Online Collaboration

I have now taken a number of online courses and all of them seem to have some component for collaboration. Often this is simply through a discussion forum or message board. Some of my past courses used wikis for collaboration, or synchronous live chat, or even Moodle laboratory. All of these tools have a role to play in establishing successful communication among the members of a class. But in this module I have found that the collaboration in our group has been unparalled. I think that this is in part because the group itself is small. Furthermore by only having one group there is less pressure to expound upon the creations of other teams. It also seems that the rapport created among the members of this small class is much deeper than what might exist in a much larger group.

The creation of our team toolbox was in itself a learning process. But the activity also opened up an exploration of new tools that could be incorporated into online learning environments very easily. I am very excited about hosted systems such as WebEx that contain a variety of programs that enhance communication between group members and also allow an instructor to use vitually any application on a PC to present class materials. This is a whole new world that can extend online education into new roles for the future.