"Collaborative Learning Spaces: Methods, Ethics, Tools, Design." Great Plains Alliance for Computers and Writing Conference. North Dakota State University, Fargo, ND. October 2010.

1. Collaborative Learning Spaces Methods, Ethics, Tools, Design

2. Abram Anders University of Minnesota Duluth adanders@d.umn.edu GPACW Fall 2010

3. Emergent Spaces Demand Side Professional Environments: collaborative, networked, just-in-time Information Workers: new media skill sets and flexible adaptation to new tools and contexts for cooperative action

4. Emergent Spaces Supply Side Institutional Values: online learning, non-traditional network communities Pedagogical Innovation: technology and cooperative learning, Open Education, Connectivism, COINs, etc.

5. Emergent Spaces Personal Motivation; Situated Innovation Research Interests: new media, open source, rhetoric, and professional communication technologies Service Learning: University online learning initiative, College-level team and group-work initiative

6. Emergent Spaces Social media, crowd-sourcing, collective intelligence Composing common spaces and shared interfaces Ethical and practical challenge for the immediate future

7. methods Best practices for collaboration and technology-use

8. Criticisms of Group-work Student Feedback Waste of time, too unfocused Too complicated and/or inefficient; Mismatched goals and/or abilities Social loafers vs Dutiful achievers

9. Group-work goes wrong Pooled work; group structure is non-essential Homogeneous membership: dynamics for invention are weak Heterogeneous motives and/or weak management: goals and processes are unclear or underdeveloped

10. Best Practices for Groups Shared Purpose, Goals, Interests Interdependence and Mutual Accountability Make work relevant, competitive, evenly distributed Structured Processes: Group Contracts, Peer Evaluations, Group and Individual Assessments

11. Achieving Purpose Daniel Pink, “Drive”: simple incentives are counter-productive Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose Make profit motive and purpose motive congruent

12. Purposeful Group Learning Tragedy of commons = higher order purpose; making the best of a bad situation Need to get “self-interest” out of the way; better higher order purpose Must make project/process purpose congruent with grade incentives

13. Similarly, Technology Avoid redundant, irrelevant, over-complicated, needless proprietary Usability (and accessibility): Effective, Efficient, Engaging, Error Tolerant, Easy-to-Learn Specific tools are too often solutions in search of a problem

14. Ethics Values for Technological Commons

15. Values for Learners Students who are engaged, interested, challenged, motivated Autonomy: choice, immediate action, 3rd person play Mastery: activity-specific goals for skill development (intrinsic) Purpose: long-term objectives; continuing value; community investment

16. Collaborative Commons Facilitate connections and create common ground between: Pedagogical Goals and Opportunities Technological Tools and Applications Collaborative Processes Engage the unique challenges of situated learning communities

17. Composing Ethical Commons Common Purpose Develop sustainable processes of innovation Develop sustainable communities of learners

18. Composing Ethical Commons Immediate Value Overcome pedagogical challenges Achieve emergent goals/objectives

19. Tools Examples and Applications

20. Building a Better Bullet Point Resume Draft-work Open Source process Typewith.me Unique challenges: self-representation; rhetorical sensitivity; writing process

23. Crowd-sourced Editing Editing business correspondence Assembly line: identify, rewrite Microsoft Word Unique challenges: first author inertia; “pretty-good”-isms; achieve action bias in revision

24. Design Putting it TOGETHER; Iterative development

25. Collaborative Service Learning Inspiration Implementation Iterative Development

26. Inspiration Overcome traditional zero-sum “coverage v group” work problem Students teach each-other Build connections between successive generations of students Practical knowledge developed by students for students

29. Implement Best Practices autonomous results: products and assessment interdependently structured processes for invention, distribution, and performance Utopian impulse must be matched by pragmatic application

36. Iterative Development 1 ed. Basic Assignment; Teamwork Instruction; Screencast Capture 2 ed. Group Selection; Work Roles 3 ed. Commissioned Assignments; external (local) clients Future: Web-based deliverable for public portal site, videos with abstracts and supporting references

37. Creating Collaborative Environments Purposeful, Interdependent, Group Processes Highly Structured Interfaces and Infrastructures for Learner Practices Scaffolding and Iterative Development for Learners and Curriculum

38. Summary Outline 1) formulate an Ethics: identify stakeholder goals, values, and formulate outcomes;

39. Summary Outline 2) choose appropriate Tools: consider institutional/contextual affordances, consider issues of usability and integration;

40. Summary Outline 3) outline a Design: strategically integrate writing, technology, and collaboration knowledge and skill sets, employ scaffolding, regular reinforcement, and achievable expectations;

41. Summary Outline 4) review, revise, Redesign: always try something new, expect to improve, iteration is the key.