Peer-to-peer learning fits within a collaborative intelligence framework, because it involves "one student instructing another student in material on which the first is an expert and the second is a novice" (informED: http://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/peer-teaching/).

It creates a space for a student who are more advanced at a certain skill or more knowledgeable about a certain topic to help another student who is not as advanced or knowledgeable. It also helps the 'expert' student to understand the material even better, because they need to be able to explain it to another person. As Dr. Kalantzis discusses in video 5B, this builds up a sense of community, because the learners are committed to each other and it also raises the quality of the work done and the discussion that happens in this type of environment.

On a more pragmatic level, one of the benefits of peer learning is that "students who engage in collaborative learning and group study perform better academically, persist longer, feel better about the educational experience and have enhanced self-esteem.” (University of Queensland: http://www.uq.edu.au/teach/flipped-classroom/peer-learning.html) (see link for more benefits).

Peer-to-peer learning is connected to the topic of E-Literacy, which was recently raised by another participant in this group (thanks, Roman Meier, for enlightening us!). Peer-to-peer learning can allow for tech savvy students to show the non-tech savvy students how to navigate the online course, look up new information and bring the ideas together. I would argue that different stages of this type of peer-to-peer learning should be done in different contexts, and cannot be done solely in an e-Learning environment. In the first stage, one student would need to physically be with the other student to show them how to turn on the computer, open the browser, navigate pages, etc, and then later they could switch to an e-Learning environment, once both students were comfortable with those technical skills. As others in this group have mentioned (shout out to Susana Soto!), a major barrier for this is access to the technology. Peer-to-peer learning cannot take place if one student has access to the necessary resources and the other does not.

These local organizations from my province work to bring internet access to those who don’t have it: https://peacegeeks.org/ and http://www.reusetechbc.ca/. These are other organizations who try to do the same, on a larger scale in other parts of the world: http://ahumanright.org/ and http://everyoneon.org/. The movement for equal access to E-Literacy is growing!