Reflection 6

TELECOLLABORATIVE LEARNING


Let’s make the world a classroom. Telecollaborative learning we can say, it is a cooperative learning on a better way.
Those small groups that work on cooperative way, in a class room, now can expand the discussion with the other groups around the world. By using internet, phone, TV, skype and other electronic means of communication, students can reach other students in different and distant locations.
If in cooperative way they can express their differences and learn through them, in this kind of learning they are challenged to do the best. What an opportunity to exchange ideas and feelings. This modern world offers to us a sort of ways to share, to learn and to improve our lives.
The other day I was talking with a friend, who lives in Japan. We were separated by a long distance and time, but we could see each other in a real time through the web cam. Putting this on learning, on school ways, how many ways the students have to improve their knowledge?! They can organize on line projects, collect information and solve problems electronically. They make the world a big classroom.
Different cultures, different ideas, different ways to reach the solution to any situation. This interaction open frontiers and break barriers. Geography became just a piece of land where we can meet people and share with them our ideas, also receive their opinions. Of course, everything is supported by a teacher or advisor.
Telecollaborative learning creates a perspective on learning about the world we live in. By using technology, the students can see a problem on different angles, knowing that the same problem we face on a certain place is faced in a distant part of the world, but in a different reality.
Of course, in a project like this, there are some challenges, i.e., some students don’t have access to a computer or other electronic device. Language might be another problem, for unfortunately this is still a big challenge in the world.
The advisor must be alert no to keep the focus and the objectives of the topics, avoiding leaving the students alone, for they can lose the reason of why they are trying to interact.
In spite of the appearance of the challenges, the benefits that the students can get from this type of learning are tremendous, more powerful than the benefits they can get from the cooperative learning.
Keep going! This is a new world, and new ways to learn, to improve, to develop knowledge. In learning, the best are only the good. Tomorrow new horizons will show up.