Collaborative Learning With Technology

Collaborative learning with technology refers to the use of a digital platform to support human interaction for deeper understanding of a specific knowledge object. Linda Harasim, a pioneer in the use of technology for collaborative learning, defined collaborative learning as any activity in which two or more people work together to create meaning, explore a topic, or improve skills. This view is consistent with the views of Jeremy Roschelle and others who describe collaborative learning as the mutual engagement of participants in a coordinated effort to solve a problem together. To this end, participants may engage in a discussion, an inquiry, or a learning project. There is meaning making going on as participants contribute to understanding a question or a problem, decide what to do next, and what the end result is to be.

Some educators use collaborative and cooperative learning to mean the same thing and there continue to be arguments about what differentiates cooperative and collaborative learning. One argument is that they differ in the degree to which control resides with the instructor or the group. In this view, a cooperative learning environment is one in which the teacher largely controls the goals, tasks, processes, and rewards of the group. A collaborative learning environment would be one in which the group exerts far greater autonomy in the choice of its goals, tasks, roles, and processes. This view is not accepted by all educators, and there are other concepts of collaborative learning that relate more closely to the development of knowledge building communities or the development of individual knowledge through a community of practice.

Sociocultural theories, which originated with Lev Vygotsky, form the theoretical basis of collaborative learning. A virtual space shared by participants will support their exchange but will not by itself turn their collaboration into an easy process. This entry examines collaborative technologies’ affordances, group dynamics’ challenges, networked communities, collaborative pedagogies, assessments, and conditions for collaborative learning to be an effective and rewarding process.