I often am in need of other teachers, especially when arranging for school trips, I ask my collegues for suggestions in orde to get the most from this experience. I find time to get in touch with them in the weekends, during schools breaks and online, but I'd like, as I've written before, to have dedicated occasions for this, once a week for example, as it happens in the primary school here in Italy. This opportunity would be more involving, complete and effective.

The ICT help yhe sharing of the materials and informations reducing space and time 

I'm not that old, but I'd like to have the opportunity to challenge with younger teachers as they bring in new experiences. At the same time, I had the opportunity to see some of the lessons of a teacher older than me and got really interesting input. Yes, it's all about the state of mind, some colleagues think it a lost of time but do not realize they are not developing their skills.

A perfect opportunity would be to have a room designed for the cooperation and available at fixed hours. At the same time, teacher should have in their timetable the opportunity to meet their collegues apart from the usual afternoon meetings held 2-3 times per year. This happens in foreign countries, but not in Italy. The idea to share ideas and cooperate using Skype or videoconference is useful when thinking about collaboration with teachers coming from foreign countries or from different tows in our country. I support this idea

I love technologies and would like to become a digital animator in my school. We are trained in the school to use google docs, drive and dropbox. I also use my website to share documents with my colleagues and students. I do not often use social networks, even if I-ve been asked to do so in the last times, so I need to get used.

As part of the Italian education system, teachers before taking a definitive role in the school, have to follow a path that includes theory and practice. In this field I have cooperated with a teacher attending my classes and me hers and afterwards sharing our ideas and comments. I think the rotation can be an excellent way to work, but I haven't had the chance to do it yet, because I was the only teacher of my subject in the school. Now things have changed, so I'll try!

I'm sorry I had a meeting at school at that time, but I'll try to follow it offline.

This video shows us a different perspective. I really believe in the importance of reducing the stress of the student towards the evaluation process and I-m trying to change my way of assessing, implementing self evaluation and peer evaluation. I-ve did that through a game in which the students were asked to answer to some questions/comment on some themes and their classmate were to evaluate the time needed and the quality of the answer. It was challenging to them. In my learning activity I-d like to add this parameter to the evaluation scale.

Unfortunately, I do not have experience in constructing rubrics but I've prepared some checklists when working with other collegues. I hope to find a right way to build them, both for my motivation, and for their. I think all the tips I have been listening until now are useful and will use the examples given

I also use my blog to have the students interact and read each other comments in order to get ideas or check themselves. This is useful especially for the weacker students. I took note of all the tools Anna is using, some of them are new to me and I'd like to try them. Thanks!

It-s all about the process learning to learn and lifelong learning. If teachers pay attention to these two elements and implement their lessons according to these points, you get a good result. I-m trying to work on this, sometimes spending a lot of time and having troubles in making the students understand my goals, but i-m already collecting some results. I use digital tools as popplet.com
text2mind
my website
my blog

A good and simple example to follow! I think it useful in my practice as well, since I work with beginners and I can attend to same scheme of work. The points taken into account are the right ones, of course it's difficult to assess the performance of the single students, but just by taking an interview or recording a short video, they could be assessed more deeply. Thanks for sharing

I think assessment of collaborative work should increase fair competition and make them feel responsible for their work in the group. Some students need to be stimulated, others in a sense contained. We have to assess this point as well to make the students understand the importance of it.

When using the 21 CLD rubric to evaluate my projects, I realized that for one of the proposed activities I just reached code 3 as the students didn't make substantial decisions, but where waiting for my indications. I got an high level of collaboration with younger students,as I let they produced their own videos working in at interdependent way and deciding what content and style to present. 

Interesting video, good suggestions! I think planning is very important part of our work, lessons design are necessary and they facilitate the following work. The rubric is very helpful, but I think we'd also need to share a common assessment of all these sections. When I tried to evaluate collaborative activities, I had to record their discussions. This take a very long time and lacks of spontaneity. I'd better build indications that allow me to understand if the student are really achieving the steps planned.

Thanks to Professor Butler to make us reflect on these points. Too often we just look at the group work in a superficial way and this does not make things easier, not for the students, or for us. These questions must be kept in mind all along the learning process.

I agree with her point that we have to share a language about what we mean by collaborative learning. From this starting point, we should develop students' and teachers' skills about this. I they are not used to work in this way and if they are not asked to do so in a regular way, we can't expect them to get the results we expect. At the same time, if teachers do not have a good preparation on this, they will not be able to give the proper instructions and follow the process. Technologies can implement a great teaching, but great technologies can't help a poor teaching system, I totally agree! 

Here is the link to a mind map the students have created> https://www.text2mindmap.com/CxB1vzT

this shows a low level of collaboration because each of them was asked to give a personal opinion about the theme we were working on. But, by taking inspiration from each other comment, and trying not to repeat the contents, I think they collaborate in a way...

When I decide to cooperate with other teachers, or I am invited to do so, we always agree about the approach to be kept. Since I teach a subject that is often difficult to match with, this has not happened so often. Anyway, I can say that we operated in a good atmosphere but in separate time and space. I think that it would be better to find a common time and space, but it's very hard to combine teachers' timetables. To avoid frustration from some students' side,. I tried to apply a peer tutoring system. By assessing different moments of the project, almost every student had the chance to challenge himself. In some occasions the most effective students might have felt themselves slowed down by the rest of the group, but they get in the end a role that repays this feeling. 

I completely agree with Anna, students learn better when they are involved in what they are doing. Groups mustn't be too large, and the space of the room must be well organized. Each students must know what he is working to. I agree that assessment is not easy, we have to evaluate the group's work as well as the single student's one, it's not so easy..

I absolutely agree, that-s why I have created my own website, in order to create a community, to cooperate in a positive way and to decrease student-s stress. By getting rewards on the net, they also feel more satisfied with themselves and they care they work

When watching this video, I was impressed and really wanted to have the same situation in my school. Unfortunately classrooms are small and the number of students is high in most of the cases. When I decided to move the tables, I've been told that it's is not correct in terms of safety, as in case of fire students will find difficulties in exiting the classrooms. Anyway, when possible, when I have small groups, and this happens sometimes, since I teach a third language, I ask the student to move their tables, interact and I walk along the classroom providing suggestions and listening to the process of the discussion. They can use the LIM or the PC in the classroom and sometimes I allow them to use their mobiles, when they can't wait for their classmates to finish their research. If the time for the report is too short, I use my blog to have the students' feedbacks. 

I think collaborative learning is more effective than cooperative learning, as students, when operating together have to develop more their competences in terms of mediation and sharing. In my experience I noticed that when they all participate to achieve the same goal, they feel more at ease and are free to show their personal attitudes