Real World Collaboration, and Efficiency of Collaborative Technology Tools

Collaboration in this lesson has not been easy at all. There has been a lot of delays in people coming up to post their comments or even to edit.  Matters have been  made more difficult by the fact that I could not move on because I had to wait for other members to post their contributions either on the wiki, Google docs, or the mindmeister.  I think this business of collaboration has to be revised and people have to be brought on the same page before it can be effective and efficient. Even now, because of the delays in members contribution, a number of us had to move on and that means that  we missed whatever contribution  came after .

I  would make it clear to all the learners that their contribution is imperative and would earn them marks but it has to be done at the right time, not lagging behind and then coming up when everybody has moved to the next step. In that case they would lose marks for inefficient collaboration. I would set a time limit and close the site the moment the time is up. This is to instill discipline and try to have control on the movement of the lesson.

I also think, it would be more effective if done in smaller groups like say Four to six learners in a group. That would ensure effectiveness and efficiency as far as posting contributions is concerned. A big group brings/ causes laxity.