Collaborative Learning

I want to stress right away that this is NOT my video: it is one I helped to make in a collaborative exercise with colleagues I have never met - some of them thousands of miles away and operating in different timezones, from different continents.

When I get students moaning to me about how hard it is to get together (on line) to produce a group presentation, I am going to show them this!!

Actually to be fair, it isn't just students: work colleagues too complain they can't find the time/space to work together or even to learn about the technology that would allow them to do it virtually.

This video emerged from a group of busy, professional people who were largely participating in the learning event in their own time. The woman who created the original movie was commuting between Melbourne and Brisbane for a conference and was, at the time, beside herself with worry about the devastation of Victoria by bush fires.

Those who took part wanted to "be there", wanted to contribute, to make a difference and to learn. The goal maybe meant different things to different people but whatever it was, as individuals we felt committed to completing it.

We made decisions by consensus (or at least by noone objecting if some people took a lead)and volunteers stepped up to the mark to get things done.

The saying goes, "where there's a will, there's a way" - my guess is with projects that fall by the wayside, or with groups that fall apart, there is just, somewhere, a lack of will for it to succeed .........