Patterns, approaches and systems to support teachers in designing for technology-enhanced collaborative learning

These are a few notes and reflections on a research seminar hosted by the Research Centre in Digital Education at the University of Edinburgh with Prof Yannis Dimitriadis from the University of Valladolid, Spain. This seminar discussed approaches to design for collaborative learning using digital technologies – either in a blended classroom or wholly online. His  research … Read more

Solid learning melts in to air

I’m at the start of the process of scoping a literature review of social software in workplace learning. Some of the literature on collaboration is proving interesting: Collaboration and co-creation: emphasises the social aspects of social software and Web 2.0 technologies as ESSPs (McAfee 2009) in creating collaborative learning environments that promote knowledge exchange, interpersonal … Read more

Tools of e-learning

I noticed this post from the Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies [CL4PT] on ten key tools for learning. There’s a very clear triangle forming of course/ content “authorware” [eg, screenr or prezi], collaboration tools [eg, etherpad or dimdim] and individual tools [eg, evernote or arguable posterour]. This highlighted a question would be how these … Read more

Web 2.0 in the Learning Ecosystem – link

Interesting post here from Jon Ingham on organisations’ use of web 2.0 technologies. It seems to me that the organisational focus on the efficiency gains above the transformative potential of web 2.0 points to the cultural barriers to effective implementation of enterprise 2.0 outlined here by Todd Stephens. I’d be interested to see something like … Read more

Learning in project teams

I’ve been thinking more about learning in projects and the infrastructure & processes to enable more effective learning and knowledge exchange and development. I see the experience of project working as the building block for ‘deep’ collaborative working. Learning in projects operates broadly on three levels: Individual: often focused on developing new skills and knowledge … Read more

Collaborative workplaces

An Australian consultancy, Anecdote, have recently published a very interesting paper on Building a Collaborative Workplace with Nancy White. There are some excellent sections, especially on what the authors call community collaboration – essentially communities of practice. The section on team collaboration was less compelling for me as seemed to duplicate generic team building rather … Read more

Enterprise 2.0 – it shouldn’t be about the technology

A nice post here from Stephen Dale about web 2.0 as the “blinding light of Web 2.0 hype seems to be obscuring the fact that the most important aspect in building any community (of interest or practice or whatever) is the people and NOT the technology. Though I do appear to be an increasingly isolated … Read more