Web 2.0:
Collaboration or Collusion?
NISOD
May 25th, 2009
Brett J. Millán, Ed.D and Rebecca O. Millán, Ed.D
South Texas College

What is Web 2.0?
Image Courtesy of O’Reilly Media

 What is collaboration?
– the act or process of working one with another
to accomplish a task
– to work jointly with others or together,
especially in an intellectual endeavor

 What is collusion?
– an agreement, usually secretive, which occurs
between two or more persons to deceive,
mislead, or defraud others of legal rights, or
– to obtain an objective forbidden by law
typically involving fraud or gaining an unfair
advantage

Web 2.0: Collaboration?

Web 2.0: Collusion

Scenario #1: GoogleDocs
 Ernesto and Bob are enrolled in the same course and
have a major project to complete at the end of the
semester.
 Ernesto and Bob began discussing the project. From
the conversation, Bob realized he might be
completing the project incorrectly and asked Ernesto
to share his project through GoogleDocs (as a viewer)
so that he (Bob) could have an idea of what could be
completed.
 After looking at Ernesto’s project, Bob completes his
own project by using some of Ernesto’s work and
then adding his own ideas in the conclusion.

Scenario #2: GoogleDocs
 Kim and Marcia decide that revising and editing their
English papers at the college’s tutoring center is difficult
as required by the teacher. The teacher has encouraged
students to have someone glance at the papers to ensure
errors are caught before the final draft.
 Kim shares her paper with Marcia and Marcia does the
same with Kim. Each student points out mistakes on the
other’s essay and makes comments for improvement.
 The teacher asks for a Revision History in GoogleDocs to
see who did what and finds that Kim made more
suggestions and corrections than Marcia, and that both
students took some of the suggestions the other made but
not all.

Scenario #3: Notemesh
 Students in a biology class have difficulty
understanding the professor’s speech pattern. The
students feel that something must be done so they
can have a full set of notes because the professor
uses lectures as the basis of the exams.
 The students decide to use Notemesh in order to
piece together their notes to fill in the gaps of
information.
 These notes are shared with everyone in the
course, including those who rarely attend class.

Scenario #4: Notemesh
 Students in a history class begin compiling their notes
for an exam. The professor has two different history
classes but has been rumored to use similar exams for
both classes.
 Karen, who is in the class that takes the exam first
decided to help a friend, Rex, who is enrolled in the
second class but she did not know how to contact him.
 However, she knew that Rex would be using
Notemesh to study and she goes into the document to
highlight the sections that pertained to questions on
her version of the test.

Scenario #5: Livemocha
 Maria is in a French class and is trying to
improve her grammar. She becomes a user
of Livemocha to upload her homework and
other users provide grammatical corrections
for what she has posted.
 Afterwards, she turns in the homework just
as it was corrected by the Livemocha users.

Scenario #6: Livemocha
Gladys is in a French class and enjoys
chatting on the computer. She runs across
Livemocha.com and sees that she can chat
and practice French at the same time.
 During the chat, she discusses what she is
learning in French class and the native
French speakers help her practice and
expand her French vocabulary.

The NetGen Factor
Millennials at work (and at school?)…
 Work well with friends and on teams
 Collaborative, resourceful, innovative thinkers
 Love a challenge
 Want to produce something worthwhile
 Impatient
 Comfortable with speed and change
 Thrive on flexibility and space to explore
 Partner well with mentors
 Value guidance
http://www.deloitte.com/dtt/cda/doc/content/us_consulting_millennialfactsheet_080606.pdf

Definitional Considerations
 Instructor expectations
 Assignment and Learning requirements
 Future use of acquired knowledge
 Social Relationship with Collaborator(s)
 “Collaborator’s” Level of Expertise

Other Useful Web 2.0 Sites
for Instruction
 280Slides.com  Zoho.com
 Flickr.com  Gliffy.com
 Flowchart.com  Notemesh.com
 Wiggio.com  Scribblar.com

Thank you very much for your
time and attention!
If you would like a copy of this presentation or continue this
discussion online, please contact
Brett J. Millán
bmillan@southtexascollege.edu
or
Rebecca O. Millán
rmillan@southtexascollege.edu