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In language learning, students learn through interaction with the teacher, the other students, and with the study material, to build language skills. What happens to interaction opportunities when learning goes online? In an online classroom, collaboration is difficult to achieve due to lack of physical proximity among the participants. This paper explores the problem of online collaboration between teachers and students in English as Foreign Language (EFL) classroom with the empirical focus on the role that video cameras play in online collaboration. We argue that cameras, although being contested as a pedagogical tool, should be seen as an important ‘proximity tool’ that helps foster collaboration by bringing learners and teachers ‘closer’. We theorise ‘collaboration’ via the social constructivism lens and argue that collaboration as being ‘close’ echoes in the digital sense with ‘being with’ and is core for developing an ecology of virtual collaboration. We draw on the online survey data from foreign language students and language instructors in one Russian research-intensive university, who were asked how they use cameras online. Quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis have been used to identify key patterns and emerging themes. The key findings of the study are that 1) cameras could be an important aspect of fostering collaboration online; 2) there is a tension in relationships between students, teachers, and study materials; 3) students and teachers differently perceive the need to use cameras, which may limit opportunities for online collaboration; and 4) while students feel more comfortable when all the other participants turn their cameras on, many do not see turning cameras on for themselves to be important. The paper concludes with a discussion of how camera use can foster online collaboration between teachers and students.

Welcome to this Special Issue of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (JUTLP). This editorial provides an overview of Collaboration in Higher Education. Humans are social, inter-dependent beings, needing to be and communicate with each other. Being with other people provides an opportunity to grow and develop, creating a sense of self and identity. Together we construct, structure and restructure the stories that build the larger narratives of who we are, what we do and how we live, act and behave as people, professionals and larger communities. It is through our collaborations that we come together, and construct meaning and ourselves. As Higher Education continues to exclude and sideline, as it constrains and removes spaces and places for collaboration between service staff, faculty and students within institutions, between institutions, and with other stakeholders, there is a need to rediscover the power of collaboration. The articles included, build on practical experience, research data, personal and collective reflections, to outline how the contributors have navigated this tension to create spaces of voice and hope. Presented are case studies that are boundary crossing: across disciplinary boundaries; cross-institution collaboration; cross-boundary working; pedagogical co-creation and the re-conceptualising of learning; and students as partners, co-researchers and co-authors. Together they showcase refreshed notions of collegiality and collaboration in Higher Education that support new and more nuanced, and dynamic models of co-creation. We hope the Special Issue helps seed an ecology of collaborative practice for social justice – a more humane academia.

Welcome to this Special Issue of the Journal of University Teaching and Learning Practice (JUTLP). This editorial provides an overview of Collaboration in Higher Education. Humans are social, inter-dependent beings, needing to be and communicate with each other. Being with other people provides an opportunity to grow and develop, creating a sense of self and identity. Together we construct, structure and restructure the stories that build the larger narratives of who we are, what we do and how we live, act and behave as people, professionals and larger communities. It is through our collaborations that we come together, and construct meaning and ourselves. As Higher Education continues to exclude and sideline, as it constrains and removes spaces and places for collaboration between service staff, faculty and students within institutions, between institutions, and with other stakeholders, there is a need to rediscover the power of collaboration. The articles included, build on practical experience, research data, personal and collective reflections, to outline how the contributors have navigated this tension to create spaces of voice and hope. Presented are case studies that are boundary crossing: across disciplinary boundaries; cross-institution collaboration; cross-boundary working; pedagogical co-creation and the re-conceptualising of learning; and students as partners, co-researchers and co-authors. Together they showcase refreshed notions of collegiality and collaboration in Higher Education that support new and more nuanced, and dynamic models of co-creation. We hope the Special Issue helps seed an ecology of collaborative practice for social justice – a more humane academia.

In language learning, students learn through interaction with the teacher, the other students, and with the study material, to build language skills. What happens to interaction opportunities when learning goes online? In an online classroom, collaboration is difficult to achieve due to lack of physical proximity among the participants. This paper explores the problem of online collaboration between teachers and students in English as Foreign Language (EFL) classroom with the empirical focus on the role that video cameras play in online collaboration. We argue that cameras, although being contested as a pedagogical tool, should be seen as an important ‘proximity tool’ that helps foster collaboration by bringing learners and teachers ‘closer’. We theorise ‘collaboration’ via the social constructivism lens and argue that collaboration as being ‘close’ echoes in the digital sense with ‘being with’ and is core for developing an ecology of virtual collaboration. We draw on the online survey data from foreign language students and language instructors in one Russian research-intensive university, who were asked how they use cameras online. Quantitative and qualitative methods of data analysis have been used to identify key patterns and emerging themes. The key findings of the study are that 1) cameras could be an important aspect of fostering collaboration online; 2) there is a tension in relationships between students, teachers, and study materials; 3) students and teachers differently perceive the need to use cameras, which may limit opportunities for online collaboration; and 4) while students feel more comfortable when all the other participants turn their cameras on, many do not see turning cameras on for themselves to be important. The paper concludes with a discussion of how camera use can foster online collaboration between teachers and students.

Streaming media seems to have become a natural part in teachers’ professional life. Streamed music, primarily distributed by the company Spotify, sounds in most music and dance classrooms, not least in Swedish schools. Hence, the concepts of digitalization and listening are accentuated within the area of music educa-tion. Within the frames of a larger border-crossing research project financed by Wallenbergstiftelsen – ‘Evolving bildung in the nexus of streaming services, art and users: Spotify as a case’, which aims to explore the meaning and function of streaming media as a facilitator of bildung, using Spotify as a case – this presen-tation takes two interviews regarding Spotify use as a starting point. One music teacher and one dance teacher, among sixteen participants, were interviewed about their use of Spotify. The aim with the specific analysis was to describe the phenom-enon of bildung regionalized to relational school settings, where streamed music, teachers and students come together in intended learning situations. The interviews were stimulated by the teachers’ own Spotify interfaces, and documented by the virtual communication tool Zoom. They were transcribed and analysed in a phenomenological narrative manner. The narrative is shaped as a dialogue between the two teachers, to make similarities and differences regarding relations with Spotify in the classroom setting visible. The result shows aspects of existential and essential bildung through listening taking place as being, thinking and acting with Spotify in the spirit of Heidegger.

Streaming media seems to have become a natural part in teachers’ professional life. Streamed music, primarily distributed by the company Spotify, sounds in most music and dance classrooms, not least in Swedish schools. Hence, the concepts of digitalization and listening are accentuated within the area of music educa-tion. Within the frames of a larger border-crossing research project financed by Wallenbergstiftelsen – ‘Evolving bildung in the nexus of streaming services, art and users: Spotify as a case’, which aims to explore the meaning and function of streaming media as a facilitator of bildung, using Spotify as a case – this presen-tation takes two interviews regarding Spotify use as a starting point. One music teacher and one dance teacher, among sixteen participants, were interviewed about their use of Spotify. The aim with the specific analysis was to describe the phenom-enon of bildung regionalized to relational school settings, where streamed music, teachers and students come together in intended learning situations. The interviews were stimulated by the teachers’ own Spotify interfaces, and documented by the virtual communication tool Zoom. They were transcribed and analysed in a phenomenological narrative manner. The narrative is shaped as a dialogue between the two teachers, to make similarities and differences regarding relations with Spotify in the classroom setting visible. The result shows aspects of existential and essential bildung through listening taking place as being, thinking and acting with Spotify in the spirit of Heidegger.