Pathways for network collaborative learning is the title we chose for the pictogram that my PBL-group (Group 7) produced as the outcome for Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked collaborative learning. During this topic, our group really walked the talk!
We had an interesting discussion about the topic in general, highlighting its complexity and the many perspectives that can be considered. We used the ?-document to document our ideas about various foci-areas and things to explore. We worked on the fish document while everybody was online so we could – as a community – create new ideas with the help of each other’s throughts. We decided to make a pictogram using Canva and we explored together how to use it – again in a very collaborative way, not just letting the person who is good at one thing do it, but encouraging and helping each other to test the various functions and options.
The process of producing the final pictogram offered several opportunities for practicing learning in our community in a collaborative manner. We decided to look for various resources to back/support the ideas that we decided to highlight and even here we helped each other with tips. One person in the group found herself in a remote village without access to internet, thus not able to access the online environment so, instead, she called me on the phone. Luckily, I had sent her an sms a few days before to let her know what the group had decided in a meeting she had missed, so she had my phone number (we had entered the phone numbers in the ?-document at the beginning of the course, but without internet she could not access the list…). Another group member had proposed to highlight the differences between cooperative learning and collaborative learning and we wanted to find good picture to illustrate this. Unfortunately, the suitable photos that were available on Canva were not free so we had to use our own imagination and resources – said and done! Several group participants were on whatsapp and we exchanged creative ideas about what type of picture we would like and I took a picture with my mobile – we were all pleased with the result.
Interestingly, all the suggested foci from our group appeared as components in the way we went about for our assignment work. Teachers that took the role of facilitators rather than experts, negotiation about expectations and goals, having fun in a playful and enjoyable way, being aware of the differences in our learning preferences and making use of them in a collaborative way rather than cooperative, using suitable tools in the networked environment. For me personally, combining all those elements resulted in cognitive learning as well as emotional satisfaction. Thanks Group 7!
