XplanaZine

Schools, colleges, universities — they are communities full of smaller communities. They are designed to bring people together and yet, there are also forces of isolation at work there. As teachers we often find ourselves separated by the walls of our classrooms or offices and the figurative barriers erected by our busy schedules and individual interests.

Three years ago, my family was one of those that swore we weren’t going to let mobile technology invade our home life. It was bad enough, we reasoned, that I was completely tethered to e-mail and my cell phone at work. Why would we want to allow the frenetic pace of work to come onto our house?

So, here I am, three years later, sitting in a hotel room in Washington D.C., writing an article on my Treo 270, and taking the occasional phone call from my wife as she drives around town back in Oklahoma. Needless to say, we gave in and have embraced the wonders of wireless technology in our personal lives.

The real reason behind this migration to a completely connected existence can be summed up in a word — collaboration.

I have abandoned my administrative office begun working with my wife on writing projects. I am co-writing a magazine with a group of collaborators from multiple cities and countries, developing textbook projects, and am part of a growing community of educators and developers laboring away on an open courseware project.

And I get to do most of this via shared virtual space. The experience has taught me that collaboration is not just useful for getting more stuff done. It also creates unexpected synergies that further strengthen existing communities and provide the impetus for new ones (it’s no exaggeration when I say that new communities start up from my existing collaborations every single week).

Now all of this may not make me an expert on collaboration, but I have learned some lessons the hard way that I would like to pass along. You see, I am convinced that collaborating on useful projects is the quickest and most effective way to strengthen and create communities in education. It is the best way I know of to expand the learning opportunities in our classes and schools.

• Find fun projects. Life can be full of dull committee meetings, boring practices, and people whose personalities seem not to lend themselves to collaboration. So, the most important thing to remember when developing collaboration is to center it on meaningful, stimulating, and fun activities. This one thing will solve most of the obstacles normally associated with collaborative work.
• Define roles and responsibilities carefully but with flexibility. Okay, so admittedly, we often do not get the opportunity to pick our collaborative opportunities. And whether an administrator assigns us to a group or we join a project in progress, sometimes we find ourselves teamed with people less naturally inclined to collaboration than we are or stuck on a project that is less fun that we night like. The key to happy collaboration in these and other circumstances is not trying to make every member of a collaborative team have the same experience or work on the same details. Divide up responsibilities, define them carefully, and assign them appropriately. In particular, allow each collaboration partner the independence to complete their portion of the project and to choose the amount of contact they have with others in the group. This can result is less friction and solid results. Remember, collaboration is about the final community result.
• Conduct at least a preliminary survey of your corporate giftedness. This can be as simple as having everyone describe their likes and talents, but some form of assessment is crucial to good collaboration. Once you have done this, take the time to reassess your project plans and make sure you are not losing sight of the unique talents the group brings to bear on the task at hand. Every collaboration should be a reflection of the group’s special identity and giftedness.
• Try over-communicating for a change. Most collaborations that fail do so because of assumptions and miscommunication. The best prevention against those problems is over-communication. In collaboration, lots of e-mail is good. My most successful collaboration partner is exemplary in this. She uses e-mail like it was IM. The result? I always know exactly where we’re at and have a useful record of everything.
• Choose a good tool. How will you communicate? How will you share documents and ideas? Is e-mail enough? Do you need a separate Web space? Can you accomplish your goals best with a team blog? Don’t leave out this part of planning your collaboration. The right tool can make all the difference.