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Following the enactment of the law on vocational and adult education in the Netherlands in 1996, greater emphasis was placed on learning from practical experience leading to on-the-job training becoming more important. This article reports on an exploratory project which focuses on how to help students communicate and collaborate with each other while not at school on the one hand, and how to optimise the link between theory and practice on the other. Vocational education students were provided with facilities to communicate with each other during their traineeships and to collaborate on similar assignments using a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment. The article discusses the possibilities of CSCL, outlines and explains the research process and provides the results of the study. These are: collaboration in groups was related to collaboration in an electronic learning environment; a connection was perceived between time invested by the teachers and students; students felt more closely connected to the school; and the opportunity to use information and communication technology (ICT) was perceived as being valuable.