Group Collaboration

Collaboration is a distinct process that requires a purpose and coordination of resources, responsibilities, and purpose to be effective. I added a YouTube clip, of Clay Shirky: Institutions vs. collaboration. This is also a widget on the right sidebar.
He discusses the need for a feature or artifact that must accompany an assignment for collaboration to be effective. In education the WebQuest format is a good example of how to effectively produce a sense of teamwork on a collaborative assignment. This valuable tool was actually developed prior to the advent of Web2.0, but serves nicely as a collaboration tool.
Another important consideration of educators using the Internet as a resource in collaboration is the need to model and provide scaffolding of effective collaborative behaviors. Scaffolding involves the teacher providing input as the student attempts to accomplish a behavior.