Week 7 blog

Using blogger has brought a new dimension to my engagement with my fellow students. At any time, day or night I have had access to a range of reflections concerning online collaborative tools, and their use in learning. I have benefited from viewing these reflections because I have been able to learn by comparing other student’s reflections with my own, especially ideas on how the tool can be used in my practice. I have also been able to learn about other collaborative tools which I had not investigated. I also found that commenting on other students work facilitated my engagement in the assessment long after marking and that receiving positive comments about my blog increased my confidence as a learner.

However there are some drawbacks to using online collaborative tools. Firstly, and I feel the most serious, is that online technology instantly divides students into the haves and have-nots. It is not fair to structure lessons so that students from economically disadvantaged students are excluded, or disadvantaged. Online technology is very expensive to purchase and maintain. Thousands of dollars for a laptop and software, sixty dollars a month for an internet connection and the cost of an IT expert when things go wrong is a lot of money to expect a parent to find for their child’s education. Furthermore, this expense becomes greater in relation to the number of children in the family expected to have this technology.

Also, it cannot be assumed that all students are comfortable using online collaborative tools. A student may be doing very well with their studies on their own, and want to continue studying on their own. These ‘quiet achievers’ should not be pressured into online collaboration, to do so may prove to be counter-productive. It is a mistake to believe the stereotype that all young people love social networking technology.

And finally, like everything online there is the problem of security and privacy. Going online exposes the user to all manner of security and privacy threats. The online environment takes the student out of the safety of their home or school and exposes them to the world. If Microsoft and Governments cannot keep themselves one hundred percent protected, how can we be sure the student’s security and privacy are protected?

From my reflection on how my own e-learning design as a teacher I have discovered that I is important to identify whether I want the students’ learning to be collaborative or cooperative. That’s to say, whether the students are working towards a common goal or are working together on different parts of the one goal.