Background
Virtual Teams and Group Collaboration in an Online Learning Environment - Rationale and Need
As enrollments in higher education for online courses grow, so does the quest for improving instructional design in distance education. The extended availability and convenience of delivering courses online presents opportunities for those pursuing higher education. Still, face-to-face instruction does not translate to online instruction so easily and for this reason, evaluation of distance education must be ongoing. Innovative ideas and technology also present opportunities to improve pedagogy for online teaching and learning in academic, personal, social, and professional contexts.
As a student and a working professional, group collaboration is an essential utility for accomplishing tasks and projects. Virtual group collaboration has also become a useful medium when distance and time are exigent aspects. Researching and discovering tools which provide the means to do virtual group work is not a difficult task with the technology available today
Instructors and learners are separated by distance and time which require purposeful and creative design of courses to address different learning styles. Current technologies allow for synchronous, asynchronous, or a hybrid of both learning strategies when delivering instruction at a distance. Building learning communities amongst the course participants is one of several ways to facilitate collaboration.
In distance education, virtual teams are formed to work on assigned group projects and can be an effective instructional strategy which encourages collaborative, creative, and innovative teamwork. While online group work has useful benefits, it also has some challenges. Some of the challenges include data management, communication, and lack of social interaction. Exploring tools which provide a resolution to these challenges is a necessity for creating a successful and satisfactory learning environment. Wiggio is a tool that can be the answer to the challenges of virtual group collaboration. Skilled collaboration has become a necessary asset for our personal, social, academic, and professional lives. In order to succeed in a virtual group project environment, instructional designers, instructors, and learners must consider the goals, objectives, resources, and strategies. More specifically, Web 2.0 collaboration tools such as Wiggio.
As a student and a working professional, group collaboration is an essential utility for accomplishing tasks and projects. Virtual group collaboration has also become a useful medium when distance and time are exigent aspects. Researching and discovering tools which provide the means to do virtual group work is not a difficult task with the technology available today
Instructors and learners are separated by distance and time which require purposeful and creative design of courses to address different learning styles. Current technologies allow for synchronous, asynchronous, or a hybrid of both learning strategies when delivering instruction at a distance. Building learning communities amongst the course participants is one of several ways to facilitate collaboration.
In distance education, virtual teams are formed to work on assigned group projects and can be an effective instructional strategy which encourages collaborative, creative, and innovative teamwork. While online group work has useful benefits, it also has some challenges. Some of the challenges include data management, communication, and lack of social interaction. Exploring tools which provide a resolution to these challenges is a necessity for creating a successful and satisfactory learning environment. Wiggio is a tool that can be the answer to the challenges of virtual group collaboration. Skilled collaboration has become a necessary asset for our personal, social, academic, and professional lives. In order to succeed in a virtual group project environment, instructional designers, instructors, and learners must consider the goals, objectives, resources, and strategies. More specifically, Web 2.0 collaboration tools such as Wiggio.
Collaboration 2.0
Collaborating in the clouds is one of the latest 21st century Web 2.0 concepts. Human interactivity has ascended to a new level with collaborating tools such as Google Docs, Stixy, Edmodo, Wiggio, and more; most of which have a social networking aspect. Collaboration 2.0 offers realistic and effective solutions to challenges regarding virtual project work and Wiggio is a free and easy to use solution.
In Cutting-Edge Social Media Approaches to Business Education (2010), the authors describe how a teacher considered the simple yet effective features of Wiggio because it did not weigh down the student with unfamiliar functions (p. 302). Managing virtual group collaboration is an uncomplicated process with Wiggio. Communication, data management, task lists, scheduling, and successful project completion does not need to be hindered by geographical distance or different time zones. Collaboration 2.0 and tools such as Wiggio make it possible to achieve tremendous results. Here's a fun video that illustrates Collaboration 2.0. Enjoy!
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Learning Outcome
Given a computer, Internet access, Web browser, and Wiggio walk throughs (tutorials), the learner will acquire new knowledge and skills to perform collaborative activities in order to complete a group project assignment in an online learning environment.
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