Collaboration brings people together, usually at a set place and/or time. It focuses them on a common objective. It emphasizes conformity and uniformity, orchestration and management, "pulling as one" and "all singing from the same songbook." These are precisely the trends we are seeing erode in the future of on-demand and as-needed learning.

People often talk as though the alternative to collaboration is working completely on one's own. But this is not true. We still have to communicate and interact. But we can do so while remaining independent and autonomous. This mode of working together is called 'cooperation'. Online learning of the future will be based around a cooperative model, not a collaborative one.

from Steven Downes