Digital Technologies for School Collaboration

A. Gouseti

• Editore: Palgrave Macmillan
• Anno: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781137372857
• Argomento: Éducation
• Categoria: Administration de l'éducation

Web-based school collaboration has attracted the sustained attention of educators, policy-makers, and governmental bodies around the world during the past decade. This book sheds new light on this topical but ever so complex issue. Drawing on a wealth of theoretical and empirical work, it presents the various models of available school twinning programs and explores the cultural, political, and economic factors that surround the recent enthusiasm regarding collaborative initiatives. Moreover, the book critically examines teachers' and students' experiences of web-based school collaboration. In particular, it develops a realistic perspective of the range of challenges they face and identifies the host of technological and non-technological issues that can shape participation in collaborative programs.

CHAPTER 1

Web-Based School Collaboration: The Promises and Problems

Introduction

The introduction of digital technologies and the internet in the 1990s raised new challenges and created new opportunities for school collaboration. Moreover, the growth of social media in the 2000s has been a catalyst in the transformation of the ways in which web-based collaboration is perceived. In the context of education, in recent years, a number of educators as well as policy makers and governmental bodies appear to have embraced the potential of new technologies to facilitate school collaboration. This chapter will provide a critical overview of the issues underpinning web-based school collaboration. In particular, it will look at the manifestations of web-based school collaboration at intranational and international levels and will explore the cultural, political, and economic factors that underpin its resurgence.

Based on a review of the existing body of literature, this chapter presents the various existing models of school partnerships and collaborations in primary and secondary education and identifies the various types of school twinning programs that are available online. The purpose is twofold. First, the chapter offers a critical overview of existing models of collaborative programs in order to map out the complex nature of school collaboration and single out the actors and factors that can shape successful implementation into educational practices. Second, the chapter focuses on how the questions and issues underpinning web-based school collaboration can be addressed through the empirical exploration of four collaborative projects across a range of European schools.

Taking a Historical Perspective on School Collaboration

It is imperative to recognize from the outset that current efforts toward the (e)twinning of schools follow on from a long history of school collaboration projects across the past 50 years. Taking a historical approach will allow us to frame the development of collaborative initiatives within a long-term perspective and gain sense of significant long-standing social as well as technical issues that can shape web-based school collaboration. As shall be acknowledged in this chapter, the concept of “twinning” between communities has a long history. In particular, the end of the Second World War saw the rise of the concept of “town twinning” whereby civic and cultural bodies in towns and cities throughout Europe were paired in acts of peace and reconciliation with the aim to enhance communication, foster cultural links, and promote universal mutual understanding (Vion 2002).

Within these civic and cultural efforts, collaboration between schools and other educational institutions was quickly established as an especially appropriate means of breaking down preexisting stereotypes and prejudices and bridging the cultural gap between nations. For example, United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)’s Associated Schools Project Network (ASPnet), founded in 1953 in the aftermath of the Second World War, is a global network of more than 9,000 educational institutions in 180 countries. It has been one of the first and longest-running collaborative initiatives with the vision of promoting international cooperation and peace through educational exchange (Schweisfurth 2005).

Alongside these political efforts, there has been a long, albeit wide-ranging tradition in the United Kingdom as well as in America and other English-speaking countries of establishing networked communities of educational institutions and promoting school partnerships in order to share knowledge, skills, and good practice (Atkinson et al. 2007; Kerr et al. 2003). On the one hand, collaborative practices have gained recognition as a key component of successful schools (Leonard and Leonard 2001). On the other hand, some authors have gone so far as to argue that collaboration is so “complex and varied in nature” that it “largely resists study” (Hanford et al. 1997, pp. 40–41). As such, categorizing the full range of school collaborative programs that has emerged in the past 60 years and identifying collectively accepted types are not easy tasks. Furthermore, the body of academic literature and research on collaboration appears to be rather poor compared to the abundance of the ongoing twinning and linking projects actually taking place. For these reasons, before we look in more detail at the range of collaborative initiatives that have emerged during the past years, we need to tackle the question of what is actually meant by school collaboration.

What Do We Mean by Web-Based School Collaboration?

In a broad sense, collaboration can be described as a rigorous interaction that encourages educators to open up their beliefs and practices to investigation and debate (Katz et al. 2008). Collaboration can also be seen as the purposeful “process of shared creation and shared discovery” that “requires the meaningful participation of all those involved” (Collis and Heeren 1993, pp. 36–37). Other definitions of collaboration also involve the mutual and coordinated efforts of participants toward problem solving as opposed to cooperative work that involves the division of labor and independent work toward solving a part of the problem (Roschelle and Teasley 1995). Similarly, Dillenbourg (1999) described cooperation as the process where partners divide the work, solve subtasks individually, and then bring together the partial results into the final output, whereas in collaboration, partners do the work “together.”

Since the development of collaborative projects in the 1950s, technology use has always been central to school collaboration—from telephony in the 1950s and 1960s, to audio and video recording in the 1970s and fax and computer networks in the 1980s. Yet, the introduction of the internet and other digital communication technologies in the classroom in the 1990s is seen to have raised new challenges and has given impetus to the notion of what has been termed as “telecollaboration” or more recently “e-collaboration.” In particular, it has been argued that:

The hallmark of telecollaboration is the use of Internet communication tools (e.g. e-mail, chat, blogs, videoconferencing) to link linguistically and culturally disparate groups of language learners and teachers in institutionalised settings for the purpose of (bilingual) social interaction and project-based intercultural collaboration. (Belz 2007, p. 127)

As might be expected, telecollaboration has been celebrated for allowing both “synchronous” and “asynchronous” modes of student interaction—“synchronous” referring to technologies such as chat rooms or videoconferencing that allow online communication that occurs under real-time conditions between pairs or groups and “asynchronous” including emails, discussion forums, wikis, and blogs that allow delayed, non-real-time communication. For example, from the early 1990s, the arrival of the electronic mail was seen to offer opportunities for linking students, surpassing geographical boundaries, and replacing the use of regular mail that was considered “impractical” due to the time it took for classes to correspond and letters to reach their destination (Barr 1991). Thus, since the 1990s, the use of computer and web-based tools and applications to support interschool communication and facilitate collaborative projects has continued to grow—welcomed by many educators as a ready means of providing increased possibilities for learning, communication, and collaboration. For example, the internet is often perceived as a “culturally and linguistically ‘neutral’ environment that provides learners of all different social, linguistic and cultural backgrounds with the same balanced ‘playing field’ on which they can interact and learn” (O’Dowd 2007b, p. 19).

Although web-based types of collaboration have long stimulated and enthused researchers and educators, it is in the past few years with the proliferation of social media that popular interest in online collaboration has bloomed (Forte and Bruckman 2009). For instance, the notion of “telecollaboration 2.0” coined by Guth and Helm (2010) is used to expand upon “traditional” theories and practices of telecollaboration and is seen to mark the beginning of a gradual shift toward new pedagogies, approaches, and contexts as well as new tools and collaborative opportunities. Likewise, the new kinds of digital technologies are seen to create “exciting opportunities for supporting collaborative learning online” as well as new pedagogical challenges (Laurillard 2009, p. 5). As such, a range of web-based collaborative initiatives have emerged and will be presented in more detail in the following sections of this chapter. However, before looking more closely at the different types of intranational and international school collaboration that exist and before attempting to develop an understanding of the range of issues that underpin them, it is important to explore the different agendas and interests that lie behind the enthusiasm to set up and promote such programs.

Why Does School Collaboration Matter?

Web-based school collaboration has attracted the sustained attention of policy makers around the world and has begun to appear more prominently in the political agendas of many countries during the past decade. As such, the drive to insert collaborative initiatives into education has at large been led by individual governments, alliances between them, and in many cases by international bodies and organizations. For politicians and policy makers alike, participation in collaborative projects appears to provide a means of instilling a global dimension into the classroom; engaging in international cooperation; promoting global awareness and understanding; improving digital competence; supporting mobility and intercultural learning; enhancing foreign language skills; sharing expertise and good practices, and many more. For instance, the aim of the previous Labour government in the United Kingdom was to “engage in a programme of action between now and 2010 to enable every English school and college to establish a sustainable partnership with at least one equivalent institution in another country” (DfES 2004, p. 15). Similarly, US President Barack Obama has highlighted the need to expand educational exchange programs, “invest in online learning for teachers and children around the world; and create a new online network, so a young person in Kansas can communicate instantly with a young person in Cairo” (2009).

One of the most influential aspects of policy making is its role in promoting and funding such collaborative initiatives. To a great extent, governments and other international organizations have initiated and promoted collaborative programs, provided funding, built online platforms to host the projects, and offered technical support and teacher training. Overall, these official bodies have played an important part in making these initiatives widely known and easily accessed by schools and practitioners worldwide. The interest in such initiatives has significantly gathered pace during the last decade alongside the growing popularity of digital technologies and the rise of the social media. It is important to note that the collaborative and convivial nature of the new social media is seen to allow more creative modes of learning and enable students to connect to the real world beyond the classroom boundaries. At the same time, participation in online collaborative programs is associated with the improvement of students’ “twenty-first-century” skills and competences that a knowledge economy requires.

As we shall see in more detail in chapter 2, the claims surrounding participation in collaborative initiatives also relate to the wider claims associated with the drive to insert computers in schools. Alongside the current enthusiasm with regard to the educational potential of digital technologies, a range of internal and external imperatives have made the implementation of social media tools within educational and collaborative settings more acute than ever before. These internal imperatives are associated with harnessing the potential of digital technologies to solve long-standing educational problems; supporting and enhancing teaching and learning; increasing flexibility and supporting e-learning and virtual communities; improving the organizational effectiveness of educational institutions; and widening access to education and participation (Selwyn 2011b). Furthermore, a range of “top-down” external imperatives for technology use in education can be found in the policy-making agendas of developed and developing countries alike. These relate to keeping up to date with technological changes and meeting the demands of the “knowledge economy” and the information society; providing sufficient levels of “human capital” and enhancing “employability”; and meeting the needs of the “digital native” students (ibid.). For instance, technology is often presented both as the primary driver of social and economic change and as central to the process of “upskilling” the future workforce (Buckingham 2007).

Notably, the convivial and collaborative nature of the new tools and the recent conditions of connectivity are seen as particularly suited to promote web-based school collaboration. As Davies and Merchant (2009, p. 107) argued, web 2.0 spaces can be seen as “an arena for learning through social participation” where students of different ages and cultural backgrounds can participate in an extended learning community, generate new content, and find new audiences for their writing. Moreover, the majority of these collaborative programs appears to allow for more flexibility, creativity, and innovation compared to more traditional teaching methods and resources. In addition, it is often argued that, with regard to technology use, schools are placed in a constant position of being “behind the times” compared to other sectors of society (Selwyn et al. 2010) while students are often portrayed as “digital natives” who expect social media to be woven into all aspects of their lives.

In these respects, promoting school collaboration and engaging with international partners on web-based projects is seen as more timely than ever, and collaborative practices have been gaining recognition as a key component of successful schools (Leonard and Leonard 2001). This enthusiasm to promote school collaboration has resulted in the creation of a range of initiatives at both intranational and international levels. These have taken a range of forms and shapes during their course of development and will be presented in more detail in the next sections.

A Typology of School Collaboration

Looking at the history of school collaboration brings to light the range of definitions and the lack of a collectively accepted typology as regards the type of available collaborative initiatives. School collaboration can take a range of forms and varied terms appear to have been employed in educational literature in order to describe the working relationships between schools. Within educational research, various practices are described as “collaboration,” which emerges as a term that can be (mis)applied to a plethora of activities (Shinners 2001). Still, despite the large number of labels and terms adopted, careful examination of the various resources and existing initiatives allows us to identify some common characteristics and norms that can be used to inform the creation of a descriptive typology. Few commentators have, however, attempted to produce descriptive frameworks that encompass collaborative initiatives at both intranational and international levels.

At the intranational level, a typology of UK-based interschool collaborations was developed and five different models emerged (Atkinson et al. 2007): (i) expertise-based collaborations with the aim to share professional expertise and good practices (e.g., Specialist Schools, Beacon Schools, Diversity Pathfinders); (ii) cultural-based collaborations where the focus was on breaking down barriers associated with different cultures (e.g., independent-state school partnerships; interfaith and multicultural collaborations; international twinning); geographically based collaborations that linked schools within a particular area in order to serve particular needs or save on budget (e.g., federations, collegiates, and school clusters); commonality-based collaborations that linked schools with similar characteristics with the aim to address common problems or challenges (e.g., small rural primary school clusters/consortia), and, last, creativity/innovation-based collaborations with the focus being on innovation and developing new practices.

Thorough as this typology may be, it could be criticized for its rigidity and failure to fully capture the often-flexible nature of collaboration. It is more than often the case that collaborations are formed to serve multiple aims and bring about combined benefits; for example, breaking down cultural barriers, sharing good practice, and promoting creativity while also offering a means of making financial savings. As such, this chapter will endeavor to develop a conceptual typology of collaboration based on the level of school collaboration, ranging from intranational to international level, while it will also present in more detail the range of issues associated with web-based school collaboration.

The first parameter that is to be taken into consideration for the categorization of collaborative programs involves the geographical distance and boundaries that divide schools. On the one hand, intranational collaboration arises as a common model of linking schools that may be located within the same country but whose characteristics may vary in terms of rurality, religion, pupil need, or model of funding (i.e., distinction from urban to rural, denominational and nondenominational, special needs to mainstream, public to private sector). On the other hand, a broader model of collaboration involves initiatives organized at the international level that seek to surpass geographical borders and promote intercultural dialogue between schools that are spread across the world. International collaboration may encompass various models and approaches and can range from collaborative projects restricted within the European Union to initiatives that support linking at a global level.

Both intranational and international cooperations are also affected by parameters such as the depth and length of the collaborative relationship; the organizational structures or rules that have to be adopted so as to be in line with the agency or body that promotes the particular type of collaboration; the tools and resources used to promote and facilitate collaboration between students and teachers; the funding opportunities or the fees that may apply; the aims and objectives of the collaboration; and the level of flexibility allowed and the support provided by national bodies and local authorities. With these thoughts in mind, we can now go on to look at the recent history of school collaboration at both intranational and international levels.

The Recent History of Intranational Collaborations

The notion of intranational collaboration most commonly entails school federations, collegiates, and partnerships within a country, often emerging from local or state initiatives that aim at sustainability and school improvement, without, however, excluding other types of school linking. Since the mid-1990s, participation in “school networks” has been gaining in popularity and “many educational systems have experimented with networking and collaborative approaches to improvement” (Muijs et al. 2011, p. 1). As already highlighted, government agendas can often be key drivers for instigating and promoting partnerships of this nature. Indeed, government reports in the United Kingdom throughout the 2000s described collaboration between UK schools as a key strategy in raising standards (Rutherford and Jackson 2006).

Additionally, as Chapman et al. (2010) noted, the 2002 Education Act ...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title
• Chapter 1  Web-Based School Collaboration: The Promises and Problems
• Chapter 2  Digital Technologies in Education: New Tools for New Times?
• Chapter 3  Collaborative Experiences in Practice: Case Studies from the United Kingdom
• Chapter 4  Collaborative Experiences in Practice: Case Studies from Greece
• Chapter 5  The Bigger Picture: Understanding Web-Based School Collaboration
• Chapter 6  Conclusions and Suggestions for Improving School Collaboration—Where Now?
• Appendix: List of URLs of Collaborative Programs
• Bibliography
• Index