laureate, 2008). As distance education continues to flourish, new methods of collaboration are being developed and experienced in order to effectively communicate with one another. In a face to face environment, you are only able to communicate with the participants that are in the room with you. Collaborating in distance education allows participants to communicate outside of their normal parameters. Participants are able to communicate with people around the world synchronously (Laureate, 2008).
As technology continues to take over our schools, business, and homes, collaboration becomes an essential skill to acquire. Technology has completely changed the way individuals communicate with one another. We are equipped with on-line tools like Wiki’s, Blogging, voice stream, You Tube, and Google Docs that all serve the purpose of providing collaboration.
Reference:
Laureate Education, Inc. (Producer). (2008). Distance education: Higher education, K12, and the corporate world featuring Dr. Michael Simonson. United States: [Audio podcast]. Retrieved from http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4199707&Survey=1&47=4862829&ClientNodeID=984645&coursenav=1&bhcp=1
Great Post!
ReplyDeleteWhich of those collaborating applications do you you think yields the best results? Have you seen Google Wave? I found it when I was researching our other project and it is very interesting, especially for collaboration.
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ReplyDeleteThank you,
ReplyDeleteI think that face to face and online collaborations are both great depending on your preference. I think that someone that is a "social butterfly” might prefer a face to face collaboration model; because they would be able to get immediate feedback. The conversation would just flow. Where as when collaborating online you have to wait for the other participants to respond. The down fall to face to face collaboration is synchronizing a time and place to publicly meet, commuting to the location, and etc. Where as online collaboration can take place in your comfort zone. My personal preference is online. I think it suits my personality. I am not much of a talker so online collaboration gives me the opportunity to think about what I want to say before sharing my opinion and expertise. The best part is if I mess up I can just erase, just like the comment above lol.
Thanks for sharing Google Wave; I have not heard of it. You know Google is awesome; they have the answers for everything.
Latonya
ReplyDeleteNice Job.
On your comment, "Collaborating in distance education allows participants to communicate outside of their normal parameters" I like your focus on normal parameters. In the past, all we knew were physical school environments. I am curious to see if the normal parameters of the past lead to eLearning being normal parameters and possibly the hybrid model that Dr. Siemens described
Great post, LaTonya! It is amazing that just maybe only 10-20 years ago, the majority of people had never heard of a text message, You Tube, Skype, Wikis, and so forth. There has been a technological boom in the past 10 years for sure. You are right when you said that more people are accepting distance education. At the elementary school where I teach, there are so many teachers who are working on degrees that are from an online university. We are definitely living in a technological society. I just wander, what will they think of next??
ReplyDeleteNicole