Greetings
my readers.

Welcome
to my third blog post on this my ONL191 journey.

This
blog post is my reflection on Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked
collaborative learning.

Introduction

Collaborate
is a verb which means to work jointly on an activity or project.

Collaborative
learning (a key term in Topic 3) is an
educational approach to teaching and learning
that involves groups of students working together to solve a problem or
complete a task. It is applicable in physical classrooms and in online learning
platforms.

Collaborative learning promotes
students interaction and participation in online learning platforms. This
enhances student’s performance in the completion of assigned tasks/problems
which by extension ensures the success of an online course.

My
real collaborative online learning experience

Reflecting back, I can conclude that I
have had collaborative online learning experience both as a teacher and a
student.

As a teacher during a Clinical Trials
Course we offered recently at the Faculty of Capacity Development, students
were put into groups and given tasks to complete as a group. I was a mentor for
one such group. The students were also to comment on another group’s
presentation.

As a student, my experience with
collaborative online learning has come from ONL191 Problem Based Learning group
works. Completion of tasks assigned has been through collaboration and team
work. We have had fruitful discussions on what to present and what tool to
employ in our presentations.

Collaboration should be student to
student, tutor to tutor and tutor to student for successful online learning.

In
my view the following strategies can help to promote collaboration in online
learning platforms

1. Course design
   should be such that it calls for students collaboration in the completion of
   tasks and assignments
2. Pre-course
   information should emphasize to the students that collaboration in online
   learning platforms is critical to ensure successful online learning
3. There should
   be means of ensuring and monitoring collaboration among students in the
   completion of various tasks in the course. For example, each topic in ONL191
   had a different lead

From
my own experience the following factors can impede successful collaboration in
online learning platforms:

1. Students lack
   of understanding about the various online tools for collaboration
2. Students attempting
   to collaborate while in different time zones can lead to frustration

 References

Brindley,
J., Blaschke, L. M. & Walti, C. (2009). Creating effective collaborative
learning groups in an online environment. The International Review of
Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3).