Cooperate vs. Collaborate

We are in the process of revising “Integrating Technology …” for the purpose of releasing the 5th edition. In preparation for the revision, a number of faculty members are contacted and paid to offer comments on our existing book. The idea is to use this input to guide our work. It is a great concept in theory. In practice, we find that reviewers have a wide range of suggestions and many recommendations are contradicatory. Some want us to add material on distance education and some want us to cut back the material on Internet applications. Some want us to take out the “learning chapter” to save space and others say it is one of the most valuable chapters in the book. People have different personal priorities and work in situations making salient different issues.

An example – one reviewer noted that we were incorrectly using the terms collaborative and cooperative learning interchangeably. I admit that this is true. In an attempt to remediate my own ignorance, I googled “collaborative versus cooperative learning” to gain a sense of how important this issue is. Sure enough, several documents surfaced explaining the difference.

It appears that cooperative learning is intended to be more restrictive in meaning and applied to instructor designed tasks that ask students to work together in specified ways.

In contrast, collaborative learning emphasizes the group work which may involve sharing of responsibility and direction (e.g., a study group, on-line open forums).

Potentially, we should more carefully use the term cooperative learning when discussing group projects (typically following a structure specified by the teacher) and collaboration when discussing some of the naturally evolving benefits of discussion. When you write a book that is used by teachers early in their college education and also by graduate students, attention to terminology can be an issue. Perhaps the solution is for us to be more careful in how we use the words, but not take up space by explaining the nuances some note among the terms.

By the way, most documents we found on this topic point back to a document by (Pavitz).

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Security Problems

I keep finding out that the Internet has exposed my computers to problems that I did not realize existed. Just as I would like to think I could take some pill to protect me from medical problems, I would like to believe the installation of some software (e.g., an antivirus package) would make my computers immune to everything. Reality continues to intrude on my fantasies.

As a general rule, it is probably better to be aware than naive. Here is good resource – techLearning summary of dangers and solutions to security problems.

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Mac Frustration

I am very frustrated with Apple today. I recently installed a recommended security fix on my server (the server providing this blog) and lost FTP access. The connection between the FTP problem and the security fix was not immediately apparent and I spent several hours attempting to determine what I could have done or what random corruption had occured. When everything I tried failed, I connected to Apple and searched the discussion lists to see what I could learn. This is when I learned of the connection between the security fix and the FTP problem.

Here is what makes the situation frustrating. I had no role in creating this problem – I took the action recommended by Apple (there is some information about what the fix fixes, but I would guess a very low % of Mac users would know that any of these descriptions would signal a potential problem). I called Apple Education Support and at this point I cannot receive help because I do not have a service contract. In the words of the younger generation – this sucks. Why should I be required to purchase a service contract against problems created by Apple? If the stemmed from third party software I decided to install, a poor decision on my part, etc., perhaps I could understand this position.

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History Wiki

The California Open Source Textbook Project is an iniative focused on controlling the cost of textbooks. One idea intends to create a world history resource as a “wiki” and then convert some version of this resource into a printed version.

A wiki is essentially a collaborative authoring project with the assumption that individuals will contribute to expand or correct an existing work based on individual knowledge. This is a very interesting idea and one which has worked in the construction of open-source software. I have searching for a mature wiki in an area I think I know well in order to evaluate what I think of the potential of this approach without much luck. There appear to be some good examples in the “hard sciences” and computer science, but these are not areas I can really evaluate.

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