Activity 5. Collaborative learning emerging trends – facing the (your?) future

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Collaborative learning online

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Consider the collaborative learning ideas and related artefacts you’ve produced in this module. Would they be similar or different if you were attempting them in online environments rather than face-to-face? How? And why? 

Make contact with the central learning and teaching centre at your institution and find out what tools and platforms are available to support collaborative learning in online learning environments. How could you use them with your students? Make some notes for your ePortfolio.

Students as partners 

Watch the following video by Professor Mick Healey.
How do the ideas he’s proposing relate to collaborative learning – especially, perhaps, in light of the What is Collaborative Learning video Links to an external site. from earlier in this module. Do you feel comfortable with the notion of teaching as something we do with students, not to them? If so, why? If not, why not? Make some notes in your ePortfolio. 

Connectivism 

Read the following journal article by George Siemens (check you institution's library for a copy): 

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A learning theory for the digital age. Instructional Technology & Distance Learning, 2(1). Retrieved from http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/article01.htm Links to an external site.

What connections can you make between collaborative learning and his connectivist theory? Is it likely to influence your ideas and collaborative learning, and teaching in general, in the future? How? Make some notes in your ePortfolio.