Collaborative Learning

Abstract

Learning is considered as one of the potential tool to empower a community. Over the past three decades, technology mediated learning has been recognized as an alternate channel replacing/ supporting/ strengthening the traditional forms of education in various forms, especially with the advent of interactive and collaborative learning. Open and distance learning (ODL) emerges as a potential means of enhancing educational access. On the other hand, open educational resources (OER) emerge as a potential material of this new paradigm of knowledge acquisition process. However, the organizational learning at the peripheries and capacity development at the grass roots remain almost unattended, despite recognized global efforts under many bottom-up empowerment sequences. Social components at large within the transitional and developing economies remain outside the enclosure of universal access to information and thus access to knowledge has always been constricted to equitably compete with the global knowledge economy. Despite challenges in designing and implementing collaborative learning techniques and technologies, this chapter would like to emphasize on introducing collaborative learning at community level and improve the knowledge capacity at the grass roots for their empowerment. This chapter, further, investigates the relationship of collaborative learning towards improved e-governance. In the main thrust section, the chapter goes through various channels of collaborative learning, methods that could be adopted during the implementation, and technologies that could be availed during the dissemination phases of collaborative learning. Later on a few cases are being included, and before the conclusions, the chapter puts forward a few future research issues in the aspect of collaborative learning for empowerment of communities.