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There's no way I'd click through to this stupid article but now my mind is reeling with possibilities like

Jump

Press a button

Collect coins

Run

Step on things

Fall in to holes

Buy a hamburger

Get a Tetris

Slip on a banana peel

Sit in a barrel

Be afraid of ghosts

Lose your hat

Drown

Walk

Following on from last month’s post, this post aims to review the statement ‘how do we learn collaboratively’ by looking at current learning platforms.

From experience in an institution I think of all the times I've learnt with others and realise for the most part it’s been troublesome. 

Going to university, where it’s an ever-changing, environment with people from all over the world and shifting around constantly with multiple projects and jobs makes it a difficult environment to collaborate in. When you need to work in a group it can be hard to get everyone together and so usually you end up emailing stuff back and fourth and using whatsapp/facebook group to talk it through. Whilst most courses require collaboration, it is only a small amount for most degree programmes and when there’s an 'option' to work with others most will refuse because of the stress. 

On the occasion you do collaborate, whether that be by force or choice one of the following usually happens

1)      You meet as a group once and divide up the tasks and never meet again

2)      Don’t bother meeting till the last minute, rush it all and get really stressed out.

3)      Try to get the group to meet before or after a mutual class but usually fail. In the space of a second everyone has disappeared.

The common thread within these options is that they’re all about meeting face to face. In a world where I can have my phone read me the morning headlines and where I can control my sky box from anywhere in the world on my phone – we still find it hard to learn together remotely using technology.

If I think about when I have learnt remotely, I think of facebook groups. Whilst they did get me through university, they were as distracting as anything and on top of that, when I deactivated my Facebook how was I going to keep up with the work group conversations? The thing with students is, we find a way of getting around things – most of the time we want quick, easy and cheap options and so we’re pretty innovative in that respect.

I remember after the my first term at university, I realised a few things.

It was easier and more efficient to download the lecture slides on my laptop and take notes that way.

For students, Moodle and BlackBoard was a dark, scary and confusing space where we only went to download slides and reading material.

With bucket loads of reading (according to my library card 428 books over three years not including all the journals) I needed a lot of printing credit and highlighters

And what did we do about this? We found free/cheap apps and programmes either by recommendation or through searching App stores. I used Evernote during class to take notes for all my classes- which was extremely useful. I created different books for each class and it meant I really didn’t need to have 5 different folders.  For annotations and commenting, I downloaded PDF X-change viewer and I had dropbox for storing files - once again, these were brilliant for learning. With classes and lecture split between Apple and Windows, there was always extra software needed to make documents compatible when sharing files with friends. Nevertheless, I found a bunch of apps that worked, yes it was time consuming but it was available and like many others it got me through university.

This next section aims to discuss the current platforms we are using for learning and collaborating whether it’s the intended use or not. We’re going to take a look at:

Learnist

Yammer

Pinterest

Twitter

Starting with Pinterest – I should note that I already use and adore Pinterest . I use it as a base for ideas, when looking for a friend for a gift or more recently when looking for wedding table designs. How do you ‘learn’ with it though? Well I can see it’s great for sharing ideas, it’s also quick to send, save and favourite a pin. You can also follow boards, comments and can view recommended pins. As the name suggests, it’s like having a wooden pin board in front of you. It’s a great type of informal learning, yet there isn’t really scope to personalise. When I think of wanting to learn something collaboratively I think of me here in the UK and four of my friends dotted around Europe. If we had to collaborate, could we do so effectively in Pinterest? To an extent – Yes. We can find and share ideas on a board and whilst a discussion is a little difficult, the main idea is there.  Lastly reading the Pinterest ‘About Me’ it states that “Pinterest is a tool for collecting and organising the things that inspire you”. Technically, it’s not made for learning collaboratively although some have adopted the use.

Next we look at Learnist. Most recently after a makeover Learnist has been described as ‘Pinterest but for education’. Having heard of Learnist but not having used it this was an interesting find. The first thing I noticed was the tag line ‘The world’s knowledge, at your fingertips’.  Then reading more about it, Learnist describe themselves as a collection of the world’s knowledge. Sounds good so far, but how easy is it to learn with it? I picked a topic that I wanted to learn with a friend based in Southampton.  Having recently seen an interesting programme on Caves, I decided to search the keyword ‘cave’ and ‘formation’ but the search results produced nothing and so I searched ‘caves’ alone and was instantly given lots of information boards. The first thing that I noticed was the sources. I saw the BBC come up first which to me is a reliable source to go to for information. I saw it was a documentary and noticed I could share it via facebook and twitter, add it to my reading list or add it to a board.  When creating a board I could add a collaborator which was great. I could personalise it and add different types of content/learning without trouble.  A great feature when adding videos to boards is that you don’t have to go onto youtube and copy and paste the link – you can search within Learnist (makes you procrastinate less too). The same with adding an Image – there’s no need to open a new tab and search for an image.  The downfall with learnist lies in that I wasn’t able to discuss/comment on a board or anywhere for the matter. In addition the results of content were not enough me and I’m not sure what’s worse having 50 pages to through or an eight of one page. In addition I feel while it allowed personalisation of how your content looked, it lacked the basic personalisation features such as making notes, or highlighting. Overall I think it’s a great informal learning platform if you want to dip into and out of various topics without a built path. Whilst you can definitely learn I’m not sure how effective that learning is without any tools to allow for it. But, as a way of light casual reading, I think it’s great. 

Yammer was my next target.  Made by Microsoft I couldn’t as an individual learner make an account which makes sense in this case as it is aimed at businesses. As I wanted to see what it could offer I came across their video ‘Yammer Moments’ which was brilliant. A little long, but it didn’t hurl information, specifications or details at you but instead shows its purpose. From the video Yammer screams collaboration and good collaboration creates a pathway for effective learning.

Yammer Moments from Yammer on Vimeo.

Twitter, one of the most recent forms of communication and one of the strongest marketing social marketing tools. It’s definitely a way of learning and even has an element of collaboration.  Having a twitter account I don’t really use it to tweet, in all honestly I use it as way of reading interesting articles by companies I follow or suggested through friends.  Now that I think of it it’s kind of like an email mailbox.  On twitter generally I check my feed and you’re given article title’s and headings and even a line or two describing the content and a thumbnail ( most official twitter pages now use twitter cards, so it’s a lot more than just text). I like twitter because it’s convenient. It’s a quick source of good content and on my phone it’s über convenient to save content to read later. So, twitter has the reputable content, it was fantastic recommendations, a great preview size for content and you can discuss/comment to an extent. Back to the main point of collaborative learning I think it doesn't allow (and not intended) for collaborative learning but instead informal personalised learning.

So far we've reviewed technological methods of learning. As mentioned in previous posts, the most recent evolution in collaborative learning is CSCL (computer-supported collaborative learning). However we must also look at ways of learning without technology.

The first is the idea that kids can teach themselves, This a concept brought forward by Sugata Mitra. With a project called 'A hole in the wall' Mitra has shown that without formal teaching but with motivation learners can teach themselves. This conclusion was made after an experiment whereby Mitra and his team made a 'hole in the wall' on the boarder of a slum in India and installed an Internet-connected PC. With a hidden camera they were able to observe the children and their interaction with the computer, with one another and their process of learning. This project showed that without a teacher a curious environment can enhance learning through collaboration.

Secondly, Bunker Roy of Barefoot college has managed to teach several illiterate women and men to become solar engineers. Its a very good example for how people can teach and learn from each other collaboratively. And you don't have to spend several millions to make this happen!

So what does all of this mean? All these platforms you can learn with they just represent informal learning with some being more personalised than others. They’re all extremely successful, widely used by millions but their balance between collaboration and personalisation is unequal. It's time for a highly personalised collaborative platform - one that empowers learners, learns with them and gives them the necessary tools to become live long learners - CoLearnr.