Making Sense of Virtual Collaboration Through Personal Learning Networks

This chapter describes the use of personal learning networks (PLNs) in an online collaborative project involving technical communication students at the University of Minnesota and translation students at the University of Trieste. The authors, who acted as instructors at each end of the project, examined the PLNs produced by the students with the aim of making visible aspects of collaborative projects that have to date received less attention in the literature on both translator training and technical communication. More specifically, the analysis of PLNs – supported by a study of the exchanges that took place between the students in the course of the project – sheds some light on issues of cross-cultural competence, trust, and learning strategies and attitudes. These aspects were found to be characteristic of the students' collaboration besides the obvious and more immediate focus on questions of language and translation.