Adrienne Kajewski's List: EDIT 517

• It has been suggested that the role of the instructor is pivotal in the development of online learning communities (Collins & Berge, 1996; Hiltz, 1998; Palloff & Pratt, 1999). The manner in which this role is approached depends on the characteristics and beliefs of the instructor (Lounsbury & DeNeui, 1996), including educational philosophies (Collins & Berge, 1996; Hiltz, 1998; Palloff & Pratt, 1999; Paulsen, 1995), perceptions of self as either connected or separate (Gilligan, 1982) and perceptions of their role. Other considerations include the instructor's online experience, the nature of the social environment they develop, and the manner in which they manage the learning environment (Collins & Berge, 1996; Palloff & Pratt, 1999).

  • Coach Carole philosophy is Lead, Follow, then get out of the way.
• Essential in the formation of all communities is the purpose that the community serves in the lives of its members (Hawley, 1950; Sarason, 1974
• Analysis of contemporary literature suggests the possibility of describing the processes and procedures for developing an online learning community as a model containing a chain of events that comprise presage, process and product factors. Presage factors outline the conditions for community development, process factors outline the strategies employed by the instructor to develop sense of community, and product factors outline the sense of community experience, among other outcomes.

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• While technology changes rapidly, people do not. People want to use tools that look and feel like tools they’ve always used, and will tend to adopt tools only if they see a clear benefit either in productivity or in savings. (Starr, 2003)
• Traditionally, people have been seen to learn either as individuals or in groups. This characterization of organization is not unique to education; it is very common to talk of (say) the needs of the individual versus the needs of the state. This characterization, however, glosses over the possibility that there may be more or less cohesive ways of organizing people, thus allowing for a middle point between the individual and the group: the network.
• Networks are distinct from groups in that they preserve individual autonomy and promote diversity of belief, purpose and methodology. In a network, however, people do not act as disassociated individuals, but rather, cooperate in a series of exchanges that can produce, not merely individual goods, but also social goods.
• • These are the extra groups that have emerged as off shoots from the original MOOC group
• In the case of informal learning, however, the structure is much looser.
• The personal learning environment, however, is not based on the principle of access to resources. It should more accurately be viewed as a mechanism to interact with multiple services. (Milligan, 2006) The personal learning environment is more of a conferencing tool than it is a content tool. The focus of a personal learning environment is more on creation and communication than it is consumption and completion. It is best to think of the interfaces facilitated by a personal learning environment as ways to create and manipulate content, as applications rather than resources.

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• I know from my F2F work that collaboration is a powerful agent for getting things done, for creating change and for extending resources to their farthest imaginable limits

• While at present there is a tremendous amount of online cooperation, this is not the same as collaboration
• If online communities cannot foster collaboration then they will fall short of the hype and ambitions they have set for themselves. Conversely, communities that figure out how to enable their members to collaborate (as opposed to merely cooperate) may end up having a decisive advantage.
• I would argue that collaboration, unlike cooperation, requires the parties involved in a project jointly solve problems.
• People approach problems with, among other things, different assumptions, stated and unstated goals, and data sets. Effective collaboration requires people to share these differences and resolve them.

  • This is the critical key point to the whole discussion!!!
• From what I can tell online projects only exasperate the challenges of face to face collaboration. Without personal relationships, trust, body language or even intonation, it is easy for communication to break down. Consequently, it is difficult for people to resolve differences, exchange ideas, or brainstorm freely. In short, it is difficult to collaborate.
• collaboration is inherently conflictual. Most ideas spring from parties sharing differing, conflicting perspectives and jointly working to develop a solution that meets both their interests. Eliminate all conflict and you eliminate the opportunity for new ideas. However, too much conflict and the opportunities for collaboration diminish.
• <!--[endif]-->Develop online communities with built in methodologies and processes that encourage or even compel users to jointly solve problems. Here one can imagine an online community that forces users to work through Chris Argyris’ ladder of inference. While likely more difficult to design, such a system could compel users to be collaborative (possibly even regardless of their intentions).

  • most ambitious and yet most likely to achieve true collaborative behaviours.

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• This article was written back in 2007 when Wkis and online tools were still in their infancy. I believe with the arrival of Google docs and wordprocessing in real time in the 'cloud' that we are getting closer to having the truly online collaborative tools that beltzner was desiring in his comment to this blog post. Likewise I would think Wikispaces etc have jumped on board with real time editing etc. - Adrienne Kajewski on 2011-08-02