Digital and Collaborative Work: Winning Couple?

Abstract

Do digital and collaborative work go hand in hand? This chapter combines the practical experience of two university teachers and literature to answer this question. Basic notions are revisited: Collaborative work, Distance learning, Social constructivism, Authentic learning to establish the winning conditions. Collaborative work implies three types of action, i.e. communicating, coordinating, and producing. Digital technology finds its place in each of these, given the great diversity of tools available. To promote collaborative work with digital, the authors propose to clarify teaching objectives, to vary digital and pedagogical tools, and to develop the evaluation of collaborative work. The practical experience helps to clarify the main constraints of remote collaborative work and to identify some key elements to be aware of. Several concrete examples illustrate the problems and possible solutions.