Emma Duke-Williams

Colby Stuart wrote,

What I have experienced is that the most important collaborative tool that each of us has is our imagination.

Colby - I love the picture you're painting! I've used this quote in another thread - where it also fitted in: http://scope.bccampus.ca/mod/forum/discuss.php?d=11901

Interesting points, Paul & Nicholas.

One thing that I think has come out of this discussion very much for me is the differences in ways that we approach how we do things. In another thread,

Colby Stuart wrote,

What I have experienced is that the most important collaborative tool that each of us has is our imagination. Without that, we are simply robots regurgitating information. Many of those blessed with a vivid imagination are poo-pooed by those who expound on information knowledgeably.

And I think it's those differences between us that can lead to fabulous examples of working together, collaboratively, but can also lead to tensions when there are different priorities of approach. I wonder how we can work together.

I can see Nicholas' point about needing to be clear about the situation that we're working in - I've often felt that staff (personal) development is something we don't always consider in the same way that we consider student learning (for example, do we think about pedagogies when we're thinking about working with others on a shared project) - yet often we're doing something that by its very nature involves us in learning.

That's one of the reasons I was keen to look at how we're using these tools ourselves - as my personal view is that it's really useful to feel I've used a tool to learn from others. I guess, were you to pin me down, I'd probably say that it's pretty much a Vygotskyian approach to learning - but not always - though not quite sure what I'd have as the alternative (unless we start to look at connectivism etc)

Paul Beaufait wrote,

A short and silly answer is collaboration fever$: more to the point are:

Actually, I don't think that it is a "silly" answer; I think that we have to decide what's best for the time/place. That's one of the reasons we'd wanted to focus this seminar more on the "tools" than the "pedagogies".

I've felt in the past that we've also used Google Docs because it's "collaborative", when, as you say, it would have been easier (and saved lots of formatting issues) to have used Word & those that prefer Open Office / whatever just having to put up with the choice (though with Google Docs, chances are someone would have preferred Zoho!)

I wonder if this starts to get us back to the discussion of what's the actual key aim ... to enhance collaboration & develop collaborative skills; or the product that's being worked on. Perhaps that also helps to make a choice.

I see that someone's added quite a few Social Bookmarking tools to the Mindmap; I wonder if they are a good way into Collaboration with students, as they're relatively non-threatening; and can be useful to others if you're working as a group (e.g. with a shared course specific tag).

I've been trying recently to get students to use Scholar, as we've got that incorporated into the VLE (So it does things like picking up a course tag quite easily) - though I've not found students to be particularly keen.

(They weren't that keen on delicious either, the previous year ... guess I didn't bribe them enough with marks!)

Emma

Jenny Mackness wrote,

I find it difficult to interpret other people's mind maps.

Yes, I think that's one of the critical things that I find - also that I equally don't expect other people to understand my way of linking thoughts!

That said, I was helping a friend at the weekend design her website & we ended up doing a kind of mind map of all the stuff that she wanted it it. That did make sense & we both had a similar view on the structure. Wonder if it was so easy because we think in broadly similar ways anyway - or if it was what we were trying to do was just pretty obvious. Whatever, it made sense!