This section was developed by Michele Brannon-Hamilton, July 2010. I compiled information from our whole group to create the OER Summary.

Conclusion

Collaboration is not new but with increased internet access people are able to collaborate with others almost anywhere without the boundaries of time or space. We live in a social world where people are connected globally. Therefore, they need collaborative skills to succeed in today’s world. People are now collaborating in all areas of their lives by gathering information and sharing ideas with other people.

Health care professionals, educators and business people use collaborative tools to solve problems and create new knowledge.

Thank you for spending the week with us as we investigated collaborative technology.

Reflection

At the end of the week, please read our group reflection which will be posted here and in the course weblog. Feel free to share your experiences with us as well. What did you learn here? Did you create new knowledge for your classmates?

Our OER Summary

Thank you everyone for your contributions to group 8’s weblog discussion, Google Site and Google Spreadsheet. We learned a lot from you about collaborative tools, earthquakes and volcanoes.

Here is a summary of our discoveries:

Collaboration

• People contributed to and learned from our Google Site.

• We learned more about earthquakes, volcanoes and collaboration from our classmates than we knew on our own. We even learned safety measures.

• Everyone was able to learn through the eyes of those who experienced earthquakes and volcanoes personally.

• Our classmates collaborated to solve the problem of pop-ups which is a testament to the idea of collaboration itself.

• Collaboration improved the site which demonstrates the power of collaboration to enhance learning.

• We learned about the people we were collaborating with, our classmates, through their sharing of their own experiences with volcanoes and earthquakes.

Collaborative Tools

• “One size does not fit all” – We learned our peers are happy with Google Docs but are not quite as happy with Google Sites. They also like other collaborative tools like wikis etc.

• Many people had not heard of Zoho tools and Microsoft applications.

• It seems our classmates feel a 1:1 ratio of computers to students is the best fit for the use of collaborative tools.

• Our group believes that mobile technology and Internet/collaborative tools will be closely associated and will evolve together.

• As educators, we need to define who makes the final decision when choosing collaborative tools. It could be the teacher or the administrator for example.

• Several of us referred to Bates and Poole’s SECTIONS model – one student wondered if these tools are novelties when talking about f2f primary students.

• Our classmates introduced us to the idea of using collaborative tools for ESL students and with students of different cultures.

• Everyone had different experiences with collaborative tools. For example, our classmates experienced problems with pop-ups but we didn’t. We learned that educators should test tools as students before using them.

Top reasons for choosing a collaboration tool

• Ease of use and intuitiveness – eg. Easy setup and doesn’t take too much time for teachers to learn

• Cost effectiveness

• Ability to track students' efforts - use as an assessment tool – our group hadn’t really delved into this idea

• IT support should something go wrong - also support for training and assistance when a product is being used for the first time in a class

Problems with Collaborative Tools

• A Google Site might not look professional enough but perhaps it will with practice. Our group believes Google apps will probably change to meet user demand.

• Teachers have a repertoire of free collaborative tools to choose from but we realized from our classmates that privacy is a concern (e.g. Google gathers our personal information and we can get pop-ups). From our classmates input, we realized administrators may have to investigate privacy issues before allowing educators to use these tools with students; therefore, perhaps administrators should have final approval with feedback from IT departments and teachers who wish to use a particular tool.

• Pop-ups was a new experience for our group and we now wonder if this problem might diminish the professionalism of Google Sites and maybe it isn’t good to use with students.

• The instructor does not have full control of the software and can be logged off the system or unable to access students` work. This can be time consuming and very frustrating.

• The companies offering free sites such as Google Sites may not feel the need to solve all of the IT glitches or answer all of the users’ questions as they are providing the program free of charge.

New Questions

• How do contributors feel about deleting information they don’t like that someone has contributed?

• We wonder if primary students are the best group to start with when introducing technology – if not, when? They will use these tools throughout school so maybe we should expose them to the tools at an early age.

• At what age level do we introduce these collaborative tools?

• Is the fee-charged collaboration tool better than the free one?

• Someone mentioned cloud computing but there was little mention of teacher –teacher collaboration. Are teachers using cloud computing to work together?

Conclusion and Future Potential

• It would be interesting to look beyond the Google apps educational features to determine how these tools are used in big companies or other areas of business.

• Our classmates determined that the intent of the technology is more important than the technology itself.

• Even though there were problems like pop-ups, our classmates liked collaboration tools and our group learned a lot from our classmates.

Thank you for spending the week investigating collaborative tools with us. We enjoyed your input into our discussion and our Google site. We will post this summary and reflection in our wiki and we will send you an update later in the week regarding our Google Site.

Group 8

Michele Brannon-Hamilton

Dominic Smith

Carol Chuu

Tak Yamada

Sheri Johnson

Mark Barrett