Collaborate and Communicate

• Compare and contrast a collaborative wiki editing project with traditional in-class group work.
• A collaborative wiki editing project requires students to work with others to accomplish a specific goal.  While traditional in-class group work can be designed to allow a group to reach a common goal, online wiki project participants must work to create a community of practice.  This process is easier in a traditional classroom where learners are collaborating in a face-to-face manner.  In a wiki project, the process of building community requires time and effort.  Participants can begin this process by leaving introductory and welcome messages for their fellow participants.  In the traditional classroom, daily interactions happen with little effort.  While doing a wiki project, participants must interact by actively posting and responding.  These processes can be frustrating to participants when others do not respond in a timely manner.  In a traditional online group project, the community can consist of those people assigned to a specific class.  In a wiki community, the community must reach out and encourage participation through technology resources such as Twitter or email.  Wiki projects allow participants to collaboratively author, which traditional projects can do as well.  Traditional projects may incorporate technology resources, but the face-to-face interaction among participants will change the nature of the collaboration.
• What is the difference between cooperation and collaboration?
• Cooperation involves working with a group to complete a task.  In a cooperative project, the group members typically do different tasks that combined result in a finished project.  Collaboration requires working together with others to achieve a common goal.  Collaboration is a co-creation process, which is a much needed skill for citizens of modern society in that collaborators are actually producing something simultaneously.
• How can collaboration be taught?
• Teachers must first give students the tools they will need to effectively collaborate, including technology resources that make it simple to connect and communicate.  The tools should provide access for meeting, greeting, and interacting.  The tools should also include a collaborative learning space for co-creation.  The tools should also include a real-time virtual classroom for meeting and celebrating.  Finally, workflow mechanisms for research sharing and additional communication must be put into place.
• Teachers must also set clear expectation for how often to contribute, where to contribute, and what format the contribution should take.  
• Teachers should also address the challenges that are encountered in a collaborative environment, including:
• Being willing to adopt and adapt appropriate Web 2.0 tools.
• Being able to foster an online community of practice.
• Being able to set aside a chunk of classroom time for involvement in the project.
• Having an imaginative and risk-taking nature.
• Being able to work toward and meet deadlines.
• Being flexible and patient when connections and tools do not always work.