What is a collaboratory? How can it function as a boundary object for different communities?
chip Bruce
(chip@uiuc.edu)
(ready to use)
ASK
Partner Projects
| Distributed Knowledge Research |
Subject Areas
| Educational Technology, Information Science, Language Arts |
Grade Levels
Unit Keywords
|
collaboratory, collaboration, play, emerging technologies |
Rationale of the Unit
| Vannevar Bush, Ted Nelson, Arthur C. Clarke, Octavia Butler, Howard Rheingold, Kenneth Brufee and others have written about the potential of collaboration--the emergence of large-scale structures for thought that cross boundaries of time and space. At the other extreme, leaders of work projects and teachers have created spaces for collaboration within their groups. Studies (e.g., Cross, 1994; Kamberlis) have focused on peer groups and individual projects as sites of collaboration. However, what has been missing have been studies on the sites of collaboration between these two extremes--studies that focus on collaborations among different communities. These communities may share boundary objects (such as websites/collaboratories) without necessarily overlapping with each other (i.e., research groups, classes, unidentified visitors). How might these sites of collaboration break down (or reinforce) the traditional walls between different aspects of work in the academy--research, teaching, play--particularly in writing programs? How might they motivate students' writing? (the thought here is that a research may provide 'real exigence for students' work.) How might they connect different research groups--not necessarily in a formal/explicit collaboration, but also not necessarily in competition? How might they affect funding structures in academe? |
Background and Resources
Credits & Acknowledgements
| This unit is itself the product of collaboration--of Karen Lunsford,Jenny Robins, Chip Bruce, the Distributed Knowledge group, the Inquiry Group. |
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