For topic 3, we looked at the scenario of networked collaborative learning. Learning in Communities present many opportunities for sharing, thinking and creativity. However, assessment fairness, timely feedback and ability of students to work harmoniously together present challenges to facilitating such learning activitives.

Networked collaborative learning is exactly what we are currently doing with our participation in the open networked learning community. The weekly meetings, learning activities and webinars provide us with a structured and focused environment to work on our task. For this topic, we have shared our inputs using Google Docs, something that we are all very comfortable with using at this time. Another new tool was the creation of brochure online which was our presentation output for this discussion.

One of the challenges in this topic is finding the focus point as the topic has many interesting areas worth investigating. Eventually, we agreed on a structure for our brochure and efficiently narrowed down our findings into succinct and condensed points that we want to share with our community. I admit that this process of distilling information and coming to a common consensus of what to share is the most difficult part of the collaborative work. I am reminded of the many times when students complain about the page limits we impose on them for their group project reports as they feel that they have so much to share.

Overall, this topic and the recommended readings provided helps me to reflect on the challenges and frustrations faced by our students in online collaborative learning, but also provides an understanding of how to better facilitate effective online collaborative learning for our students, an activity that proves to be both useful and necessary amidst the Covid 19 situation around the world.

Stay Safe Everyone!
Cindy