ROLE OF ONLINE COLLABORATIVE PLATFORM IN HIGHER EDUCATION CONTEXT

Abstract

The education sector has already embraced the new generation of technology and started working towards the enhancement of various teaching and learning strategies. With the involvement of various e-tools, teaching and learning process is reaching its next level of implementation. At present, almost every educational establishment is working on implementing various e-resources on their own Virtual Learning Environment. Some of these are even cloud-based and hence enable the end-users (teachers and students), to access the e-resources and collaborate in-class activities even from remote locations. When it comes to group assessments, various collaborative tools come into the picture. Many educational organizations allow their students to access social media platform such as Facebook etc and conduct collaborative exercises on it. One of the critical aspects of enhancing learning through social networks is the fact that distance or off-campus students are limited from meeting with their teachers and addressing them face-to-face. However, both on-campus and off-campus students do have a Facebook account, thus breaking the distance barrier between students and teachers. By using Facebook chat, students can communicate in real-time with each other or with their lecturers. Other such platforms include Microsoft Kaizala, which is becoming popular during these days since it doesn’t require the participants to share their private accounts or mobile numbers in order to do an online collaboration for academic purpose. This research paper contains a study of various online collaborative tools, their pros and cons, recommendations for usage and implementation. Finally, the authors will reflect on their studies and suggest various ways of implementations for different purpose and nature of assessments, in order to cover the learning outcomes of the session.