In the old good days we used to attend school in groups of 20-30, learned together, played together and sometimes travelled with the teachers to build our knowledge of history or the environment during short educational filed trips. Did we build communities? Yes, we did! Sometimes they lasted for years. Some of us meet regularly and remember those beautiful moments spent together in the past.
But did we build learning communities? Here the answer is not so certain. Sometimes we did, sometimes not - very rarely in those large groups of 20-30. A few friends would meet from time to time to read poetry, discuss social and political issues or help one another with maths or chemistry. All those situations required physical presence of the group members in one place and time. An occasional phone-call could help at times, but nobody dreamed about community learning across time zones with group members scattered in various geographical locations.
“Two heads are better than one"
This is an old saying invented by our ancestors who understood the simple truth that it is easier for two people who help each other to solve a problem than it is for one person to solve the problem alone. People are social creatures who like to work together despite the fact that they often disagree and fight as well.
Today we live in a brave new wold where technology offers new possibilities for interaction and forming new kinds of social networks. Social media have helped our students interact with peers from various geographical locations, across time zones, and their constant exposure to various interactive tools has turned them into creators and not just passive users or recipients of material presented to them by others. Why don't we educators benefit from the opportunities that the new technology brings us - why don't we thrive and show our students the way how they can use their new capabilities to boost their own learning?
Synergy
At the start of discussing topic 3 in our ONL course we were asked a simple question: Is 1+1=2 or is there more to it? It goes beyond the old saying "Two heads are better than one". That is obvious that two is more than one. But can we be sure that in social learning two heads working together can achieve more than each of them working separately?
“Synergy - the bonus that is achieved when things work together harmoniously." — Mark Twain
I will never forget the first interactive collaborative online course for educators offered by EVOLVE in which I participated in 2018. It was a course on Virtual Exchange design and it gave me an opportunity to see how well a group can work together and how much "knowledge" it can generate. We educators from all over the world as well as supporting staff across all disciplines were able to meet and discuss various themes and experiences related to education in a synchronous and asynchronous manner.
We worked at different times of the day as our schedules differed tremendously! We met on Zoom each week, but for each of us it was a different time of the day, as our geographical locations encompassed various time zones. There were very experienced teachers and novice practitioners. There were researchers and internationalisation officers. They came from small and big universities all over the world. This generated a wonderful information gap and helped us see a given problem from multiple perspectives we would have never had, had we not met together thanks to technology in one virtual space.
Experienced VE trainers worked as facilitators and mentors who helped us explore the various aspects of VE design and delivery, including the pedagogy of VE, technology preparation and the handling of organizational and intercultural challenges. I participated in the training in the autumn of 2018 and in the autumn of 2019. The training lasted 5 weeks. It was very rewarding and very challenging at the same time. UNICollaboration offered similar training opportunities and I did not hesitate to use them in 2019 and 2020. Today they are available as well, but as the European project has ended the courses are paid.
Soliya is another collaborative online network that specializes in engaging youth in intercultural online dialogue and facilitation to activate meaningful change. Starting with 2021 their facilitation training program for educators and young people has been paid as well.
All those various trainings and online communities helped me explore and understand how collaborative online learning works. Technology imposes certain limitations on us - many teachers are frustrated that they cannot do many things they were able to do with ease in face-to-face classroom settings. But on the other hand, technology lets us do things we were unable to do in those traditional teacher-led classes. We shouldn't franticly fight to recreate the lost world but to take bold steps in this new virtual space and take what it is offering us: powerful collaborative tools that make time and physical space disappear. Why don't we give our students a chance to take on the leadership role in their teams, let them solve problems together, discover, and not just follow your way of reasoning and recreate things that others have done before.
“The strength of the team is each individual member. The strength of each member is the team." - Phil Jackson
My Personal Learning Networks
Virtual Exchange (VE) experience has led me to build my own small collaborative learning networks. My international colleagues from Finland, Sweden, Argentina and the Netherlands have been working since the time we met virtually during our online training and have been offering VE experience to our students. We meet in the virtual space regularly and support each other in our pedagogical and research endeavors and regularly engage in casual conversations about the latest Covid-19 developments in our countries and changes in our personal lives.
I met many other colleagues and professionals during various online trainings and workshops. They are scattered around the world. I took some time to get to know them and work well in teams. You need to be patient, do things together, accept your partners' strengths and weaknesses, help one another, solve problems together. The more successful you are as a team, the better your relationship will be. Right now I am in the process of building strong group ties with my ONL team. It is so good to see it happen - especially that it is not always easy and smooth. As our facilitator presented it to us - we go through many stages: from forming through storming, norming, performing to adjourning. I want to believe we are now at the performing stage :)
All those online communities leave a lasting mark in my life and give me strength as I know there are people here and there that I can rely on. My own experience of learning in online communities and through online networks helps me translate what I went through into the steps that I need to take and the practices I need to develop to engage my students in Virtual Exchange. This is the greatest benefit I gain during my virtual journey of discovery.
Recipe for successful online collaboration
Is there a recipe for making collaborative work a fruitful experience? Following Gilly Salmons 5-Stage Model I believe there are a few elements that need to be taken into consideration:
1 Motivation to engage in the project and easy access to online tools that will be used by the team.
2 Online socialisation through various team-building and trust-building activities.
3 Challenging tasks that require exchange of information and various skills of the group members.
4 Co-creation of knowledge or developing solutions by the whole group.
5 Reflection on the learning process and setting out on new journeys.
As everything that is valuable in life successful online collaboration needs time :)