COVID-19 has taught us strategies to adapt with life and carry on with daily living. Since the pandemic, travel has not been the same. Our ONL211 open network platform is a timely initiative that reminded me that without travel, beyond the borders, all of us could still engage in collaborative learning in communities. In my group, we have colleagues from Sweden and Africa. Therefore, respecting time differences between countries and brainstorming effective strategies to work through our assigned tasks was pivotal. Over the last few weeks, we utilized different online platforms such as Mural, Slack, Google doc, and Miro to communicate our ideas further. I have learnt that the concept of “group think” is key in any collaborative group work. Group think allows participants to appreciate group consensus and decisions together (Nhu-Quynh Phan, 2018). To facilitate group think, our group has set some ground rules, example, to inform all members if you are unable to attend one of the PBL sessions, to complete the assigned tasks within the stipulated time frame, to discuss any queries in Slack platform with other team mates. In addition to that, before we even began our group work, we had an ice breaking group activity where we had to introduce ourselves. This ice breaking session allows other members to understand us and from there we had developed trust with one another overtime. Online collaborative learning is an excellent opportunity for us to connect with the work- with just one click! Beyond the learning, it is crucial that we respect each other’s ideas, time differences, cultivate open communication to get the good team work going!
Connected to the World with a ‘Click’: Collaborative Learning In Communities