Online environments: collaboration in learning activities

At a time of profound changes in both learning conceptions and the construction of knowledge representations and in their application in real-life and professional situations, there is a huge need to deepen the processes that help us understand collaborative learning in online environments. These environments, due to their advantages, are powerful means for the development of the flexibility of representations and their suitability to practice contexts. The success of online collaborative activities depends on several aspects, among which can be mentioned their planning and monitoring of learning, bearing in mind the necessity to create a feeling of community and connection among the students seeking to engage in the joint definition of learning objectives. Therefore, the online environments are a way of expanding the boundaries of human communication and sustaining complex processes of interaction through the networks that make up the virtual classroom. Apart from admitting the importance of online environments, which goes beyond the development of the themes of online learning and online collaboration, we shall also present some results about student perceptions when exposed to the development of learning activities in online environments, based on research carried out within a doctoral thesis done in the University of Minho. Collaboration and the ways it develops in new learning communities is one of the main aspects of the above-mentioned study as well as a fundamental means for student learning because in this way they can understand questions, develop arguments and share meanings and conclusions [1]