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Collaboration is defined as a coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to construct and maintain a shared conception of a problem. There are many forms of collaboration that assist communities, countries, and regions in pursuit of development. Among these are collaborative initiatives associated with education and community learning.

Today’s teachers, administrators and parents are increasingly mobile-using, texting, tweeting social media devotees whose personal and professional lives are dependent upon Internet connectivity and online collaborative learning environments. A majority of teachers (52 percent), parents (57 percent) and district administrators (52 percent) are now regularly updating a social networking site, and many are using a personal mobile device such as a smartphone to do that.

A collaborative Web site comprises the perpetual collective work of many authors. Similar to a blog in structure and logic, a wiki allows anyone to edit, delete or modify content that has been placed on the Web site using a browser interface, including the work of previous authors.

This is a liberating shift. As teachers spend less time creating presentations and more time crafting powerful learning activities, they will find that material is covered with more depth and retention the first time around, saving them time and energy in the long run. Moreover, by allowing students to be explorers and designers, educators show that they believe in their students’ abilities and validate each student’s contribution to the class.

Middle schoolers might take it a step further to discover and develop steps for graphing a reflection on a coordinate plane. Exploring as a real mathematician would, students try to understand, analyze, and evaluate their experience to answer the posed question.

Kindergarteners create image-based movies on recycling and insects; First graders develop PowerPoint presentations for “My Time to Teach” projects to share with the class; Fourth graders prepare for their statewide standardized writing assessment by developing elaborate digital storybooks on free web 2.0 sites such as Storybird (www.storybird.com) or StoryJumper (www.storyjumper.com). Fifth graders collaborate to launch a Web Safety Wiki to teach other students worldwide about digital citizenship (wildcatwebsafety.wikispaces.com).