How difficult is it to imagine life without the internet? Just over 20 years ago, having a desktop computer in your home was phathomable only to the middle- and upper-classes of society. As technologies revolving around the internet continue to develop, the world is thrust into an upward-spiraling era known as the information age. When teachers use these rapidly advancing information technologies to increase collaboration among students, the roles of both teacher and student are changed in the learning process, classroom materials and discussions reach a much larger audience, and students can more effectively learn and retain information.
Before delving into how collaborative information technologies affect student and teacher roles, we must understand that collaboration should not be confused with concensus or teamwork. In fact collaboration is often based on disagreement or uncertainty in another’s assertions in order to uncover a more probable solution.
Students are using technology more and more as a means of communication. As a result, students have much less of a passive role in the reception of information (often referred to as spoon-feeding) from the teacher. Instead the responsibility for the students to receive information becomes a more active process; they become the authors of their own education. The transformation from pacificity to activity occurs as students are required to make choices concerning the generation, obtaining, manipulation, and displaying of information.
Because the use of technology in collaborative processes requires students to think more actively and make more choices concerning the content of their information than a regular classroom discussion, the positive effects of collaborative technology reach out to a much larger portion of the class than the select few who regularly comment and take notes.. Through collaboration technology a teacher may be the instructor of more than one class at a time. Technology also eliminates geographical barriers, making education much easier for students who are called away from the classroom for one reason or another.
Not only does technology eliminate physical barriers such as terrain, but it also potentially eliminates mental barriers. Teachers often attempt to cater their teaching style to their students. However, because students learn in such an array of ways, one teacher is incapable of meeting the expectations of all. Also, some people may argue that changing the style of teaching to match a student’s style of learning can stunt the student's mental growth by not requiring them to adjust. Because collaboration technologies require a student to actively participate in his/her education, the teacher simply becomes a guide, and the students learn and retain the material better because they become both the teacher and the recipient.
Collaboration technologies are changing the world as we know it, especially in education. As discussed, it is through these technological developments that the role of students and teachers change, virtual classrooms are created for those learning behind geographical barriers, and the effectivity of student learning and information retention are increased.
Sources
http://blogs.cisco.com/news/the_next_generation_collaborative_enterprise/
http://chronicle.com/article/Matching-Teaching-Style-to/49497/
http://www2.ed.gov/pubs/EdReformStudies/EdTech/effectsstudents.html
http://www.forbes.com/2010/01/19/collaboration-cisco-software-technology-cio-network-schaffner.html
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