E-422: Blog 6

Designing Effective Global Collaborative Projects

            This was a very informative article of how to use internet and computer technologies in a globally collaborative way. “The opportunity to collaborate with others around the globe is highly motivating for both teachers and students, promotes diversity and cultural awareness, and allows students to write for and share their ideas with a distant peer audience for a very specific purpose.” After a brief introduction, the bulk of the article defined the suggested guidelines for collaborative projects, which includes: topic, goals, information and communication technology (ICT), collaboration, exchange, designated participants, students’ roles, teacher’s role, activities, assessment, technological requirements, and resources.

            At first I was interested in this article based on its title and topic—I thought it would be interesting to read about global projects. I quickly discovered though that the article was written more like a how-to list and contained no examples, real life or proposed, and did not recommend any websites. Ultimately, it was a dry article to read, though it did provide a good list of how to create guidelines in a project.

            Because this article was so information dense, it provided examples of several ISTE NETS for both students and teachers. For students it exemplified NETS-S 2.Communication and Collaboration, 3. Research and Information Fluency, 4. Critical Thinking, Problem Solving, and Decision Making and 5. Digital Citizenship. For teachers, it exemplified NETS-T 3. Model Digital-Age Work and Learning and 4. Promote and Model Digital Citizenship and Responsibility.

           

Manso, M. and  Garzon, M. (2011). Designing Effective Global Collaborative Projects. Learning & Leading with Technology, 39(3), 32-35. Retrieved from http://www.learningandleading-digital.com/learning_leading/201111/?pg=14&pm=2&u1=friend#pg34