The best example of community collaborative learning had been in my experience the COST actions.  International EU projects having each one and only aim but with different ways to reach it (depending on the country). Articles are written with many authors on, books and reports as well and,eventually, a unique solution is found for a problem (despite that the outdoor climate and politics are different from country to country). The salt and pepper of these projects are the meetings in the community.

“Join the world of science and seethe world” used to say one of my professors in Skellefteå

On the otehr side network collaborative learning on the other hand, that’s how we got to have a proper campervan. We bought a very cheap one that had only the frame. My boyfriend joined a facebook group and he started to build on it. It took years and he stills find things to improve on it (this will never end). The responsiveness and the joy of helping each other in that facebook group puzzled me (who doesn’t have facebook, nor Instagram). He scarcely needed to read books, all the info he used for building the entire little house on wheelshas been taken from the facebook group and the youtube films. And a lot of trials and errors in the garage of course.

As a note, I used Kay Oddone study  this differentiation.

The interestingthing with ONL is that is a combination of both community and network. We know exactly who the persons are in our PBL group but not in the entire network. We were even warned from the beginning that it could be overwhelming to read all posts in the big group.  Members can leave the community-network at any moment.

Talking about collaborative learning I must say I am very fond of the concept. First of all because in most cases working after university studies means collaborating, especially for engineers. It means a life of projects at a smaller or larger scale with and within companies, universities. And students are supposed to learn for life.

Another reason for which am sold to collaborative learning concept is the motivation it can bring in people sometimes… If this had been designed and implemented before it would have helped many of those scholars who happened not find the motivation to keep on struggling in the educational system because they face a very big problem in their life, let’s say an external factor that they can’t control. Something that affects them strongly (like an accident, illness or death of a close person). Imagine how much help these persons could get from engaging them into a network of students or learners in the same kind of a “condition”, when they did nothing wrong but life just happened to make things difficult for them. What if this networked would be online, with online meetings?

In our PBL group meetings we all agreed that the role of the facilitator in online learning is very important and difficult and we tried to find out how should we act and react as teachers.  I was surprised to find out that the biggest frustration for online students had not been lack of instructor’s support/orientation, nor communication, but the problem of teammate’s commitment imbalance (according to this article that deserves attention)

So the facilitator can be both the cause and the solution of the big problems in online environment, as in many other teaching situations… I can only strive to be more of a solution than a problem. And if sometimes intentionally a problem, let this be explained to my learning community: your teacher (or your member) has created this consciously for you, with care, in the aim of learning, of growing.

References:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqSBTr9DPH8&feature=youtu.be
2. Capdeferro, N. & Romero, M. (2012). Are online learners frustrated with collaborative learning experiences?. The International review of research in open and distance learning, 13(2), 26-44