Collaboration and Technology: a result of a learned behavior or an instinct

As I watched Howard Rheingold’s (2005) video discussing the evolution of society, collective action, and the natural instinct of people to collaborate, a few questions arise: is collaboration an instinct or a learned behavior?, how our society has been transformed by collaboration?, and how communication and technology has influenced those changes?

The discussion in "Is being green a basic instinct or learned behaviour?" poses an interesting point of view of the psychological principles that influences people. As it suggests, people have a social instinct to interact with others and take inspiration from their actions. Thus collaboration can be considered a basic instinct. What influences a collaborative behavior is what, as Rheingold (2005) points out, might be influenced by social institutions and might vary depending on each individual.

There are many examples in history on how technology has influenced society and collaboration. Rheingold (2005) presents how technological tools, like open source products (Linux, Mozilla, Apache, and Wikipedia) and the free Open University lectures, posted by Berkley and Yale, are being used as collaboration means. These resources can be viewed as a result of constuctivist collaborative efforts of a community of knowledge. The tools that facilitate collaboration are under continuous development, especially within the Web 2.0 applications. As these tools continue its deployment, learning will be an "open door" to promote collaboration, while students analyze, create, and construct their knowledge through their initiative and independence.

Learning Theories and Educational Technology

Two very important questions that all people passionate about learning through technology should reflect upon:

• How do you believe people learn best?
• What is the purpose of learning theory in educational technology?

What do I believe?

Learning is defined as a persisting change in human performance or performance potential (Driscoll, 2005). There are many theories about how people learn. And I believe that all of them are pertinent to specific learning situations. I believe that people learn best when different techniques are used so their learning styles can be fulfilled. Shirley (2010) classifies learners into three basic groups: the listening learners, the seeing learners, and the touch/experience learners. There is no better learning style, they are just different from each other.

Educational technology has a long history. As I watched a YouTube video about the History of Educational Technology I reflected upon how it has influenced learning and how learning theories influence educational technology. Educational technology is defined as the study and ethical practice of facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using and managing appropriate technological processes and resources (Richey, 2008). While learning theory is defined as a set of constucts linking observed changes in performance with what is thought to bring about those changes (Driscoll, 2005). I believe that learning theory is fundamental when designing the activities that will help people learn and improve their performance through those technological processes and resources.


References:

Driscoll, M. P. (2005).  Psychology of learning for instruction.  Boston, MA:  Pearson Education.
Richey, R.C. (2008). Reflections on the 2008 AECT Definitions of the Field. TechTrends, 52(1) 24-25.
Shirley, R. (2010).   Which one are you?  Retrieved from: http://www.worldwidelearn.com/education-articles/how-do-you-learn.htm