Nicki Dabner

I agree wholehearedly with Marsha's comment- modelling is extremely powerful. I also describe the form of online communication we will use as 'written speak' and what we are aiming for is 'quality conversations'......hmmm...
Nicki

When you work collaboratively, how do you organize your work? What tools do you use? If you teach or lead collaborative teams, how do you guide others and how much structure do you provide? What electronic tools do you use?

Hi everybody, thought I'd be brave and share a model I developed and use within one of my online GDipTchLn (pre-service teacher education) visual art course.Students can choose to complete an assessment task individually or collaboratively within the final 3 weeks of the 10 week course. By this time, they have developed into a 'community' ( I put a lot of emphasis upon relationship/ trust building early on).Students choose their own groups (max size 6)- each group creating a long term visual art plan for a different age group.The model is provided as a suggested way of working- I do not police it's use- just believe it's good to have a scaffold available.

Each group has their own 'workspace' within my course site and has full admin rights- site includes WIKI, threaded discussion, real time chat space- but they can customise this to suit.Some also use skype. I join each site as a member and act as a resource if required as they work.Timeframes are set within the main course site, and within my bi-weekly updates I reflect upon what is happening across the groups. Exemplars are available to all groups prior to the task being started.Groups can also chat within the main course site

Finally, groups can elect to 'dropbox' their completed plans within a central sharing space- these are then put onto a CD for all those who participated in the sharing and sent when the course has concluded.

When I first developed this scaffold, I conducted a research project with my first group of participants ( what are the +ve's and -ves of working collaboratively online)- I now share these findings with my new groups before the task begins, as this will hopefully help them choose which way to work. Interestingly, although they can work independently, the vast majority choose to work collaboratively!! ...The quality of the work produced by my online groups for this task is actually higher than within our F2F groups .

Feedback from students has been extremely positive!See this as a parallel/ sequential way of working.

Nicki :o)

Greetings everybody, I too have lurked for quite a while! I am a senior lecturer at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand (lord of the rings country). I work within Teacher Education( Visual Art/ Professional Studies and practice) and graduate diploma ICT (online teaching and learning). I have a particular interest in online collaborative approaches, and ways to successfully scaffold these within bounded courses....have developed a range of strategies within my fully online courses (visual art and OTL). I passionate about community building (F2F and online), like to use blogs and WIKI's ...and I possibly drive other academic staff mad because I want to convert them all (sigh...)

May not be able to join in live but will follow up with enthusiasm!
Arohanui
Nicki