Understanding and uses of collaborative tools for online courses in higher education

Abstract

This article describes an action research study investigating the understanding and uses of collaborative tools, which are novel to pedagogical practices -- using the steps of planning, intervening, evaluating the effectiveness, and sharing potential collaborative tools and/or applications. The research focuses on determining the most effective applications for collaborative tools. Based on the study, this article highlights additional key strengths of collaborative teaching scenarios: their strength in facilitating student tasks and assessments. The time savings are quantified after determining how the collaborative task reduces the time required by course facilitators for manual evaluation. This advancement makes it possible to design multiple collaborative tasks that use various collaborative tools, enhancing learning experiences in higher education. The section then discusses potential collaborative tools and/or applications. Effective utilization of collaborative tools necessitates facilitators with the skills to create a new, innovative, collaborative virtual platform.