Group work teaches students about how problems can be broken down into component tasks that can be assigned to individual members of the group. It can involve students in discussions with their peers and can motivate them to excel. Moreover, group work mimics many of the cooperative relationships that are required of adults in their workplaces—group work at school prepares your child for future work.
Students might use their computers to communicate with each other while working on group projects; to do so they might take advantage of e-mail, instant messaging, or chat rooms. More advanced software such as Microsoft's NetMeeting allows users to have "virtual" conferences.
How files will be shared depends on what kind of project the students are working on. If they are working on a collective report (such as a written essay or a graphic presentation) they might use e-mail to send word processing (e.g., Microsoft Word) or presentation (e.g., PowerPoint) files to one another.
