The 21st century has brought about changes in every aspect of life through ubiquitous technology and Internet-based social media. The distances between cultures and continents have narrowed, the world has become flat, and multicultural work-teams composed of members from different countries have become a daily reality in global businesses. However, in many ways these global changes in work practices have only just begun to have an impact on education. To better prepare students for the information age, researchers and policy makers largely agree about the skills needed for shared knowledge construction. Indeed, the education systems in several different countries have begun to integrate these skills into teaching and learning and are placing a strong emphasis on their implementation (Melamed et al, 2010; Resta et al, 2011). In 2015 the OECD PISA exam for the first time, included assessment of collaborative problem-solving in its country-by-country comparison. Collaborative learning is not a trivial challenge nor is it intuitive for all teachers and learners. One must acquire and practice the essential skills in order to successfully work in a team. Consequently it is essential to train teachers in collaborative teamwork, as they must serve as role models for students. In addition, new tools and practices become available at a rate that outpaces the abilities of many higher education institutions to adopt and implement. This book surveys the current state of the field and provides theoretical guidance and practical examples to help meet the gaps in research, development and practice.

Our children are at an advantage when they experience other cultures and develop skills in a connected world. They are better prepared to be productive and compassionate citizens in an increasingly global economy, and they are able to improve their communication skills, collaborate effectively and be ready for multicultural workspaces. Empowering educators with the tools to foster this environment in the classroom is a critical part of the process. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has been leading the way in this field. As part of its extensive publishing program, ISTE will be releasing in July 2016 The Global Educator: Leveraging Technology for Collaborative Learning & Teaching by Julie Lindsay. In The Global Educator, Lindsay illustrates the need for intercultural understanding and collaboration to personalize learning, achieve curriculum objectives and bring the world to our students by answering these key questions: How imperative is it that educators connect themselves and their classrooms to the world? What emerging education leadership styles are shifting pedagogy and why should we be taking notice of this? What are the essential benefits of embedding online global collaboration into the curriculum? What are simple steps that educators in the classroom can take to become more globally minded and start to change their practice? How are emerging digital technologies supporting this move to online global learning and collaboration? In addition to answering these questions, the book provides practical resources and powerful case studies from educators and education leaders in the United States and throughout the world who are forging connections across the globe, embedding these practices into current curriculum objectives and providing their students with invaluable educational experiences, including: — more — Yvonne Marie Andres, a California-based global collaboration expert and co-founder of Global SchoolNet, which has been at the forefront of telecommunication-based learning. Librarian and media specialist Toni Olivieri-Barton, based in Colorado, has participated in and led many online global projects across K-12 levels. She was the runner-up for an ISTE Online Learning Network Award for creating opportunities for online independent studies at the middle school and high school levels. And Anne Mirtschin, an award-winning teacher in Australia, finds and designs opportunities for her students and fellow teachers and brings rich learning activities to the classroom. Global collaboration has changed the learning ecology of her school and had a positive impact on her students. For educators and curriculum developers, The Global Educator is an invaluable resource to support and nurture a global learning experience for children and students everywhere.

Collaborative learning is well-recognised as a pedagogical practice that promotes socialisation and learning among students from kindergarten to the university level and beyond. Children, adolescents, and adults learn from each other in a vast array of formal and informal settings in schools and the wider community. This book brings together a diverse range of international scholars to profile new pedagogical developments in collaborative learning and to highlight how these practices have been implemented. The term collaborative learning is used very broadly in this volume and includes co-operative learning, peer learning, and peer collaboration. The proponents of these practices argue that by working together, students have many opportunities to learn and develop a greater understanding of others with diverse social, personal, and academic competencies. The emphasis in this volume is on chapters that have a strong evidence-base for the work that is presented. This includes chapters that present empirical studies, research reviews, case studies and theoretical reviews because there is much to be gained by sharing and learning about what happens and how different pedagogical practices have been implemented. These chapters include pedagogical practices in mathematics learning, classroom-based talk, literacy, learning processes, group work, pre-service teacher education, teacher professional development, web-based technologies, and affective education and development. This book will have appeal to pre-service and experienced teachers who are interested in how different collaborative pedagogies can be embedded in different curricula to promote student engagement with learning. It will also be valuable as a reference text in post-graduate courses that focus on research training in education.

There is strong evidence that collaborative learning is beneficial to educational development. By engaging in collaborative activity, learners utilise each other's perspectives and experiences to solve problems and develop a shared understanding of meanings. Through dialogue and social interaction, learners are empowered to perform outside of their own individual capabilities. Collaborative learning has the potential to benefit learners of all levels of experience and in a variety of situations. This edited volume showcases a series of studies of theory and case-studies of practice. The book highlights the benefits and challenges of collaborative inquiry, and how these are best managed in practice. The contributors to this volume are comprised of educators from around the world, and collaborative approaches for learners across a broad range of stages of development are discussed. The authors highlight the rich diversity of approaches to learning through collaborative activity, and provide examples of good practice. It also addresses the increasing significance of technology in the support collaborative learning. The benefits technology can bring to collaborative activity have been recognised for several years, and many of the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the impact and scope of collaborative learning may be enhanced by the use of collaborative technologies, social media and Web 2.0 interactive platforms. The examples presented in this edited work illustrate that through technology, collaborative activities no longer need to be confined to the classroom, but may occur across geographical, cultural, and language barriers. Often overcoming these barriers within a collaborative environment proves to be of great benefit to the learners in addition to the knowledge gains offered.

This book addresses computer-supported collaborative learning (also known as CSCL) particularly within a tertiary education environment. It includes articles on theory and practice in this area including topics such as: how can groups with shared goals work collaboratively using the new technologies? What problems can be expected, and what are the benefits? In what ways does online group work differ from face-to-face group work? And what implications are there for both educators and students seeking to work in this area?

This new encyclopedia discusses the extraordinary importance of internet technologies, with a particular focus on the Web.

This book gathers the Proceedings of the 20th International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning (ICL2017), held in Budapest, Hungary on 27–29 September 2017. The authors are currently witnessing a significant transformation in the development of education. The impact of globalisation on all areas of human life, the exponential acceleration of technological developments and global markets, and the need for flexibility and agility are essential and challenging elements of this process that have to be tackled in general, but especially in engineering education. To face these current real-world challenges, higher education has to find innovative ways to quickly respond to them. Since its inception in 1998, this conference has been devoted to new approaches in learning with a focus on collaborative learning. Today the ICL conferences offer a forum for exchange concerning relevant trends and research results, and for sharing practical experience gained while developing and testing elements of new technologies and pedagogies in the learning context.