Communication/Collaboration

Communication has always been important to people. Even prehistoric humans sought to share their experiences by painting on cave walls. All these years later we are still struggling to really understand each other’s thoughts, feelings, messages, or information. The students in our classrooms have the same problems with communication we do. Except, as adults they will have to effectively communicate in more forms using a wider variety of tools than we ever have.
Collaboration has existed since there were two of us. Working together to do a task or complete a project is an everyday experience for most adults. The issue is that we don’t always collaborate well. Instead of doing what Randy Nelson says, “Not getting in each other’s way” on a team, we sometimes choose to erect roadblocks in front of other group members.  Like us, our kids have trouble working together. The inability to work together to achieve a goal will be paralyzing for workers in the 21st century. Because our students will be required to collaborate well with people from different languages, cultures, talents, personalities, and values, we must help them learn how to get along.
Learning in a virtual or digital context demands new tools and new methods. I have potentials of using digital portfolios. Several employments: It is a tool for assessing a students work and progression. It is a tool for structuring learning and teaching. It is a tool for enhancing communication and collaboration. It is a tool for sharing experiences and resources, and finally a shared portfolio is discussed as a tool for supporting the construction of a "community of practice".
Communication and collaboration can be readily enabled by the use of many ICT tools. A traditional assessment task of writing an essay that involved a research and knowledge component was redesigned to enable groups to communicate and collaborate at a distance using a wiki. Through participant observation and student reflections of the group project, this is found to be an effective platform to communicate and collaborate on a group project and enabled different barriers to be broken down.
This lesson was a very tough one for me, as said due to the lack of experience using computers, also not being able to complete on time due to illness complications (another story). I use technology in natural ways that allows me to do what I want: communicate with anyone, in the time and space that suits me best. Easily accessible and user-friendly, collaboration tools allows me  to explore, share, engage, and connect with people and content in meaningful ways that help them learn. By relying on the familiar ways students use these tools, faculty can enable new forms of communication and engagement in the classroom, permitting extensions and variations of the informal interactions already occurring in classrooms and creating new frontiers for collaboration across geographic boundaries.
The first thing I noticed about the subject of collaboration is that it is huge there are as many styles, types, methods, rationales, theories, benefits and drawbacks. Additionally, almost no one appears to agree on even such simple matters as terminology, let alone on actual application and practice. With Communication and Collaboration, many people have different ways of absorbing information. Whether it is work, school, or recreational activities, people learn in various ways at different paces.
While Internet tools are has new capabilities for collaboration, knowledge creation, and collective intelligence, traditional collaborative activities are also being enhanced by these tools. Participants can connect and communicate through more and richer channels to augment conversation. In addition to communication by talking, collaborators can add video, shared desktops, shared PowerPoint slides and flowcharts, and group Internet browsing. The sharing of additional media can happen in an impromptu manner that sometimes allows individuals to spontaneously reveal aspects of them. Tools that feel natural are more likely to promote greater flexibility with interactions. In addition to facilitating traditional collaborative relationships between parties that know one another, these tools also promote serendipitous collaborations among strangers. Interested parties can find and identify one another based on common interests and shared affiliations.
For parts of the course pertaining to webquest , which seemed to be my main challenge throughout the course. But by careful reading and some serious mistake from my part, I was still able to pull through and understand what was needed to be done. With this lesson I have improved dramatically and I have seen this with other courses being done otherwise.

Collaboration and communication are different functions. While collaboration may or may not require communication, communication is usually considered a component of collaboration. Notwithstanding, tools that facilitate communication may not effectively support collaboration. Collaborative tools can be used to facilitate computer-supported collaborative learning, i.e., the development of collaboration by means of technology to enhance learning. When selecting tools for communication, you need to consider the message or purpose of the communication and the situation. Collect the information, and make a reasoned decision based on that information.