collaborative pedagogy

When I hear "collaboration" I can't help think of group work. Two or more people physically occupying the same space and working together on a project. But, if some definitions of collaboration seem to imply plagarism, then my idea is probably a little off. After reading Howard's essay, I can't help but think of collaboration as a kind of collective of every person who has ever contributed to the field. In the end, as I've said in some of my other posts, I don't really believe that there's any such thing as a completley original idea. Historically, almost every person who came up with some brilliant breakthrough was helped along the way by others who completed the steps it took to get there. Isaac Newton discovered gravity as a force, but this wouldn't have made any practical sense for our universe until after we knew that the earth orbits the sun, and not the other way around. Knowlege is constantly building on itself, and although authorship and ownership is very important to us all right now, we can't deny that we've all had some help along the way.
Collaborative learning and collaborative discussion, in classrooms, seem like a good way to implement collaboration. I like the idea of working together to bounce ideas around and hearing what everyone else has to say on a subject. I have a problem with the collaborative writing, though. This may be because I immediately think of situations in which one student does all of the actual work, and everyone else takes the credit even though they didn't do anything. The way Howard described it, and the guidelines she had make it seem feasible, as long as the assignment is something that lends itself well to collaboration.