True Collaboration?

[Britt Gow]

Daniel Rezac has written an interesting article about how many so-called 'collaborative' projects are nothing more than a 'drop box' for student work. Read it here: http://mr-rezac.blogspot.com/
I tend to agree that we are barely beginning to truly collaborate on a global scale. And I fear there will always be a significant proportion of the world's population who will never have access to the kinds of technology that allows true collaboration across continents. Although it seems in commercial situations and higher education collaborative tools are being used effectively, I would love to see some examples of true collaboration in school settings between studeunts from different cities/countries.

[Ian Carmichael]

Thanks Britt,
Very interesting article - and I'd weigh in with the point (from personal observation) that collaboration is not well practised in the analogue world. When I observe students after 11/12 years of school who obviously have been reinforced in the idea that group work is simply the allocation and distribution of independent tasks which are eventually pasted together - I'm not surprised that we digitally recreate this in "drop-box" collaboration.
It seems a surprise to most students that I encounter that forming a plan, establishing a purpose and following a method of approach need establishing before (if it's even necessary) atomising tasks.
These, to me, are major components of collaboration.