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To get started with this blank [[TiddlyWiki]], you'll need to modify the following tiddlers:
* [[SiteTitle]] & [[SiteSubtitle]]: The title and subtitle of the site, as shown above (after saving, they will also appear in the browser title bar)
* [[MainMenu]]: The menu (usually on the left)
* [[DefaultTiddlers]]: Contains the names of the tiddlers that you want to appear when the TiddlyWiki is opened
You'll also need to enter your username for signing your edits: <<option txtUserName>>
These [[InterfaceOptions]] for customising [[TiddlyWiki]] are saved in your browser

Your username for signing your edits. Write it as a [[WikiWord]] (eg [[JoeBloggs]])

<<option txtUserName>>
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<<option chkAutoSave>> [[AutoSave]]
<<option chkRegExpSearch>> [[RegExpSearch]]
<<option chkCaseSensitiveSearch>> [[CaseSensitiveSearch]]
<<option chkAnimate>> [[EnableAnimations]]

----
Also see [[AdvancedOptions]]
<<importTiddlers>>
Authors: Bernhard Nett

Abstract: Educators who are prepared to make use of CSCL can find themselves restricted in their space for maneuvering regarding educational innovation. As a supportive context can be very important for them, the study presented here describes and analyzes a related case of a Community of Practice (CoP) among tutors contributing to the development and conduction of an educational in situ experiment. The paper describes the emergence of the CoP, its dissolving impact on limiting context factors and the empowerment of student participation in a MOO-mediated preparation of a Computer and Law seminar. It shows that a CoP among tutors can be beneficial for educational innovation and is a promising model to support the implementation of CSCL.

Keywords: Learning, Collaboration, Computer support, Communities of Practice, MOOs, Seminar Organization, Educational Innovation

Citation: Nett, B. (2008) A Community of Practice among tutors enabling student participation in a seminar preparation. ijcscl 3 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9031-3
Authors: Deborarh A. Fields, Yasmin B. Kafai

Abstract: Prior studies have shown how knowledge diffusion occurs in classrooms and structured small groups around assigned tasks yet have not begun to account for widespread knowledge sharing in more native, unstructured group settings found in online games and virtual worlds. In this paper, we describe and analyze how an insider gaming practice spread across a group of tween players ages 9–12 years in an after-school gaming club that simultaneously participated in a virtual world called Whyville.net. In order to understand how this practice proliferated, we followed the club members as they interacted with each other and members of the virtual world at large. Employing connective ethnography to trace the movements in learning and teaching this practice, we coordinated data records from videos, tracking data, field notes, and interviews. We found that club members took advantage of the different spaces, people, and times available to them across Whyville, the club, and even home and classroom spaces. By using an insider gaming practice, namely teleporting, rather than the more traditional individual person as our analytical lens, we were able to examine knowledge sharing and diffusion across the gaming spaces, including events in local small groups as well as encounters in the virtual world. In the discussion, we address methodological issues and design implications of our findings.

Keywords: Virtual worlds, Knowledge sharing, Knowledge diffusion, Connective ethnography, Peer pedagogy

Citation: Fields, D. A. & Kafai, Y. B. (2009) A connective ethnography of peer knowledge sharing and diffusion in a tween virtual world. ijcscl 4 (1), pp. 47-68

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9057-1
Authors: Rupert Wegerif

Abstract: How to teach flexible thinking and learning skills, particularly creativity and the skill of “learning to learn,” is a key concern for CSCL in the context of the emerging Networked Society. The currently dominant paradigms for supporting pedagogical design within CSCL, including socio-cultural theory, are limited in the support that they can offer to the project of teaching general thinking skills. This paper uses critical literature review, conceptual analysis, and evidence from case studies to argue for the value of a dialogic interpretative framework that links the goal of teaching thinking with the method of CSCL. The evidence reviewed suggests that dialogue is itself the primary thinking skill from which all others are derived. It is argued from this that dialogic theory offers a possible solution to the problem of how to conceptualize general thinking skills for CSCL: this is that teaching dialogue as an end in itself promotes the learning of general thinking skills. Implications of the proposed framework for pedagogical design are brought out through case studies illustrating the use of CSCL to broaden and deepen dialogic spaces of reflection.

Keywords: Creativity, Dialogic, Learning to learn, Theory, Thinking skills

Citation: Wegerif, R. (2006) A dialogic understanding of the relationship between CSCL and teaching thinking skills. ijcscl 1 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-6840-8
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Daniel D. Suthers, Friedrich Hesse

An Advance in the Field of CSCL

The first volume of ijCSCL followed upon CSCL 2005 in Taiwan and  featured important papers from that conference, expanded into journal presentations. This double issue of volume two is timed to coincide with CSCL 2007 in New Brunswick. It introduces sets of papers on two “flash themes” that have flared up within the research field of CSCL between conferences. These papers arose out of research projects and workshops held in the interim on topics of abiding interest, as also reflected in volumes of the CSCL book series (Andriessen, Baker, & Suthers, 2003; Fischer et al., 2006).

We hope to feature articles based on papers from CSCL 2007 in volume three of ijCSCL. We are particularly interested in articles that report on a mature research agenda, perhaps covering the work of a research lab or project consortium. A journal article should make a significant innovative contribution to the field. It might propose a new direction for theory, socio-technical design, pedagogical practice or research methodology. Ideally, it should investigate the use of computer support in learning and should feature collaborative interaction as the mode of knowledge building or shared meaning making. While proposals should generally be supported with concrete evidence based on some form of user experience, the evaluation of the evidence can take the form of any rigorous method: for instance, statistical significance of experimental results, ethnographic study, action research, case study. Please see our website at http://ijCSCL.org for details and examples of published papers if you are considering a submission.
In this issue

The paper by Maarit Arvaja reflects the Finnish concern with the enacted context in which knowledge building discourse is situated, and which is constructed through that discourse. After reviewing theoretical concerns about the mediating nature of context, the study analyzes the work of two groups in a computer-supported discussion forum. The online discourse is coded and quantitatively compared to highlight different interaction patterns. One group used more co-text and course material in their discussion while the other referred more to personal experiences. Quantifying the data provided a valuable tool to measure and contrast knowledge construction in these groups. Complementing this, a detailed qualitative analysis of the groups’ discussions and thick descriptions of the relations between the specific thematic content, communicative functions and contextual resources provided insight into reasons behind the similarities and differences. The paper includes both the coding scheme and extended excerpts from the group postings and their analysis, helping the reader to understand and evaluate the claims made. The combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis illuminates the situated and mediated nature of learning in the case studied. The students’ knowledge construction activity was grounded in the immediate context in the sense that meaning negotiation was shaped by the moment-by-moment interpretation of each others’ messages. Also, the students’ activity was grounded in their contexts, in that knowledge construction and sharing were based on prior experience and background knowledge that were brought into the discussion. These two aspects of context were illustrated by the work of the two groups, respectively.

The report from New Zealand by Nilufar Baghaei, Antonija Mitrovic & Warwick Irwin discusses an intelligent tutoring system for object-oriented programming skills that also represent collaboration skills using the same user modeling and domain formalism. It is a CSCL environment that supports groups of students to work and learn together — something unusual for intelligent tutoring systems. The system provides a careful balance of supports for individual and group work, based on the CSCL literature. A pilot study and a controlled experiment in a classroom confirmed the effectiveness of the system in achieving its main goals. Attempts to use artificial intelligence in education have always been an important aspect of CSCL, and this paper represents that tradition with a new innovation. It also bridges the technological and software-oriented concerns of CSCL with the focus on supporting collaborative learning among programming students.

Many CSCL activities involve students or adults in searching the Web — either individually or collaboratively — and synthesizing the information that they find on multiple sites. Marc Stadtler & Rainer Bromme provide an analysis of the metacognitive tasks involved in modeling this flow of information from diverse documents.  Metacognitive tasks include, above all, the ability to identify, rate and keep track of information sources — key concerns for CSCL designers who want students to critically assess Web resources and to acknowledge their sources. In the reported laboratory experiment, a web-browser equipped with optional prompts for supporting metacognitive tasks was used in a number of conditions with college students. Quantitative analysis of the results indicated that the integration of source information and content information while dealing with multiple sources on the Internet is not only a desired goal, but a realistic one that can be fostered through the metacognitive strategy of evaluating information.
Scripting in CSCL

The next two papers grew out of a European Research Team on ‘Computer-Supported Scripting of Interaction in Collaborative Learning Environments’ (CoSSICLE) funded by the ‘Kaleidoscope’ Network of Excellence. Pierre Dillenbourg and Frank Fisher suggested publishing a set of papers reporting on project findings in ijCSCL. Lars Kobbe coordinated the expansion of the papers and their submission. Barbara Wasson, Associate Editor of ijCSCL, supervised the peer review of these articles. In this issue, we initiate the flash theme of “Scripting in CSCL” with the first two papers that are ready for publication. We welcome submissions on this theme for future issues.

Lars Kobbe, Armin Weinberger, Pierre Dillenbourg, Andreas Harrer, Raija Hämäläinen, Päivi Häkkinen, & Frank Fischer introduce the theme with a review of the current state of the art of scripting and a framework for the specification of scripts, including a proposed standardization of terminology. Collaboration scripts aim to foster collaborative learning in shaping the way in which learners interact with one another. In specifying a sequence of learning activities, together with appropriate roles for the learners, collaboration scripts are designed to trigger engagement in social and cognitive activities that would otherwise occur rarely or not at all. This paper aims to consolidate and expand these approaches in light of recent findings and to propose a generic framework for the specification of collaboration scripts. The framework enables a description of collaboration scripts using a small number of components (participants, activities, roles, resources and groups) and mechanisms (task distribution, group formation and sequencing).

Tammy Schellens, Hilde Van Keer, Bram De Wever & Martin Valcke continue the theme with a relatively large, multilevel analysis of college freshmen discussing topics in online groups of about ten students. Their discussions were scripted by assigning four students in each group to well-defined collaboration roles: ‘moderator’, ‘theoretician’, ‘summarizer’, and ‘source searcher’. By focusing on communication and coordination, the primary targets of the script instructions were interactions within the group rather than cognitive processes of individuals. The authors conclude from their detailed statistical analysis that the use of collaboration roles has the potential for improving knowledge construction. In part of the experiment, an overall positive effect of role assignment was detected. All students in the experimental condition outperformed the students in the control group without role assignment. Nevertheless, the study revealed that not all roles equally promote knowledge construction for the individuals who have to perform that specific role. It appeared that students in some roles were confined by their role and did not participate as well in the ongoing discussion. This points to the danger of over-scripting during collaborative interaction.
Argumentation in CSCL

The following four articles introduce the flash theme, “Argumentation in CSCL.” An argumentation perspective exposes how learning in group settings can be accomplished by participants’ critical analysis of claims and interpretations through dialectic processes. Research on argumentation has an established history in CSCL, particularly in the line of European work reported in the first volume of the CSCL book series (Andriessen, Baker & Suthers, 2003). This work has continued in two European projects, SCALE and DUNES, which have studied argument graphs as well as other media for conducting or representing argumentative dialogues. Jerry Andriessen and Michael Baker proposed this theme for ijCSCL to present some of the results of these research efforts and related work. Daniel Suthers, Associate Editor of ijCSCL supervised the peer review of submissions for this theme and wrote the following overview. The first four papers being published under this theme include two papers from SCALE and two from DUNES, representing a diversity of CSCL argumentation research. Argumentation and technological support for “arguing to learn” continues to be an active area of research in CSCL; the Journal editors look forward to additional contributions in this area.

Michael James Baker, Jerry Andriessen, Kristine Lund, Marije van Amelsvoort & Matthieu Quignard introduce Rainbow, a framework for analyzing debates. The analysis method aims primarily to quantify functional categories of interaction so that frequencies of these categories may be correlated with learning outcomes in experimental settings. Drawing upon prior research, seven functional categories are identified, exemplified and discussed in detail. Perhaps the most unique analytic category contributed by this paper identifies moves that broaden and deepen learners’ understanding of a space of debate. Independently of whether learners are taking positions in a debate or studying others’ positions, learners can advance their understanding by exploring a greater diversity of positions and the arguments that bear upon them (broadening), and elaborating on these arguments and the concepts on which they are based (deepening). Applications of Rainbow to other projects in the SCALE community are described, as well as potential extensions to nonverbal interaction media and relevance to other methodological traditions.

The other SCALE paper, by Kristine Lund, Gaëlle Molinari, Arnauld Séjourné & Michael Baker also offers an analysis method, ADAM, that is positioned within the experimental paradigm. Here, the emphasis is on analyzing argumentation diagrams as products rather than the process of argumentation that is addressed by Rainbow. ADAM measures the quality of argumentation diagrams according to quantifiable characteristics such as the number and nature of topics, opinions, arguments, relations, and elaborations, along with judgments of correctness of the relations. The primary contribution of this paper is an experimental comparison of two instructional strategies for using argument graphs: as a means for debate, in which students interact through both chat and argumentation graph tools, and as a tool for representing debate, in which students interacted through chat and then transcribe their discussion to an argumentation graph. In both cases, students created individual argumentation diagrams before and after the debate: these diagrams were analyzed using ADAM to identify differences. Students who used the graphs as a means for debate tended to express more personal opinions, elaborating on argumentation (reasons); while students using the graph to represent debate sought to express the consensus of a “group voice,” and elaborated more on causes and consequences. Thus, the paper illustrates the bidirectional influence of tool on argumentation and argumentation on tool.

The concept of a group voice plays an important role in the paper by Baruch B. Schwarz & Reuma De Groot, which shifts us from experimental to analytic methodologies in design-based research. Observing that the study of argumentation in CSCL is part of a direction in education that values collaboration over individuation and dialogic reasoning over thinking skills, the authors seek to identify evaluation methods that most appropriately reflect these values. This work was undertaken in the context of an evaluation of the Kishurim program, which was designed by the authors to foster argumentation and dialogic thinking skills under the guidance of several principles. Digalo, a software tool for the representation and management of argumentative discussions developed in the DUNES project, supported implementation of this program. Seeking to evaluate whether students improved their thinking on the historical topic studied, the authors first compared pre- and post-session essays on quantitative measures of argument structure such as the number of claims and reasons given, finding no differences. Recognizing that these structural measures are not criteria for the educational objectives they care about, the authors then analyzed the essays for openness, decisiveness and coherence, finding significant differences. Furthermore, the authors undertook a discursive analysis of students’ argumentative dialogues to understand how these improvements came about. Schwarz & De Groot conclude that as students sought to find collective truth in a group voice, they became less motivated to produce “more arguments at any price,” and hence numeric frequencies of the constituents of arguments fail to capture the educational outcomes that were of greatest importance to both researchers and students. The paper exemplifies the value of being reflective about our methods rather than following disciplinary traditions uncritically.

Nathalie Muller Mirza, Valérie Tartas, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont & Jean-François De Pietro also work with Digalo in the context of the DUNES, and similarly find that analysis of interaction best suits their educational goals. Mizra, et al. seek to foster students’ understanding of a historical debate about the humanity of the natives of the New World. Students were assigned to three groups in which they role-played three protagonists. This instructional strategy should broaden and deepen the space of debate, because students are not only exposed to diverse frames of reference on the debate, but must understand these frames of reference deeply enough to act as representatives of those positions. Like Schwarz & De Groot, Mirza, et al. find that analysis of the structure of arguments would not address their educational goal, which is learning about the debate from argumentation, rather than learning to argue. Instead, they pursue a bi-level approach to analysis, one that traces the development of understanding of the historical topic throughout the dialogue, and another that treats argumentation as a social activity, analyzing triplets of argument-counterargument-reply to identify how challenges to a position are addressed. As a broad picture of the historical event was elaborated, students also developed argumentative strategies. The authors sought to identify Digalo tool affordances that were appropriated in these topic-development and argumentative processes, observing roles of representations consistent with those reported by Suthers and colleagues. As for Lund, et al and Schwarz & De Groot, the emergence of “collective reasoning” afforded by the shared representation was notable.
References

Andriessen, J., Baker, M., & Suthers, D. (Eds.). (2003). Arguing to learn: Confronting cognitions in computer-supported collaborative learning environments. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Computer-supported collaborative learning book series, vol 1.

Fischer, F., Mandl, H., Haake, J., & Kollar, I. (Eds.). (2006). Scripting computer-supported collaborative learning: Cognitive, computational and educational perspectives. Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer Publishers. Computer-supported collaborative learning book series, vol 6.

Citation: Stahl, G., Suthers, D. D. & Hesse, F. (2007) A double issue for CSCL 2007. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9017-1
Authors: Daniel D. Suthers, Nathan Dwyer, Richard Medina, Ravi Vatrapu

Abstract: The relationship between interaction and learning is a central concern of the learning sciences, and analysis of interaction has emerged as a major theme within the current literature on computer-supported collaborative learning. The nature of technology-mediated interaction poses analytic challenges. Interaction may be distributed across actors, space, and time, and vary from synchronous, quasi-synchronous, and asynchronous, even within one data set. Often multiple media are involved and the data comes in a variety of formats. As a consequence, there are multiple analytic artifacts to inspect and the interaction may not be apparent upon inspection, being distributed across these artifacts. To address these problems as they were encountered in several studies in our own laboratory, we developed a framework for conceptualizing and representing distributed interaction. The framework assumes an analytic concern with uncovering or characterizing the organization of interaction in sequential records of events. The framework includes a media independent characterization of the most fundamental unit of interaction, which we call uptake. Uptake is present when a participant takes aspects of prior events as having relevance for ongoing activity. Uptake can be refined into interactional relationships of argumentation, information sharing, transactivity, and so forth for specific analytic objectives. Faced with the myriad of ways in which uptake can manifest in practice, we represent data using graphs of relationships between events that capture the potential ways in which one act can be contingent upon another. These contingency graphs serve as abstract transcripts that document in one representation interaction that is distributed across multiple media. This paper summarizes the requirements that motivate the framework, and discusses the theoretical foundations on which it is based. It then presents the framework and its application in detail, with examples from our work to illustrate how we have used it to support both ideographic and nomothetic research, using qualitative and quantitative methods. The paper concludes with a discussion of the framework’s potential role in supporting dialogue between various analytic concerns and methods represented in CSCL.

Keywords: heoretical and methodological framework, Interaction analysis, Distributed learning, Uptake, Contingency graph

Citation: Suthers, D. D., Dwyer, N., Medina, R., & Vatrapu, R. (2010) A framework for conceptualizing, representing, and analyzing distributed interaction. ijcscl 5 (1), pp. 5-42

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9081-9
Authors: Kai Hakkarainen

Abstract: The purpose of the present paper is to examine the relations between Carl Bereiter’s and Marlene Scardamalia’s knowledge-building approach and social practices. It is argued that technology enhances learning through transformed social practices. In order to truly contribute to educational transformation, pedagogical approaches have to be embedded in locally cultivated “knowledge practices” that channel the participants’ intellectual efforts in a way that elicits collective advancement of knowledge. Consequently, knowledge advancement is not just about putting students’ ideas into the centre but depends on corresponding transformation of social practices of working with knowledge. Creation of cultures which advance knowledge presupposes sustained efforts of teacher-practitioners, collaborating with students and researchers, aimed at iteratively transforming prevailing knowledge practices toward more innovative ones.

Keywords: Epistemic artifact, Habitus, Knowledge building, Knowledge practice, Learning, Social practice, Trialogical approach

Citation: Hakkarainen, K. (2009) A knowledge-practice perspective on technology-mediated learning. ijcscl 4 (2), pp. 213-231

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9064-x
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse
Our field of Computer – Supported Collaborative Learning necessarily struggles to integrate contributions and perspectives from a diverse set of disciplines, technologies, practices, methodologies, and theories. First, based on its very name, CSCL must bridge the professional disparity between computer science and learning science. Then it has to function within the multiplicity of approaches to conducting research about computer – support technologies and collaborative – learning interactions. This presents an unavoidable challenge to people working in the field and to journals serving their needs. The current issue of ijCSCL presents an interdisciplinary prism of new CSCL research, illustrating multiple points across the spectrum of current work. Each of the papers investigates a distinctive CSCL – technology application, but does so in a way that emphasizes pedagogical aims and that investigates collaboration processes.

We start with a report on innovative computer support for K – 12 science education by Andri Ioannidou, Alexander Repenning, David Webb, Diane Keyser, Lisa Luhn and Christof Daetwyler. A simulation of the human body’s cardiovascular system of lungs and heart gives students a sense of the complexity of multiple organs working together. Based on a substantial extension of Agentsheets – a student – programmable simulation design environment – the Mr. Vetro simulation framework allows students to explore the effects of different variations of physiological parameters within an interdependent complex system. The students participate in highly engaging ways, interacting to collaboratively control the simulation of a complex organism under varying conditions by each simulating the role of individual organs or contextual parameters through handy mobile devices. The technology thereby addresses the currently popular theme of causality in complex systems in a way appropriate to K – 12 science: It involves small groups of students in the complex interactions of collaboration, using an approach that the authors call “collective simulations.” A basic assessment through user studies of the software in classrooms shows that it can be effective in making certain principles of human anatomy come alive for a classroom of students.

While the research on Mr. Vetro touches on a number of important issues about the representation of complex scientific phenomena in a necessarily simplified medium, implemented in computer graphics, the paper by Göran Karlsson explores a rather different set of science – education issues involving graphical representations, animations, and conceptualizations. Rather than taking a conventional assessment approach using pre/post comparison of propositional domain knowledge, this case study delves into the discourse at a level of grammatical detail. It thereby opens up the black box of pedagogy to analyze what actually takes place as students follow task instructions. It avoids inferring student mental models as hypothetical causal agents for student behavior or learning. Instead, it takes a systematic look at how the students transform – at a linguistic level – the sentences they are given in a pedagogical setting into the sentences that they articulate. This methodological move provides an alternative to categorizing non – canonical responses as student misconceptions. In the study, students are asked to put “into their own words” descriptions of chemical reactions that are presented to them in animations. The analysis documents just how they approached their task and how they produced their responses. By documenting the processes that actually unfolded during the collaborative – learning interactions of the students with each other, with their task, and with the animations, the analysis provides a detailed description of the student collaborative behavior itself, with clear implications for rethinking the pedagogical design and implementation of the task and of the animation.

Another discussion of technology is related to the popular issue of scripting, which has been debated in this journal for several years. The contribution by Joerg M. Haake and Hans – Rüdiger Pfister offers analysis and reflections on the integration of scripting mechanisms in the CURE online platform for distance learning, which is extensively used at Germany’s distance university. The effectiveness of scripting as a means of scaffolding student learning in CSCL settings is a highly contested matter. This study takes scripting out of the laboratory and tests it in a semester – long established computer – science college course. The scripting is implemented in the technology of the online collaboration environment. In the “unscripted” control group, students are told in text to go through phases of brainstorming, clustering related concepts, and essay writing – but they are left free to self – organize how they collaborate on these tasks and they all see the same user interface. In the scripted condition, leadership for each phase is assigned by the technology, and only the selected leader sees the instructions for a given phase. Each student has access to a different interface and tools, depending upon that student’s assigned role. Despite this significant difference in scripting, little difference in learning outcomes is measured, suggesting to the authors that the use of scripting is secondary to the way that tasks are defined, and that scripting is more appropriate to certain kinds of tasks rather than being a “silver bullet” for organizing collaboration.

The discussion of distributed leadership in our next article takes an alternative approach to scripting or scaffolding collaboration. It argues, in effect, that leadership is an emergent interactive group phenomenon and that – if allowed to interact without assigned roles – all group members generally participate in many core dimensions of group leadership. The paper by Julia Gressick and Sharon J. Derry thus provides a striking contrast to research that assigns leadership roles to specific individuals in a group as a way to script the group interaction. Like the previous study, this one involves university students in a regular semester – long course, which largely takes place online. Rather than defining leadership by role assignments to individuals, this study adopts a reciprocal or interactive definition, in which leadership necessarily involves uptake or influence on followers; distributed leadership is a group – level phenomenon. By combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, the authors distinguish different specific forms of leadership, with different emergent patterns of distribution. It thereby extends the theory of group cognition by specifying forms of distributed leadership as a collaborative process at the group unit of analysis.

Finally, the paper by Manoli Pifarre and Ruth Cobos complements the discussion of distributed leadership by discussing how metacognitive skills can be promoted in a small group. Metacognition is taken to be the knowledge, skills, and practices of an individual or a group used to self – regulate their cognitive and affective learning activities. The Knowledge Catalyser discussion forum was designed to scaffold metacognition in a small discussion group by having students vote on, annotate, critique, and revise each other’s postings. As in the other papers of this issue, the technology is observed in a normal course, rather than in a laboratory trial. In this setting, the authors analyze the contributions of the students, looking in particular for postings that can be coded as metacognitive actions: planning, clarifying, or monitoring. The use by students of these actions to help direct the work of the group and its members increased over time, indicating an increase in the employment of metacognitive skills using the tools designed into the collaboration technology.

Peering through the prism of this issue, different readers are likely to perceive different images and configurations of research. Some will be struck by the methodological diversity of the data analyses, reflecting seemingly incommensurate theoretical frameworks. Others will feel that the approaches are surprisingly similar – at once too applied to count as basic research or too experimental to be disseminated to classroom teachers. To this, one must respond that the sample in this issue is quite small and may reflect a quite limited range within the much broader spectrum of contemporary CSCL work. On the other hand, this issue may, indeed, say something about a current focal point within CSCL. Both ijCSCL and the related conferences welcome a diversity of ideas and analyses. See our past (and future) issues and join us at the conferences to see the broader universe of investigation. If you feel that your research team’s work fits within the focal point or that it provides an important counterpoint, see http://ijcscl.org/?go=procedures and submit a report on your work when it is ready for journal publication.

We look forward to seeing you at ICLS 2010 in Chicago!
Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2010) A prism of CSCL research. ijcscl 5 (2), pp. 137-139

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9087-3
Authors: Anne Meier, Hans Spada, Nikol Rummel

Abstract: The analysis of the process of collaboration is a central topic in current CSCL research. However, defining process characteristics relevant for collaboration quality and developing instruments capable of assessing these characteristics are no trivial tasks. In the assessment method presented in this paper, nine qualitatively defined dimensions of collaboration are rated quantitatively: sustaining mutual understanding, dialogue management, information pooling, reaching consensus, task division, time management, technical coordination, reciprocal interaction, and individual task orientation. The data basis for the development of these dimensions was taken from a study in which students of psychology and medicine collaborated on a complex patient case via a desktop-videoconferencing system. A qualitative content analysis was performed on a sample of transcribed collaboration dialogue. The insights from this analysis were then integrated with theoretical considerations about the roles of communication, joint information processing, coordination, interpersonal relationship, and motivation in the collaboration process. The resulting rating scheme was applied to process data from a new sample of 40 collaborating dyads. Based on positive findings on inter-rater reliability, consistency, and validity from this evaluation, we argue that the new method can be recommended for use in different areas of CSCL.

Keywords: Assessment, Collaboration, Communication, Coordination, Group information processing, Interpersonal relationship, Motivation, Rating scheme, Videoconferencing

Citation: Meier, A., Spada, H. & Rummel, N. (2007) A rating scheme for assessing the quality of computer-supported collaboration processes. ijcscl 2 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9005-x
Authors: Chris Jones, Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Berner Lindström

Abstract: This paper reviews some foundational issues that we believe will affect the progress of CSCL over the next ten years. In particular, we examine the terms technology, affordance, and infrastructure and we propose a relational approach to their use in CSCL. Following a consideration of networks, space, and trust as conditions of productive learning, we propose an indirect approach to design in CSCL. The work supporting this theoretical paper is based on the outcomes of two European research networks: E-QUEL, a network investigating e-quality in e-learning; and Kaleidoscope, a European Union Framework 6 Network of Excellence. In arguing for a relational understanding of affordance, infrastructure, and technology we also argue for a focus on what we describe as meso-level activity. Overall this paper does not aim to be comprehensive or summative in its review of the state of the art in CSCL, but rather to provide a view of the issues currently facing CSCL from a European perspective.

Keywords: CSCL, Networked learning, Affordances, Infrastructure, Meso-level, Ethics, Indirect design

Citation: Jones, C., Dirckinck-Holmfeld L. & Lindström, B. (2006) A relational, indirect, meso-level approach to CSCL design in the next decade. ijcscl 1 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-6841-7
Authors: Ulrike Cress, Joachim Kimmerle

Abstract: Wikis provide new opportunities for learning and for collaborative knowledge building as well as for understanding these processes. This article presents a theoretical framework for describing how learning and collaborative knowledge building take place. In order to understand these processes, three aspects need to be considered: the social processes facilitated by a wiki, the cognitive processes of the users, and how both processes influence each other mutually. For this purpose, the model presented in this article borrows from the systemic approach of Luhmann as well as from Piaget’s theory of equilibration and combines these approaches. The model analyzes processes which take place in the social system of a wiki as well as in the cognitive systems of the users. The model also describes learning activities as processes of externalization and internalization. Individual learning happens through internal processes of assimilation and accommodation, whereas changes in a wiki are due to activities of external assimilation and accommodation which in turn lead to collaborative knowledge building. This article provides empirical examples for these equilibration activities by analyzing Wikipedia articles. Equilibration activities are described as being caused by subjectively perceived incongruities between an individuals’ knowledge and the information provided by a wiki. Incongruities of medium level cause cognitive conflicts which in turn activate the described processes of equilibration and facilitate individual learning and collaborative knowledge building.

Keywords: Collaboration, Computer support, Knowledge building, Equilibration, Wiki

Citation: Kimmerle, J. & Cress, U. (2008) A systemic and cognitive view on collaborative knowledge building with wikis. ijcscl 3 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9035-z
Authors: Jacques Lonchamp

Abstract: CSCL systems which follow the dual-interaction spaces paradigm support the synchronous construction and discussion of shared artifacts by distributed or colocated small groups of learners. The most recent generic dual-interaction space environments, either model based or component based, can be deeply customized by teachers for supporting different collaborative learning tasks and different ways of performing them. This work stresses the importance of basing customization decisions on a socio-cognitive interpretation of how learners interact in a given learning situation. The central contribution of this article is a methodological approach for conducting qualitative interaction analysis oriented toward the improvement of the supporting environment which can be applied to any learning task and any environment configuration. This "generic analysis approach" is organized into three levels. At the dialog level, a task-independent dialogical model is proposed for analyzing action/communication traces as "generalized conversations." A graphical notation is provided for visualizing the syntactical characteristics of collaborative sessions. At the knowledge level, a typology of task-independent collaborative knowledge-building episode types that can occur during such generalized conversations is proposed. Thanks to that classification scheme, recurrent meaningful elements that structure the low-level descriptions can be detected and characterized. These regularities help to pass from local interpretations to a global interpretation of the whole process. At the action level, task-dependent socio-cognitive interpretations of why the collaborative learning process unfolds as observed are proposed. They constitute a firm basis for improving the customization of the generic environment in order to support learners more efficiently.

Keywords: Dual-interaction spaces, Interaction analysis, Generic environment, Generic analysis approach

Citation: Lonchamp, J. (2009) A three-level analysis of collaborative learning in dual-interaction spaces. ijcscl 4 (3), pp. 289-317

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9068-6
Authors: Nina Bonderup Dohn

Abstract: This article takes a renewed look at the concept of “affordance.” It points out that the concept is being used within the CSCL community in ways which signify an underlying disagreement concerning the exact ontological nature and epistemological status of an “affordance.” Such disagreement, it is argued, is a problem for both design and empirical research. Because HCI discussions of the concept have informed CSCL, views presented within this discourse are discussed. A Merleau-Pontian account of affordances is developed, building on his view of the human being as always already being-in-the world in a non-thematized, pre-reflective correspondence of body and world in the concrete activity. A dynamic, agent-centred, cultural-, experience- and skill-relative, but perception-independent, ontology is proposed for affordances. Toward the end of the article, examples are given of how the Merleau-Pontian account of affordances may shift the focus of empirical research and of design processes within CSCL.

Keywords: Affordance, Ontology, Epistemology, Perception, Agency, Being-in-the-world

Citation: Bonderup Dohn, N. (2009) Affordances revisited: Articulating a Merleau-Pontian view. ijcscl 4 (2), pp. 151-170

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9062-z
Authors: Fengfeng Ke

Abstract: This field study investigated the application of cooperative, competitive, and individualistic goal structures in classroom use of computer math games and its impact on students’ math performance and math learning attitudes. One hundred and sixty 5th-grade students were recruited and randomly assigned to Teams–Games–Tournament cooperative gaming, interpersonal competitive gaming, individualistic gaming, and the control group. A state-standards-based math exam and an inventory on attitudes toward mathematics were used in pretest and posttest. Students’ gender and socioeconomic status were examined as the moderating variables. Results indicated that even though there was not a significant effect of classroom goal structure in reinforcing computer gaming for math test performance, game-based learning in cooperative goal structure was most effective in promoting positive math attitudes. It was also found that students with different socioeconomic statuses were influenced differently by gaming within alternative goal structures.

Keywords: Cooperative learning, Instructional gaming, Teams–Games–Tournament

Citation: Ke, F. (2008) Alternative goal structures for computer game-based learning. ijcscl 3 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9048-2
Authors: Seiji Isotani, Akiko Inaba, Mitsuru Ikeda, Riichiro Mizoguchi

Abstract: One of the main difficulties during the design of collaborative learning activities is adequate group formation. In any type of collaboration, group formation plays a critical role in the learners’ acceptance of group activities, as well as the success of the collaborative learning process. Nevertheless, to propose both an effective and pedagogically sound group formation is a complex issue due to multiple factors that influence group arrangement. The current (and previous) learner’s knowledge and skills, the roles and strategies used by learners to interact among themselves, and the teacher’s preferences are some examples of factors to be considered while forming groups. To identify which factors are essential (or desired) in effective group formation, a well-structured and formalized representation of collaborative learning processes, supported by a strong pedagogical basis, is desirable. Thus, the main goal of this paper is to present an ontology that works as a framework based on learning theories that facilitate group formation and collaborative learning design. The ontology provides the necessary formalization to represent collaborative learning and its processes, while learning theories provide support in making pedagogical decisions such as gathering learners in groups and planning the scenario where the collaboration will take place. Although the use of learning theories to support collaborative learning is open for criticism, we identify that they provide important information which can be useful in allowing for more effective learning. To validate the usefulness and effectiveness of this approach, we use this ontology to form and run group activities carried out by four instructors and 20 participants. The experiment was utilized as a proof-of-concept and the results suggest that our ontological framework facilitates the effective design of group activities, and can positively affect the performance of individuals during group learning.

Keywords: roup formation, Ontological engineering, Collaborative learning desig

Citation: Isotani, S., Inaba, A., Ikeda, M., & Mizoguchi, R. (2009) An ontology engineering approach to the realization of theory-driven group formation. ijcscl 4 (4), pp. 445-478

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9072-x
Authors: Carolyn Rosé, Yi-Chia Wang, Yue Cui, Jaime Arguello, Karsten Stegmann, Armin Weinberger, Frank Fischer

Abstract: In this article we describe the emerging area of text classification research focused on the problem of collaborative learning process analysis both from a broad perspective and more specifically in terms of a publicly available tool set called TagHelper tools. Analyzing the variety of pedagogically valuable facets of learners’ interactions is a time consuming and effortful process. Improving automated analyses of such highly valued processes of collaborative learning by adapting and applying recent text classification technologies would make it a less arduous task to obtain insights from corpus data. This endeavor also holds the potential for enabling substantially improved on-line instruction both by providing teachers and facilitators with reports about the groups they are moderating and by triggering context sensitive collaborative learning support on an as-needed basis. In this article, we report on an interdisciplinary research project, which has been investigating the effectiveness of applying text classification technology to a large CSCL corpus that has been analyzed by human coders using a theory-based multi-dimensional coding scheme. We report promising results and include an in-depth discussion of important issues such as reliability, validity, and efficiency that should be considered when deciding on the appropriateness of adopting a new technology such as TagHelper tools. One major technical contribution of this work is a demonstration that an important piece of the work towards making text classification technology effective for this purpose is designing and building linguistic pattern detectors, otherwise known as features, that can be extracted reliably from texts and that have high predictive power for the categories of discourse actions that the CSCL community is interested in.

Keywords: Collaborative process analysis, Machine learning, Analysis tools

Citation: Rosé, C., Wang, Y.-C., Cui, Y., Arguello, J., Stegmann, K., Weinberger, A. & Fischer, F. (2008) Analyzing collaborative learning processes automatically: Exploiting the advances of computational linguistics in CSCL. ijcscl 3 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9034-0
Authors: Göran Karlsson

Abstract: This case study reports on how students, working collaboratively, interpret and construct a written report of the events described in animated educational software. The analysis is based on video recordings of two upper-secondary-school students while they are endeavouring to construe an animated sequence of the mouldering process. How the students grammatically construct their written account by means of available semiotic resources (i.e., animation and educational text) provided by the software is investigated. The results show that attentionally detected features of the animation take the role of active subjects in the students’ description of the animated phenomena. When framing their sentences, the students derive noun phrases from animated active subjects and from the educational text. In the students’ efforts to express themselves in their own words, they use verbs that differ from the educational text. These two actions together contribute to giving the students’ description of the process a character of a non-scientific explanation. Lacking relevant subject matter knowledge, the students cannot judge whether they have given an adequate account or not. The only way that the students have to appraise their written report is to check if it is grammatically correct. It is concluded that it is essential to consider both cultural and semiotic processes when designing technology-supported educational approaches to the teaching of scientific concepts.

Keywords: omputer animation, Educational software, Interaction analysis, Science educatio

Citation: Karlsson, G. (2010) Animation and grammar in science education: Learners’ construal of animated educational software. ijcscl 5 (2), pp. 167-189

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9085-5
Authors: Joanna Wolfe

Abstract: Recent research on annotation interfaces provides provocative evidence that anchored, annotation-based discussion environments may lead to better conversations about a text. However, annotation interfaces raise complicated tradeoffs regarding screen real estate and positioning. It is argued that solving this screen real estate problem requires limiting the number of annotations displayed to users. In order to understand which annotations have the most learning value for students, this paper presents two complementary studies examining the effects of annotations on students performing a reading-to-write task. The first study used think-aloud protocols and a within-subjects methodology, finding that annotations appeared to provoke students to reflect more critically upon the primary text. This effect was particularly strong when students encountered pairs of annotations presenting different viewpoints on the same section of text. Student interviews suggested that annotations were most helpful when they caused the reader to consider and weigh conflicting viewpoints. The second study used a between-subjects methodology and a more naturalistic task to provide complementary evidence that annotations encourage more reflective responses to a text. This study found that students who received annotated materials both perceived themselves and were perceived by instructors as less reliant on unreflective summary strategies than students who received the same content but in a different format. These findings indicate that the learning value of an annotation lies in its ability to provoke students to consider and weigh new perspectives on the primary text. When selected effectively, annotations provide a critical scaffolding that can support students’ critical thinking and argumentation activities. Collaborative digital libraries and applications for the Web 2.0 should be designed with this learning framework in mind.

Keywords: Annotation, Anchored discussion, Digital libraries, Reading interfaces, Reading-to-write, Computer supported argumentation, Persistent conversation

Citation: Wolfe, J. (2008) Annotations and the collaborative digital library: Effects of an aligned annotation interface on student argumentation and reading strategies. ijcscl 3 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9040-x
Authors: Hans Christian Arnseth, Sten Ludvigsen

Abstract: The research literature in CSCL has rarely addressed the question of how institutional contexts contribute to constituting the meanings and functions of CSCL applications. The argument that we develop here concerns how the institutional context impacts the use of CSCL applications and how this impact should be conceptualized. In order to structure to our argument, we introduce a distinction between systemic and dialogic approaches to CSCL research. We develop our argument by working through a selection of relevant studies belonging to the two perspectives, and conclude that not enough attention has been given to the emergent characteristics of activities where CSCL tools have been introduced. This is particularly the case in studies belonging to a systemic approach. Our basic argument is that a dialogic stance can provide important insights into how institutional practices shape the meanings and functions of CSCL tools. A dialogic perspective provides opportunities for making sense of learning and knowledge construction at different levels of activity, while at the same time retaining sensitivity to the mutually constitutive relationship between levels.

Keywords: CSCL, Institutional practices, Context, Theory, Methodology

Citation: Arnseth, H. C. & Ludvigsen, S. (2006) Approaching institutional contexts: systemic versus dialogic research in CSCL. ijcscl 1 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-8874-3
Authors: Maarten Overdijk, Wouter van Diggelen

Abstract: The use and effects of a CSCL-tool are not always predictable from the properties of the tool alone, but depend on how that tool is appropriated. This paper presents the findings from a case study about the appropriation of a graphical shared workspace. When students are presented with a new tool they may encounter competing constraints and multiple possibilities for interacting with it. We argue that during critical events the students make choices, and in order to collaborate, coordinate these choices as a group. We study appropriation by looking into the ways in which small groups organize their contributions during a computer-mediated argumentative discussion. The results of our study illustrate how certain principles for organization emerge from an implicit negotiation of conventions, with mutual influence between the students and the tool.

Keywords: Tool appropriation, Shared workplaces, Social construction

Citation: Overdijk, M. & van Diggelen, W. (2008) Appropriation of a shared workspace: Organizing principles and their application. ijcscl 3 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9038-4
Authors: Baruch B. Schwarz, Reuma De Groot

Abstract: Critical reasoning has been recognized as a valuable educational goal since the end of the nineteenth century. However, the educational programs to reach this goal have changed dramatically during the twentieth century and moved to a dialogic approach. The shift to dialogism in programs to promote critical reasoning brings challenges concerning evaluation. We depict such a program here. This program is based on the use of graphic tools for argumentation in e-discussions. We focus on one history teacher who implemented the program in his class during a period of 7 months. In a design-based research cycle, we investigate the process of finding proper criteria to evaluate the program and to improve it. We show that the criteria of coherence, decisiveness and openness are appropriate for evaluating the program as they stem from pedagogical principles (autonomy, collaboration, commitment to reasoning, ethical communication, procedural mediation, etc.) that are central to a dialogic approach for critical reasoning education. We show that the history course was successful according to those criteria, but not successful according to other more traditional criteria. We discuss whether these differential performances suggest new standards for critical reasoning, actions to improve the program, or both.

Keywords: Argumentation, Dialogism, Critical reasoning

Citation: Schwarz, B. B. & De Groot, R. (2007) Argumentation in a changing world. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9020-6
Authors: Gijsbert Erkens, Jeroen Janssen

Abstract: Although protocol analysis can be an important tool for researchers to investigate the process of collaboration and communication, the use of this method of analysis can be time consuming. Hence, an automatic coding procedure for coding dialogue acts was developed. This procedure helps to determine the communicative function of messages in online discussions by recognizing discourse markers and cue phrases in the utterances. Five main communicative functions are distinguished: argumentative, responsive, informative, elicitative, and imperative. A total of 29 different dialogue acts are specified and recognized automatically in collaboration protocols. The reliability of the automatic coding procedure was determined by comparing automatically coded dialogue acts to hand-coded dialogue acts by a human rater. The validity of the automatic coding procedure was examined using three different types of analyses. First, an examination of group differences was used (dialogue acts used by female versus male students). Ideally, the coding procedure should be able to distinguish between groups who are likely to communicate differently. Second, to examine the validity of the automatic coding procedure through examination of experimental intervention, the results of the automatic coding procedure of students, with access to a tool that visualizes the degree of participation of each student, were compared to students who did not have access to this tool. Finally, the validity of the automatic coding procedure of dialogue acts was examined using correlation analyses. Results of the automatic coding procedure of dialogue acts of utterances (form) were related to results of a manual coding procedure of the collaborative activities to which the utterances refer (content). The analyses presented in this paper indicate promising results concerning the reliability and validity of the automatic coding procedure for dialogue acts. However, limitations of the procedure were also found and discussed.

Keywords: Collaborative learning, Computer-supported collaborative learning, Protocol analysis, Dialogue acts

Citation: Erkens, G. & Janssen, J. (2008) Automatic coding of communication in collaboration protocols. ijcscl 3 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9052-6
Authors: Liam Rourke, Heather Kanuka

Abstract: This qualitative case study illustrates barriers to informal argumentation and reasoned debate, i.e., critical discourse, in online forums. The case is the computer conference of a 15-week, graduate-level humanities course offered entirely at a distance. Twelve students, all with families and careers, were enrolled in the course. We read all messages as they were posted and interviewed five of the students several times during the course. The students provided three insights into our interpretation that the forums contained little critical discourse: (1) The students did not orient to the conference as a forum for critical discourse, and worse, they had competing orientations; (2) they perceived critiques as personal attacks; and (3) they realized early on that critical discourse was a bothersome means to obtain their participation marks. Certain practices may ease some of these difficulties, including (1) well-structured learning activities with clearly defined roles for teachers and students, and (2) a method of assessing students’ participation that reflects the time and effort required to engage in critical discourse.

Keywords: Critical discourse, Higher education, Computer support for collaborative learning

Citation: Rourke, L. & Kanuka, H. (2007) Barriers to online critical discourse. ijcscl 2 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9007-3
The role of theory in CSCL research is a complex matter, which has not been well worked out yet. The short caricature is this: There are three kinds of researchers in the field of CSCL,

   1. People who conduct CSCL research and report on it as though there is no need for theory; they simply observe results of interventions.
   2. People who conduct CSCL research and report on it by following a particular theory or theoretical framework that they accept as is.
   3. People who conduct CSCL research in order to investigate theoretical issues and refine theoretical perspectives specific to CSCL.

The first group of people is naïve. The philosophy of science has shown convincingly that research is necessarily theory-laden. Those who do not reflect on their theoretical footing simply adopt the assumptions of common sense, known as ‘folk theories’. Folk theories are based on experiences of everyday life, on distinctions embedded in common language, and on simplifications of outmoded theories. For instance, folk theories might assume that what a subject says in an interview or a survey directly represents what the researcher was looking for, without worrying about how the imposed situation might influence the subject’s response or the researcher’s interpretation.

The second group may be much more sophisticated about research methodology, having learned from established sciences like psychology, education, linguistics, or informatics. They are skilled at setting up survey instruments, research designs, and statistical analyses. They are also adept at critically evaluating each other’s claims. Using the constructs of a given theoretical framework, researchers in this group like to test theoretical predictions, for instance to see if a specific educational intervention will increase student learning outcomes as measured by gains from pre-test to post-test. While findings from such an approach can be useful, the limitation is that the imposition of a theory that was not explicitly developed for CSCL may fail to identify phenomena that are characteristic of CSCL—and which could therefore be of particular interest to people involved in implementing CSCL in practice.

The third group may start from a stated theoretical framework or even from a commonsensical understanding—for all thought is necessarily grounded in everyday language and in the tacit pre-understandings that come from human activity in the world. However, their research aims at pushing the theories further and refining the conceptualizations through which collaborative learning is comprehended. The articles in this issue of ijCSCL exemplify such an approach.

The sciences in which many CSCL researchers were trained generally focus on the individual as the subject, who learns. Often, these sciences recognize the influence of cultural and historical influences, but these are generally conceived of at a broad societal level. In contrast, CSCL settings typically involve processes (cognitive, knowledge-building, interactional, or identity-forming) at the small-group and/or classroom level of description, as well as at the individual student level. Processes at these different levels interpenetrate with each other intimately, without being reducible to any one level. In addition, CSCL involves mediation of the learning, interaction, and cognition by technological artifacts and computational media. To capture these processes and mediations, researchers need to develop more elaborated theories and methods. The articles below focus on these different levels and their special mediations, and propose new ways of viewing what takes place there.

Each of the following papers presents an individual case study. The point is not only (or even primarily) to argue that one should place students in similar circumstances to promote desired outcomes, but to present a persuasive example of how one might view collaborative learning taking place within such computer-supported contexts. In doing so, the authors propose intriguing extensions to theories that are important to CSCL, such as distributed cognition, discourse analysis, tacit knowledge, activity theory, and temporal analysis.

The study by Ruth Kershner, Neil Mercer, Paul Warwick, and Judith Kleine Staarman of elementary students’ use of interactive whiteboards during small-group collaborative discussions builds on the theory of distributed cognition, in which people think collaboratively, mediated by physical and linguistic artifacts. It also applies Mercer’s approach to discourse analysis—differentiating disputational, cumulative, and exploratory forms of children’s group talk—for looking closely at sequential interaction. The paper uses the discourse analysis results to extend the theory of distributed cognition with the metaphor of a shared dynamic dialogic space as the focal point of the children’s collective reasoning and co-construction of knowledge. The specific functions of the interactive whiteboard, combined with ‘talk rules’ instilled by the teacher, help to structure the dialogic space in which shared knowledge is co-constructed by the student groups.

The shared dynamic dialogic space—sometimes called the ‘joint problem space’—could provide a new way of thinking about how the various critical dimensions of CSCL interactions come together. The interactive whiteboard, for instance, acting as a location for focusing shared attention on the group task, as a referential center for exploratory talk, as an external memory, common ground, or indexical source for group cognition, and as a visual foundation for group identity demonstrates useful functionality for computer support of collaborative knowledge building.

Folk theories and rationalist philosophies assume that knowers can unproblematically state knowledge explicitly. Knowledge is conceived of as a possession of individuals’ minds, much like propositions stored in a computer database. But much of our knowledge as people, groups, and communities that carry out practical activities in the world is tacit, implicit, taken-for-granted, unstated. Meng Yew Teeand Dennis Karney investigate how tacit knowledge can be co-constructed, shared, and developed in a CSCL context. They look at how tacit knowledge of corporate culture surfaces in an online discussion of business management and how tacit hands-on know-how is built through role playing and the use of simulation games. Their analysis of student discourse suggested four key processes: socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization—consistent with Nonaka’s model of knowledge creation. The authors stress the importance of viewing these processes in a situated way. The exploration of tacit knowledge as the oft over-looked foundation of collaborative learning provides an important corrective in post-cognitive theory to the concentration on explicit knowledge in rationalist, cognitivist, and folk theories.

The paper by Sinem Siyahhan, Sasha A. Barab, and Michael Downton focuses on another dimension that is generally overlooked by folk theories: that of social norms, particularly their influence on how people position each other’s roles during interaction. This study looks at parent-student dyads playing an educational video game together after school. The analysis is framed in terms of Activity Theory, which includes among the mediations of goal-directed activity the dimensions of social norms, community, and the division of labor, in addition to mediation by artifacts (tools, symbols, technologies). The dialectic of roles was particularly interesting in this experimental context because the standard norms concerning parent-child relations interacted with the fact that the children were sometimes more expert at video-game operation and that the parents often positioned their children to take the lead during the ‘educational’ phases of the game. This opened up a space for productive exploration of the parent-child relationship by the participants.

The final paper of ijCSCL volume 5 addresses the temporal dimension of CSCL interaction. Folk theories of learning focus on the content and how it changes from some initial to some final state. However, to understand how collaborative learning takes place, we need to study how things gradually unfold during the period being studied. In particular, traditional theories conceive of time as an objective, smooth succession of moments. The Bakhtinian analysis by Maria Beatrice Ligorio and Giuseppe Ritella, however, treats the temporality experienced by the group in the classroom as a co-constructed encounter incorporating significant meaning and expression. Borrowing terminology from music—where the human experience of temporality is carefully orchestrated—the authors characterize phases of classroom interaction as proceeding with a tempo of adagio, andante, or allegretto. They see the dimension of temporality and the pace of sequential interaction as constructed by the responses of students to each other under the specific conditions of the classroom and its technology. The three chronotypes correspond to different modes of collaboration, in coordination with the sense of space that is simultaneously established.

The articles in this issue move far beyond folk theory and push the existing theories that have been popular in CSCL literature to better reflect the characteristics of interaction in CSCL settings. They suggest that computer-supported collaborative learning opens up a multi-dimensional shared world in which participants interact with each other, situated within an evolving context that they co-create. Knowledge, roles, space, and time are not simple givens whose characteristics can be assumed; they must be studied in each case through detailed analysis of the situated interaction. Of course, it is not necessary to address these theoretical frontiers of CSCL in every paper that claims to make significant and useful contributions to CSCL research; many research questions can be fully and rigorously pursued within the boundaries of established perspectives. IjCSCL welcomes both kinds of studies, those that make appropriate use of traditional frameworks and those that explore the boundaries of those frameworks.

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As we close the fifth year of production of ijCSCL, we would like to extend our gratitude to the many people who have supported the journal as Editorial Board members, authors, subscribers, and readers. In particular, we thank the following CSCL researchers who reviewed submissions to the journal; their committed and expert volunteer work is the single most important factor in maintaining the high quality of ijCSCL as a leading international journal and as the venue of choice for CSCL research:

Shaaron Ainsworth, Rick Alterman, Jerry Andriessen, Hans Christian Arnseth, Gerardo Ayala, Michael Baker, Maria Bannert, Liam Bannon, Daniel Bodemer, Jacqueline Bourdeau, Paul Brna, Bertram Bruce, Amy Bruckman, Juergen Buder, Murat Cakir, John Carroll, Carol Chan, Tak-Wai Chan, Rosanna Chan, Elizabeth Charles, Cesar Collazos, Ulrike Cress, Charles Crook, Lucilla Crosta, Ton de Jong, Anne Deiglmayr, Sharon Derry, Pierre Dillenbourg, Angelique Dimitrakopoulou, Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Paul Dourish, Nathan Dwyer, Noel Enyedy, Frank Fischer, Brian Foley, Andrea Forte, Hugo Fuks, Sean Goggins, Ricki Goldman, Jonathan Grudin, Frode Guribye, Joerg Haake, Kai Hakkarainen, Paivi Hakkinen, Andreas Harrer, Wu He, Thomas Herrmann, Friedrich Hesse, Cindy Hmelo-Silver, Christopher Hoadley, Ulrich Hoppe, Christine Howe, James Hudson, Diane Hui, Sanna Jarvela, Patrick Jermann, Richard Joiner, Christopher Jones, Regina Jucks, Yael Kali, Victor Kaptelinin, Manu Kapur, Fengfeng Ke, Diane Ketelhut, Andrea Kienle, Joachim Kimmerle, Paul Kirschner, Lars Kobbe, Matthew J. Koehler, Timothy Koschmann, Ingeborg Krange, Therese Laferriere, Minna Lakkala, Victor Lally, Mary Lamon, Johann Larusson, Nancy Law, Oskar Lindwall, Lasse Lipponen, Jacques Lonchamp, Chee-Kit Looi, Jingyan Lu, Rose Luckin, Sten R. Ludvigsen, Andreas Lund, Kristine Lund, Johan Lundin, Alejandra Martinez, Richard Medina, Naomi Miyake, Anders Morch, Johannes Moskaliuk, Daisy Mwanza-Simwami, Bonnie Nardi, Brian Nelson, Bernhard Nett, Matthias Nuckles, Angela O'Donnell, Hiroaki Ogata, Claire O'Malley, Jun Oshima, Roy Pea, Ruediger Pfister, Ingvill Rasmussen, Janet Read, Peter Reimann, Ann Renninger, Jochen Rick, Tim Roberts, Jennifer Rode, Markus Rohde, Jeremy Roschelle, Carolyn Rose, Liam Rourke, Nikol Rummel, Nadira Saab, Roger Saljo, Johann Sarmiento-Klapper, Tammy Schellens, Gregg Schraw, Baruch Schwarz, Anna Sfard, David Shaffer, Wesley Shumar, Amy Soller, Nancy Songer, Hans Spada, Marc Stadtler, Constance Steinkuehler, Jan-Willem Strijbos, Masanori Sugimoto, Daniel Suthers, Berthel Sutter, Gustav Taxen, Pierre Tchounikine, Chris Teplovs, Ramon Prudencio Toledo, Stefan Trausan-Matu, Jan van Aalst, Ravi Vatrapu, Marjaana Veermans, Barbara Wasson, Jim Waters, Rupert Wegerif, Armin Weinberger, Gordon Wells, Martin Wessner, Tobin White, Volker Wulf, Fatos Xhafa, Ling Ling Yen, Jennifer Yeo, Joyce Yukawa, Coco Zhao, Nan Zhou.

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Start planning now for the up-coming CSCL 2011 conference in Hong Kong, July 4-8 (see: http://www.isls.org/cscl2011). Hong Kong is an exciting crossroads of the world, a bridge between East and West. It is easily accessible from Europe and the Americas by direct flights. The culinary capital of Canton, it offers hotels for every budget. The conference venue at the University of Hong Kong—one of Asia’s premier universities—is located within walking distance of the heart of Hong Kong. A former British colony, Hong Kong uses English widely. CSCL 2011 is designed to offer an affordable global experience, including a post-conference group tour of educational and tourist sites in mainland China July 10-15—bring your family and students. We look forward to seeing you there.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2010) Beyond folk theories of CSCL. ijcscl 5 (4), pp.

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9098-0
Authors: Gerry Stahl

Citation: Stahl, G. (2008) Book review: Exploring thinking as communicating in CSCL. ijcscl 3 (3)
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

If most people who read this journal were asked by a non-academic — say at a social event or by a relative — about their work and what they are striving to accomplish, they might respond that they are trying to help kids learn better. The image that they might evoke is one of students in a school classroom, on a field trip or in an online community working together with the aid of computer-based tools. The CSCL approach recommends collaborative learning arrangements and points to the potential of a broad variety of digital media and artifacts to enhance the group knowledge building. The articles in this journal showcase new ideas about designing, fielding and evaluating such pedagogical and technological interventions in classroom learning. This issue develops a variety of perspectives on knowledge building in the classroom, as you will see as you read each article.

In addition, ijCSCL addresses the concerns of the academic field. By providing a quarterly forum for innovative research, it promulgates the leading edge of grounded thinking and healthy controversy. By printing extended versions of exceptional conference papers and introducing other mature studies, it partakes of the life of the community. To promote the use of these articles in digital settings, the official electronic versions with CrossRef (an online reference-linking system) are posted upon acceptance for subscribers (including thousands of universities worldwide) at: www.springeronline.com/journal/11412. To provide open access, pre-publication versions of the articles are freely available at: http://ijcscl.org/?go=contents.

The hardcopy version of the first issue of ijCSCL appeared at AERA ’06, the large gathering of the American Educational Research Association. This second issue will appear during ICLS ’06; all registered attendees there will be eligible for a free subscription to ijCSCL by requesting it from ISLS. Others can sign up at http://isls.org/membership.html. ISLS membership fees for 2007 will be fully deducted from registration for CSCL ’07, to be held in the New York City area — see http://isls.org/icls.html. Note that papers for CSCL ’07 are due by November 1; some of them will eventually be published in ijCSCL.
ijCSCL has already been added to the ICO-journal list in the Netherlands, thanks to our Dutch colleagues. This allows ijCSCL publications to count for tenure and promotion there. This is a first step in ijCSCL’s eventual inclusion in other abstracting and indexing services.

A few future issues of ijCSCL will be special issues, and focus on specific themes of importance to the CSCL community. These topics have grown out of collaborative efforts by researchers in multinational projects or international conference workshops. Current proposals for special issues or themes include:

    * Collaborative learning in mobile and ubiquitous environments
    * Dynamic automated support for CSCL
    * Networked learning
    * Paradigms for learning in communities
    * Scripting in CSCL
    * Methods for evaluating CSCL
    * Graphical support for CSCL

If you would like to contribute a paper on one of these themes, please send a brief note to info@ijCSCL.org.
The unity and diversity of the second issue

The second issue of ijCSCL continues to offer practical ideas for promoting collaborative learning with computer support, and related pedagogical approaches for use in the classroom. Simultaneously, it expresses a strong self-reflective tendency, proposing visions of desired futures for the field of CSCL research and arguing for innovative ways to advance the science. The mix of articles reflects a growing recognition that considerations of pedagogy, content, technology design, social context and theory must develop together, through mutual influence. The old distinctions between disparate disciplines and competing methodologies must be overcome in favor of professional collaboration and mixed methods.

The articles in this issue represent very different approaches to specialized concerns. They come, once more, from around the world: Norway, Israel, the US, Japan and France. Yet, in part by virtue of coming together in this journal, they partake of a unity — the unity of the CSCL research effort itself.
1. Institutional Context

The first article in this issue explicitly raises the question of the role of the classroom context in contributing to the knowledge building that takes place in schools. Arnseth & Ludvigsen approach this issue from within the situation of theorizing in the CSCL community, which they construe as a tension between systemic and dialogic paradigms. They work back and forth between the concrete phenomena and the meta-theoretical, uncovering the oft-ignored immediate social context of collaboration by bringing the two major theoretical orientations of the CSCL field into dialog with each other. From a systemic vantage point, CSCL approaches and tools have met with both substantial success and discouraging lack of effect in different kinds of classrooms. Close analysis of dialogic interactions reveals the crucial role of how classroom social and pedagogical norms are put into practice by students as they make sense of their work together and thereby determine how contextual variables are realized.
2. Building Knowledge about Design Principles

Kali proposes a digital tool for the CSCL community itself, designed to enhance knowledge building in the classroom by building knowledge in the discipline. She follows cycles of design-based research to demonstrate how a database of pedagogical principles, best practices or design patterns can be used to improve classroom learning and how the database itself can evolve in the process. The Design Principles Database is available for the CSCL community to use and extend. Interestingly, the example of principled classroom practice presented here as a case study involves peer-evaluation, an approach discussed in depth by Lee, Chan & van Aalst last issue and reprinted in this one.
3.Co-reflection and Narrative Analysis

The power of detailed analysis is illustrated in the paper by Yukawa. Using narrative analysis, she gets at the nature of collaboration between two adult students and their teacher, who communicated online via off-the-shelf technologies. The article presents the concept of co-reflection, showing both its tacit and explicit forms, as well as its cognitive and affective facets. This analysis of co-reflection locates individual reflection, made visible in shared narrative, as a part of group cognition. Conversely, it brings to the fore characteristics of the group interaction that have previously gone unnoted, emphasizing, for instance, the roles of metaphor and interpersonal relationship.
4. Knowledge-building Activity Structures

The problem of building knowledge in a traditional K-12 classroom is addressed face-on in the Japanese context by the efforts reported here. Oshima, et al. describe how the use of the Knowledge Forum technology and associated principles of knowledge building were merged with established activity structures of elementary science classrooms in Japan. Two cycles of a design study are analyzed. The first year resulted in a discouraging lack of knowledge building, but after both the task and participation designs were refined in the second year, the results were much more encouraging. The tension for students between the drive to complete tasks and the goal of building community knowledge remains as an inertial brake on educational change.
5. A Generic Framework for Chat

Last issue’s investigation of techniques for overcoming problems of the chat medium by Fuks, et al. suggested the need to carefully design synchronous media for collaborative learning. Now, Lonchamp provides a framework for systematically considering alternative features to include in synchronous support under different conditions. The framework is designed to model systems that are flexible and can be tailored to a wide range of users, communities, goals and contexts. Although this work is preliminary, it is published in the hopes of sparking collaboration within the CSCL community in the design, development, evaluation and theory of chat support for knowledge building using ideas and open source technologies offered here.
6. Errata

An unfortunate series of circumstances while publishing the first issue resulted in typographical errors in the article by Lee, Chan & van Aalst. To correct this, we republish both the print and electronic versions of this article in their entirety.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2006) Building knowledge in the classroom, building knowledge in the CSCL community. ijcscl 1 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9013-x
Authors: Gerry Stahl
The dialectics of flash themes

Imagine a group of our prehistoric ancestors sitting around the tribal fire sharing their narratives and perspectives on the world. Cautiously, a youthful utterance emerges from beneath the adult voices to query, “Why do you always speak of the eternal fire? I see only a succession of burning logs.” Haltingly, the elders try to explain that while it is true that there could be no fire without the logs, none of the individual logs could burn the way they do if they were not part of the fire, which endures much longer than any of the logs in it.

A second youth nods with her friend’s question; she is also confused and stares into the glowing fire before her. She throws a new log onto the fire and observes it closely. Her log starts to smoke where it is lapped by surrounding flames. Suddenly, a flame flashes out of it. Soon, the tribal fire is brightest right around her log. She gestures to her friend, saying, “Look at that: the log would not have burned at all if not for the fire, and the fire would not be so excited without the contribution of my log and without the way that my log and the other logs enflame each other.”

The two youngsters turn to their elders and ask, “How are we to understand this interplay of log and fire defining each other, which cannot easily be spoken of in our language?” The elders pause wisely and face the warmth of the flames. Eventually one holds his palms out to the source of warmth and is moved to say, “We can understand the fire by measuring the heat that it gives off and we can understand the nature of different logs by measuring how long they burn in the fire.” Then another perspective comes to word: “We should look in great detail at how the log and the fire interact, how the logs catch fire and the fire endures.” Another position is voiced that argues that the fire is the important thing for the tribe and that one should understand its phases—how it ebbs and flows like the moon or the tides; how it first catches from a spark in kindling, then roars across timbers and finally glows with embers. Then another claims that the fire really is nothing but the sum of individual logs burning and that a true understanding must simply know how each of the different woods of the forest burns; from such knowledge one can predict how any collection of logs will burn. Yet another voice points out that the tribal fire is a special fire. It is situated in the village center, in a pit whose shape and orientation both shelters and fans the flames. It is watched over and cared for by the villagers, who depend upon it for their survival. It is a gift of the gods, which has been entrusted to the people and passed down through the generations. As the fire dies down for the night, the two youngsters dose off, comforted by the wisdom of their tribe, which is somehow more than the simple sum of the opinions of individual elders.

Despite our fancy and precarious technology, we are not so different from our predecessors. Today, each of us warms our social and conceptual bones in front of many tribal fires—some, like the conferences of the CSCL research community, require airplane travel and some, like our journal, require Internet access. If ijCSCL is a tribal fire, then the authors of its articles are the logs that must burn hotly, one after another. Here, the dialectical relationship between author and audience is mediated by the institution, practices and editors of the journal.

The CSCL research community requires scientific ideas in order to survive. In fact, the field of CSCL is nothing but a collection of these ideas. But these “ideas” do not emerge fully grown from the minds of individuals or the labs of small groups, like Athena (Minerva) from the head of Zeus. They may flash up in the minds or discourses of individuals or small groups, but they do so under specific historical and cultural conditions. They may be inspired by someone else’s conceptual artifacts—a conference talk, a published paper, a stimulating question, a classic issue for the field. They then develop in various ways: as topics of informal discussions, as first drafts for a paper, as grant proposals, as experimental hypotheses.

Sometimes, someone with a hot idea decides to organize a workshop on the topic and invite other researchers interested in the theme to share their views. Individual thinking on the theme may ignite through the planning, presentation and follow-up of the workshop, setting other people’s reflections on fire as well. Before you know it, a new flash theme has burst forth on the community. This was the case in four recent events that led to papers in ijCSCL around flash themes. In each of these cases, the plan to publish in ijCSCL was integral to the workshop agenda. So, the individual papers prepared for the workshops were drafted with an eye to journal publication.

After the workshop took place, the organizers began the task of encouraging workshop participants to convert their drafts into journal papers and to coordinate the set of resultant papers to fit together. At the same time, the organizers negotiated with the ijCSCL editors. The editors decided that each paper would be subjected to the journal’s full peer-review process, including rejecting papers that did not have the potential to make a significant contribution to the field in the opinion of reviewers. In most cases, this meant that even the best papers needed to undergo major revisions in response to several detailed critical reviews. Each flash theme was supervised by a different ijCSCL editor (an Executive or Associate Editor). As a final step, successful papers were edited for English and formatting.

Of course, one can view an issue of ijCSCL as simply a collection of papers by individual researchers. But—particularly for papers on one of the flash themes—the situation is more complicated. First, most of these papers are co-authored, often by people from different institutions and even different countries. Second, many of the papers report on work within EU or Kaleidoscope projects involving many participants. Third, the papers were drafted to fit into a workshop setting, with an eye to journal publication in a coherent special issue. Fourth, the papers were coordinated after the workshop for the journal flash theme. Fifth, major revisions of the structure, argument and presentation of the findings were undertaken by the authors under the guidance of the organizer, several reviewers and at least one journal editor. Sixth, like all journal papers, the discussions of flash themes were communications to an audience, appealing to the concerns, understandings and judgments of the community, speaking their language and rooting the new contribution within the history of previous discussions. In these and other ways, the development and articulation of the ideas by the authors took place collaboratively, situated within the institutional structures of the journal-publication process and of the research community. At the same time, the journal rules and procedures themselves evolved in response to the rise of these flash themes and the opportunities for some form of special issue topics. And the definition of CSCL as a field was modified to include the thematic flashes. The friendly, but occasionally confusing negotiations among all the participants constituted the details of enactment and reproduction which mediated between the immediate actions of individual actors and the enduring social practices and structures of academic publication and research.
The specifics of the flash themes

In 2006, our inaugural year, we ignited the new tribal fire of ijCSCL for the CSCL research community. Many of the papers in volume 1 had their origin in the CSCL 2005 conference in Taiwan, passing the flame from conference to journal. In 2007 (volume 2), we created the category of flash themes, a new way of bundling logs together to heat up the collaborative learning of the community on these topics that seemed to be of special interest as they arose in the field.

In the March issue (2:1), we presented our first flash theme. Jack Carroll and Chris Hoadley had organized a workshop under the title of "Learning in Communities" at Penn State University (USA), August 14-17, 2006. Papers for this flash theme were coordinated by Carroll and edited by Stahl. We published: “Community-based learning: The core competency of residential, research-based universities” by Gerhard Fischer, Markus Rohde & Volker Wulf and “Patterns as a paradigm for theory in community-based learning” by John M.Carroll & Umer Farooq.

The September issue was a double issue (2:2&3) associated with the CSCL 2007 conference in New Brunswick. It introduced two flash themes that continue in this and future issues. The first of these was “Scripting in CSCL.”  It originated as a workshop of the European Research Team on “Computer-Supported Scripting of Interaction in Collaborative Learning Environments” (CoSSICLE) funded by the Kaleidoscope Network of Excellence. Proposed as a set of publications for ijCSCL by Pierre Dillenbourg and Frank Fischer, it was coordinated by Lars Kobbe. Barbara Wasson supervised the peer review. We published: “Specifying computer-supported collaboration scripts” by Lars Kobbe, Armin Weinberger, Pierre Dillenbourg, Andreas Harrer, Raija Hämäläinen, Päivi Häkkinen, & Frank Fischer, and “Comparing knowledge construction in two cohorts of asynchronous discussion groups with and without scripting” by Tammy Schellens, Hilde Van Keer, Bram De Wever & Martin Valcke.

The other flash theme in the previous issue was “Argumentation in CSCL.” Jerry Andriessen and Michael Baker proposed this theme for ijCSCL based on two European projects, SCALE and DUNES. Review of these submissions was supervised by Dan Suthers. We published: “Rainbow: A framework for analyzing computer-mediated pedagogical debates” by Michael Baker, Jerry Andriessen, Kristine Lund, Marije van Amelsvoort & Matthieu Quignard; “How do argumentation diagrams compare when student pairs use them as a means for debate or as a tool for representing debate?” by Kristine Lund, Gaëlle Molinari, Arnauld Séjourné & Michael Baker; “Argumentation in a changing world” by Baruch B. Schwarz & Reuma De Groot; and “Using graphical tools in a phased activity for enhancing dialogical skills: An example with Digalo” by Nathalie Muller Mirza, Valérie Tartas, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont & Jean-François De Pietro.
Flash themes in this issue

In the following pages we introduce the final flash theme for this year, “Methods for Evaluating CSCL.” This flash theme was proposed by Daisy Mwanza, based on a workshop with the same title held at the Open University in the United Kingdom on November 17-18, 2005. The submission review was supervised by Claire O’Malley. The articles below by John B. Belbas & Christine M. Greenhow and by Giasemi Vavoula & Mike Sharples belong to this flash theme.

The paper in this issue by Karsten Stegmann, Armin Weinberger & Frank Fischer belongs to the theme “Scripting in CSCL.” Coincidentally, it is also about argumentation in CSCL. The submissions from Baruch Schwarz & Amnon Glassner and from E. Michael Nussbaum, Denise L. Winsor, Yvette M. Aqui & Anne M. Poliquin below are about argumentation as well; they carry on the theme of “Argumentation in CSCL,” although neither of them was submitted as part of the original group or reviewed as such.

The five team voices collected in this issue adopt different perspectives on the mediation of individual and group in CSCL activities, such as debating scientific issues. They might be said to:

    * Identify how the fire and its logs interact with each other,
    * Envision alternative ways of building fires,
    * Measure the effects of different ways of feeding the fire,
    * Measure how much the logs catch fire under different conditions, or
    * Measure how high the fire roars under different conditions.

See if these different approaches all make sense to you and if together they give you a more insightful understanding of the complex nature of CSCL activities than any one of the voices by itself.

These four flash themes will continue into volume 3 (2008). Please submit papers on these themes if you have something important to contribute to these fiery discourses.

Don’t forget to plan for the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2008) in Utrecht, the Netherlands (see http://www.isls.org/icls2008/). Renew your ISLS membership now for reduced registration at ICLS and to continue subscribing to ijCSCL.

Citation: Stahl, G. (2007) CSCL and its flash themes. ijcscl 2 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9029-x
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

CSCL 2009 Conference

The CSCL 2009 international conference on the theme “CSCL Practices” will be held in Rhodes, Greece, on June 8-13, 2009. Paper submissions are due November 1 and workshop/tutorial proposals are due December 15. For conference information, see http://ISLS.org/CSCL2009.

The conference focuses on issues related to formal and informal learning through collaboration, promoting productive collaborative interactions with the help of the computer and other communication technologies. The conference theme “CSCL Practices” emphasizes practices relating to technology-based collaborative learning in schools, workplaces, and daily life.

The CSCL community is not only concerned with studying and designing effective tools to support CSCL practices, but also with identifying specific educational and professional practices that are associated with their appropriate usages. In order to study practices in a reflective way, powerful theories and analytical approaches are required. The aim is to understand how learning emerges: on an individual level, on a group-cognition level, and at the community level.

The CSCL conference and the CSCL journal work together to advance the collective understanding of the community of researchers and practitioners. The journal organizes a symposium at each conference and publishes expanded versions of important conference presentations. We look forward to seeing you on the historic island of Rhodes.
Three years of ijCSCL

This issue completes the third publication year of the CSCL journal. Having aimed to produce a truly international venue for ideas and practices from around the world related to collaborative learning with the use of computer support, we are pleased to have published 58 peer-reviewed articles authored by researchers from 20 different countries. Electronic (http://www.springerlink.com/content/120055/) and print copies of the journal are available to all members of ISLS (see http://ISLS.org) and to all attendees of CSCL and ICLS conferences, as well as being available through hundreds of universities and research labs worldwide. Prepublication versions of all articles are freely available at http://ijCSCL.org.

This year we added several new members to the journal’s Board of Editors. The Board now has 56 members, including leading researchers from 21 countries. In addition, over 200 other researchers have signed up at https://www.editorialmanager.com/ijcscl/ to help review submissions. The quality of the journal depends directly upon the efforts of reviewers to judge the value of submitted manuscripts, to provide helpful feedback to the authors, and to guide the authors to improve the presentation of the papers. Our aim is to make valuable contributions to CSCL research readily available in a clear and useful format.

Now that the journal is well established as an important venue for research findings, we are preparing to apply for indexing and abstracting by ISI. This will make articles in the journal easier to find and will support the arguments of authors for tenure and promotion. You can help the application process by citing articles from ijCSCL and by downloading them from the SpringerLink site listed above.
Educational policy and communities of practice

One of the most important ways for CSCL practices to be promoted is for government policies to call for transforming educational systems in line with recent findings of the learning sciences, including promotion of collaborative learning practices supported by networked computational devices. A leader in this growing movement is certainly the Ministry of Education in Singapore, which has made a serious commitment to such educational reform. Their commitment includes the establishment of a world-class research lab that is guiding the school reform effort with systematic research into CSCL practices. David Hung, Denneth Lim, Victor Chen and Thiam Seng Koh are centrally involved in this effort. Their lead article in this issue makes a provocative argument on theoretical grounds against incorporating “communities of practice” within educational institutions, and rather encouraging them to exist in a complementary but independent position. While some recent CSCL approaches to learning as a matter of participation in community discourses suggest looking at schools or classrooms as local communities of practice, this paper emphasizes the differences in structure, goals, and social practices between institutions of formal education and the more informal social networks of students or teachers with common interests. It suggests that rather than trying to merge the incompatible organizational structures, one should leverage the work of online communities of learners in ways that can foster adaptive schools, which meet the needs of the new knowledge-based economy.
Computer media and pedagogic goals

Another notable center of CSCL research is the Knowledge-Practices Lab, a large collaboration of universities and industry sponsored by the European Union. They are particularly focused on the CSCL practices that could promote collective knowledge building, as distinguished from more individual-oriented approaches to knowledge acquisition and participation. As we heard in Engeström’s (2008) keynote talk at ICLS, one of the on-going theoretical topics at the K-P Lab is what Vygotsky (1930/1978) termed “double stimulation.” In their contribution to this volume, Andreas Lund and Ingvill Rasmussen extend that foundational concept from the micro-genetic level of Vygotsky’s analysis of mediated cognition to the socio-genetic level which has become increasingly focal in CSCL theory. As part of his critique of behaviorism, Vygotsky showed how higher human responses to a primary stimulus are mediated by a secondary stimulus, such as a symbol or tool. He also analyzed how mediating stimuli can be internalized in the individual’s mind. When looking at collective behavior, like that in a school classroom, it is useful to broaden the conception of dual stimulation to include such phenomena as small-group tasks and institutional practices or technological media. This introduces concern with the complex relations that exist among agents, tasks, and tools in CSCL settings. The tensions, affordances, and constraints involved in the co-design of pedagogical tasks and collaboration media raise the need for social practices of appropriation, negotiation, and adaptation by students, teachers, and administrators at the levels of individual, small-group and community activities.
CSCL guidance and student self-efficacy

An enduring theme concerning CSCL practices is how to promote student interest and success in science and mathematics, particularly for low-achievers. A number of researchers have proposed adopting video game technologies, but the verdict seems to be still out on that—perhaps because the surrounding practices have not been sufficiently taken into account. In their experimental study, Brian Nelson and Diane Ketelhut explore how students with different self-reported levels of self-efficacy in science succeed in a science curriculum presented in a video-game-like environment. Students collaborated online in groups of three, and could access guidance messages individually. As expected, access to the guidance hints helped to improve everyone’s posttest scores. However, students with low self-efficacy—especially boys—viewed fewer guidance messages. So it is still necessary to change the self-defeating attitudes and behaviors of students with low self-efficacy feelings if their performance in these science environments is to have the beneficial results for which they are designed.
Informal gaming and formal learning

The next paper, by Fengfeng Ke, turns to the use of video-game environments for math education. Here, too, the central issue raised involves the design of classroom practices to support this approach to learning. The Astra Eagle games used emphasized drill and practice of fifth grade math skills. Classroom procedures followed the Teams-Games-Tournament approach to collaborative learning, involving collaboration in teams followed by competition on the computer games by individuals in cross-team tournaments. Experimental results support the paper’s claim that combining computer games with cooperative learning can improve math education and math attitudes. However, they also suggest that game-based outcomes are different for students who are economically disadvantaged.
Automated coding for research practice

Finally, to support the practices of CSCL researchers themselves, Gijsbert Erkens and Jeroen Janssen describe a system to help assign codes to utterances in chat logs. This paper continues the discussion by Rosé et al. (2008) in the previous issue of ijCSCL, although the new paper is based on a simpler linguistic theory and is, therefore, more limited in its application. It looks for keyword or key-phrase “markers” in single utterances in order to assign one of about 30 codes from a particular coding scheme that distinguishes argumentative, responsive, informative, elicitative and imperative utterances. The authors have developed a rule-production system of 300 rules for segmentation and 1,250 rules for selecting codes. The system is for chats in the Dutch language, and has been used in several CSCL projects in the Netherlands. The paper argues for the system’s reliability and validity through three studies, while noting that the rules need to be constantly updated to cover new data and that the system’s scope is restricted to research questions that involve the given codes for utterances of individuals; issues of collaboration and group cognition that involve interaction cannot be well addressed, nor can issues of quality and depth of argumentation or reflection that involve the content of utterances.
References

Engeström, Y. (2008). From design experiments to formative interventions (keynote). Paper presented at the International Conference of the Learning Sciences, Utrecht, NL.

Rosé, C., Wang, Y.-C., Cui, Y., Arguello, J., Stegmann, K., Weinberger, A., Fischer, F. (2008). Analyzing collaborative learning processes automatically: Exploiting the advances of computational linguistics in CSCL. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL), 3 (3).

Vygotsky, L. (1930/1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2008) CSCL practices. ijcscl 3 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9053-5
Authors: Ruth Kershner, Neil Mercer, Paul Warwick, Judith Kleine Staarman

Abstract: Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) have been widely introduced to English primary schools (5–11 years) in the last decade and this has generated much research interest. In the past, research has focused on IWB-use in teacher-led sessions, attending particularly to the nature of teacher-pupil interaction at the IWB and the apparent motivational advantages for children. In contrast, this study focuses on children’s communication and thinking during their semi-autonomous use of the IWB during collaborative groupwork in primary school science lessons, aiming in part to see if the IWB is suited to this type of use. Over the course of one school year, twelve primary teachers of Years 4 and 5 (8–10 years) took part in a professional development and research programme which involved them in devising a sequence of three science lessons incorporating small-group activity at the IWB. The functionality of the IWB is analysed here as means for supporting the children’s joint communication and thinking, using embedded cues and the availability of certain features in the IWB technology. Our observational analysis of two examples of children’s collaborative activity in different classrooms, together with subsequent group interviews, suggests that the IWB can make some identifiable contributions to children’s productive communication and thinking. However the IWB is not seen to be an entirely distinctive or pedagogically transformative learning resource in the primary classroom. In our developing conceptual framework, the children’s knowledge building is closely related to their active engagement in using IWB affordances and their productive dialogue, essentially supported by the teacher’s scaffolding strategies, the establishment and use of “talk rules” in conversation, and the opportunities and constraints applying in classroom participation structures. These conditions help the children to deal with interconnected social, cognitive, and technical problems arising over time. Certain aspects of this form of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) are discussed. These relate to the integration of the IWB with other classroom learning systems and resources, and to the nature of progression in children’s activity and learning with this new type of highly integrated system of CSCL.

Keywords: ollaborative groupwork, Classroom communication, Collective thinking, Interactive whiteboard, Primary/elementary education, Science learning, Teacher developmen

Citation: Kershner, R., Mercer, N., Warwick, P., & Staarman, J. K. (2010) Can the interactive whiteboard support young children's collaborative communication and thinking in classroom science activities?. ijcscl 5 (4), pp.

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9096-2
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

Ode on a Grecian conference

Upon the shore of the Aegean Sea, amidst the splendor of ancient Rhodes, the CSCL community convened in June to mix futuristic stabs at truth with classic vistas of natural beauty. Preceded by the first daylong retreat of ISLS, two-and-a-half days of pre-conference events brought together groups of researchers in 16 workshops, tutorials, and seminars, including a doctoral consortium and an early-career workshop. The “Intro to CSCL” tutorial engaged over 30 newcomers to CSCL in a collaborative learning dialog with 18 members of the ijCSCL Editorial Board.

The three full days of the main conference included the whole variety of events typical of CSCL conferences: long and short papers, demos, interactive posters, panels, symposia, and invited keynote talks. The conference concluded with a panel on the beginnings of CSCL 20 years ago in nearby Italy—highlighting both the growth of the field and the continuity of concerns. With perfect weather, an ocean beach, swimming pools, and an open bar, the conference was pervaded by a particularly friendly and informal atmosphere. Scaffolded by good Greek food and drink, meals were always stimulating encounters, whether at the social events in the old towns of Rhodes and Lindos or in the hotel restaurants. Ideas about collaboration, learning, and research flowed like wine from an ancient urn.

The interdisciplinary CSCL community has always valued a diversity of theories, methods, goals, disciplines, and approaches. Whether because of the historical perspective of Greece, the intensity of the Mediterranean sun, or the growing maturity of the field, people were able to make pointed statements in favor of preferred perspectives—without denigrating the value of alternative opinions. The tension of diverse perspectives seemed to animate the community more than ever, stimulating new insights.

If you missed this conference, make plans for ICLS 2010 in Chicago (June 28–July 2; paper deadline October 30) and CSCL 2011 in Hong Kong.
Four years of ijCSCL

The ijCSCL Board met during the conference to review the journal’s progress. To date, the journal has published 75 articles by 167 authors from 21 countries. Through subscriptions to ISLS members and distribution by Springer, ijCSCL is now available to more than 7,500 universities, research libraries, corporate and government institutions—that is, about 15 million users worldwide. Electronic copies of all articles can be downloaded from http://www.springer.com/journal/11412 and free pre-print versions from http://ijCSCL.org/?go=contents. The number of downloads from each of these sites has more than doubled each year that ijCSCL has existed—now more than a thousand copies of articles are downloaded each month from each site.
The continued high quality of the articles published in ijCSCL is due to the selectivity and the feedback to authors from reviewers. The following people have contributed more than 500 reviews:

    Shaaron Ainsworth, Rick Alterman, Jerry Andriessen, Hans Christian Arnseth, Gerardo Ayala, Michael Baker, Maria Bannert, Liam Bannon, Sasha A. Barab, Brigid Barron, Phillip Bell, Daniel Bodemer, Jacqueline Bourdeau, Paul Brna, Bertram Bruce, Amy Bruckman, Juergen Buder, Murat Perit Cakir, John M. Carroll, Annamaria Carusi, Seth Chaiklin, Carol K.K. Chan, Tak-Wai Chan, Elizabeth Sandra Charles, Cesar Alberto Collazos, Ulrike Cress, Charles Crook, Lucilla Crosta, Harry Daniels, Ton de Jong, Sharon Derry, Pierre Dillenbourg, Angelique Dimitrakopoulou, Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Paul Dourish, Alison Druin, Nathan Dwyer, Noel Enyedy, Michael A Evans, Martha D. Fewell, Frank Fischer, Brian Foley, Lachlan Forsyth, Andrea Forte, Hugo Fuks, Bill Gaver, Sean Goggins, Ricki Goldman, Jonathan Grudin, Frode Guribye, Joerg M. Haake, Kai Hakkarainen, Paivi Hakkinen, Rogers Hall, Andreas Harrer, Wu He, Thomas Herrmann, Friedrich W. Hesse, Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, Christopher Hoadley, Ulrich Hoppe, Christine Joyce Howe, James M. Hudson, Sanna Jurvela, Patrick Jermann, Richard Joiner, Christopher Jones, Regina Jucks, Yasmin Kafai, Yael Kali, Victor Kaptelinin, Manu Kapur, Fengfeng Ke, Andrea Kienle, Joachim Kimmerle, Paul A. Kirschner, Lars Kobbe, Matthew J. Koehler, Timothy Koschmann, Ingeborg Krange, Kari Kuutti, Therese Laferrivre, Minna Helena Lakkala, Victor Lally, Mary Lamon, Johann Ari Larusson, Nancy Law, Erno Lehtinen, Lasse Lipponen, Jacques Lonchamp, Chee-Kit Looi, Rose Luckin, Sten R. Ludvigsen, Andreas Lund, Kristine Lund, Johan Lundin, Richard Medina, Naomi Miyake, Anders Morch, Joan K Moss, Daisy Mwanza-Simwami, Bonnie Nardi, Brian C. Nelson, Bernhard Nett, Matthias Nuckles, Angela O’Donnell, Hiroaki Ogata, Claire O’Malley, Jun Oshima, Roy Pea, Ruediger Pfister, Janet Read, Thomas C. Reeves, Peter Reimann, Ann Renninger, Jochen Rick, Tim Sean Roberts, Markus Rohde, Jeremy Roschelle, Carolyn P. Rose, Liam Rourke, Nikol Rummel, Nadira Saab, Roger Saljo, Johann W Sarmiento, Marelene Scardamalia, Lynette Schaverien, Tammy Schellens, Gregg Schraw, Baruch Schwarz, Anna Sfard, David Williamson Shaffer, Wesley Shumar, Amy Soller, Nancy Songer, Hans Spada, Marc Stadtler, Gerry Stahl, Danae Stanton Fraser, Constance Steinkuehler, Jan-Willem Strijbos, Masanori Sugimoto, Daniel Suthers, Berthel Sutter, Gustav Taxon, Josie Taylor, Ramon Prudencio Toledo, Jan van Aalst, Ravi Kiran Vatrapu, Marjaana Veermans, Barbara Wasson, Jim Waters, Rupert Boudewijn Wegerif, Armin Weinberger, Gordon Wells, James Wertsch, Martin Wessner, Tobin Frye White, Volker Wulf, Fatos Xhafa, Ling Ling Yen, Joyce Yukawa, Nan Zhou.

Time is precious

The panoply of modern science has arisen in the two millennia since the golden age of Greece; the CSCL research community has evolved in the past two decades; school learning takes place in semesters and years; while a discussion can turn in a fraction of a minute. During these various periods, the nature of the variables of interest—like competence, development, interaction—may themselves vary. Peter Reimann proposes an event-centered approach as an alternative to conventional variable-centered methodologies for analyzing the processes that unfold over extended periods of time in CSCL settings. He argues that tracking events can be more responsive to changing circumstances than plotting values of presumably fixed variables. Furthermore, event-centered analysis can account for a richer range of causality and a broader spectrum of reporting, including narratives.

His paper reflects on the nature of multiple analytic methods in CSCL at a fundamental conceptual level, citing diverse efforts representative of current approaches. Although it mentions conversation analysis, uptake diagrams, and thick descriptions, it does not clearly distinguish these as taking the participants’ perspective on semantics, temporality, or interaction generally. The mundane ways in which a question can elicit an answer within a unique CSCL situation, for instance, may not be reducible to a probability measure between events, but may require an understanding of the human semantics and interactional pragmatics in order to capture the essential processes of collaborative learning. Nevertheless, the article provides a rich and important contribution to the “timely” issue of multiple analytic approaches within CSCL.
Knowledge-creation discourses

Jan van Aalst extends the considerable discourse within CSCL related to Knowledge Forum as a technological support for knowledge building or knowledge creation. He first clarifies the often-confused terminology of alternative theories of learning, and then operationalizes his distinctions within a coding scheme, applied to the work of four groups in a classroom. He clearly distinguishes “knowledge creation”—as the community improvement of ideas—from a naïve realist transmission model of “knowledge sharing” and a cognitive psychology constructionist model of “knowledge construction.” His coding scheme is able to distinguish the differential ability of the student groups to engage in knowledge creation through their work in Knowledge Forum. A look at the decisive codes is suggestive of pedagogical issues to consider in promoting knowledge creation.

Despite its extensive clarification, this article—like so much of the related literature—speaks ambiguously about the “sense of community,” which it highlights as key to knowledge construction. Both the acquisition and the construction models focus on the individual student as the unit of description; knowledge construction differs decisively on this point. With its orientation to the progressive public refinement of ideas, theories, and other knowledge artifacts, knowledge creation is a social activity. But the paper’s case-study analysis is exclusively at the small-group level. Between-group differences are discussed in terms of social practices, sense of community, and innovation ecology although all the groups were in the same classroom, school, and world. In distinguishing knowledge creation from theories of individual learning, the paper fails to distinguish small-group from community processes. In fact, it shows how the theory of knowledge creation—derived from the practices of large scientific communities—can be applied to collaborative learning in small groups of students.
Collaborative learning in dual-interaction spaces

The contrast of fundamentally different approaches to analyzing interactions in CSCL settings pervaded the CSCL 2009 conference, from the workshop on multivocality the first day to the closing panel on 20 years of CSCL. In this issue, both Reimann’s and von Aalst’s articles explicitly contrast approaches based on incommensurable theories. Jacques Lonchamp takes the opposite tack, proposing a systematic integration of three analytic approaches. He describes three levels of analysis—dialog, knowledge, and action—which he claims fit together like semantics, syntax, and pragmatics to provide an integrated view of communication. Adding to the complexity, he considers dual-interaction environments built using his generic and customizable Omega+ model (Lonchamp 2006). One can usefully compare his analysis of a case study of students constructing UML use-case diagrams with the detailed analysis by Çakır et al. (2009) of students drawing and chatting about geometric patterns in another synchronous dual-interaction system. Such a comparison illustrates the difference between a designer perspective and a practice perspective.
Studying digital resources

In a complicated software tool like Microsoft Word, spell checking seems like a simple, well-defined, and fully understood function. Asta Cekaite’s detailed analysis of several students using a spell checker shows, however, how this function can be enacted in surprisingly rich and creative ways in the situated practices of real users. As recently discussed by Dohn (2009), the “affordances” of an artifact are not fully predefined by the technology. Here we see that a spell checker can be used to support student writing through a variety of methods closely tied to the activity or interaction of the students. While both the spell-checking technology and the discourse of the students may seem trivial, the implication of this paper is that this kind of detailed case study can reveal the concrete affordances of designed technologies that go far beyond the intentions, affordances, and assumptions of the designers.
The tensions of educational web 2.0

In the new article by Nina Bonderup Dohn, we return to the theoretical tension between knowledge sharing (as an acquisitionist or transmission model of learning) and knowledge construction (as a participationist or social model). Building on her recently published analysis of affordances (Dohn 2009), the author clearly lays out the challenges posed by trying to adopt Web 2.0 technologies (wikis, blogs, Wikipedia, Facebook, Flickr, YouTube, Second Life, etc.) for educational purposes in university courses. The affordances of these technologies depend on our established practices as consolidated in our body schemas (Merleau-Ponty) or habitus (Bourdieu). The conventional focus on educational outcomes of individual learners, systems of grading, traditions of instruction, and expectations of student development all militate against the Web 2.0 goal of collective wisdom and social networking. Once again, in the challenges of using recent forms of computer support we see the fundamental tension in collaborative learning: how to align and integrate learning at the individual, small-group, and community levels.
References

Çakır, M. P., Zemel, A., & Stahl, G. (2009). The joint organization of interaction within a multimodal CSCL medium. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(2), 115–149. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-009-9061-0.

Dohn, N. B. (2009). Affordances revisited: articulating a Merleau-Pontian view. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(2), 151–170. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-009-9062-z.

Lonchamp, J. (2006). Supporting synchronous collaborative learning: a generic, multi-dimensional model. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 1(2), 247–276. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-006-8996-7.
Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2009) Classical dialogs in CSCL. ijcscl 4 (3), pp. 233-237

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9071-y
Authors: Joyce Yukawa

Abstract: This article presents findings from a comparative case study of the learning experiences of two graduate students in an online action research course. The key roles played by reflection and co-reflection, an emerging concept, are identified through the use of narrative analysis. Co-reflection is a collaborative critical thinking process mediated by language, broadly construed to include all meaningful signs. Two types of co-reflection are proposed: tacit and active. Regardless of type, the evidence shows that co-reflection involves cognitive and affective interactions in synergy with relationship building. To the study of group cognition, this study contributes evidence of the potential of co-reflection as a core process. The simple, flexible software tools used in the course (wiki-style collaborative software and simple email and chat programs) effectively supported inquiry learning and co-reflection by allowing learners to freely and easily create their own web pages and to adapt the tools for their different communication and learning styles.

Keywords: Affective domain, Co-construction of knowledge, Collaborative learning, Co-reflection, Distance learning, Higher education, Narrative analysis, Reflection, Wiki

Citation: Yukawa, J. (2006) Co-reflection in online learning: Collaborative critical thinking as narrative. ijcscl 1 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-8994-9
Authors: Tobin White

Abstract: This study explores the potential of networked handheld computers to support collaborative problem solving in small groups. Drawing on data from a middle school mathematics classroom equipped with a wireless handheld network, I argue that the sharing of mathematical objects through interactive devices broadens the ‘bandwidth’ of classroom collaboration, expanding the range of participatory forms through which students might contribute to the work of a group and enhance their own learning. The analysis focuses on the participation strategies of those students in two focus groups who were most able to demonstrate posttest score gains from relatively low scores on a pretest. In particular, the device network provided those students with a set of collective, dynamic objects through which they supplemented and coordinated discursive forms of participation in the joint work of their respective groups.

Keywords: Classroom networks, Mathematics, Mobile devices, Small group pedagogy

Citation: White, T. F. (2006) Code talk: Student discourse and participation with networked handhelds. ijcscl 1 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9658-5
Authors: Asta Cekaite

Abstract: The present study has explored how pairs of students deployed digital tools (spelling software) as resources in spontaneously occurring corrections of spelling errors. Drawing on the sociocultural theory of learning and ethnomethodological (Conversation Analytic) insights into social interaction, it has identified a range of consistent practices and uses of the spelling tools that were emergent in the everyday educational activities. As demonstrated, technology-assisted error corrections constituted a complex situation, where a number of socioculturally significant factors (goals of the task, properties of the software, and physical access to computer applications) shaped the trajectories of joint work. The present analysis shows in detail how the students approached the visually manifested language production errors by using two kinds of software resources, spelling lists, and a diagnostic tool. The inherent conceptual distinctions, characteristic of these tools, configured joint interpretative work and efforts to correct the errors in different ways. Recurrently, the students’ technology-based corrections were designed as autonomous, stepwise, locally improvised problem solutions, which were subsequently submitted for the evaluation of the diagnostic software. Overall, the study shows that the under-specification of the software’s instructions opened a space for the students’ creative engagement. The potentials of joint spelling software-assisted corrections for collaborative learning are discussed.

Keywords: CSCL, Sociocultural theory, Interaction analysis, Error corrections, Spellchecker technological tools

Citation: Cekaite, A. (2009) Collaborative corrections with spelling control: Digital resources and peer assistance. ijcscl 4 (3), pp. 319-341

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9067-7
Authors: Yael Kali

Abstract: In this study we describe a mechanism for supporting a community of learning scientists who are exploring educational technologies by helping them to share and collaboratively build design knowledge. The Design Principles Database (DPD) is intended to be built and used by this community to provide an infrastructure for participants to publish, connect, discuss and review design ideas, and to use these ideas to create new designs. The potential of the DPD to serve as a collaborative knowledge-building endeavor is illustrated by analysis of a CSCL study focused on peer-evaluation. The analysis demonstrates how the DPD was used by the researchers of the peer-evaluation study in three phases. In the first phase, design principles were articulated based on a literature review and contributed to the DPD. In the second phase, a peer-evaluation activity was designed based on these principles, and was enacted and revised in a three-iteration study. In the third phase, lessons learned through these iterations were fed back to the DPD. The analysis indicates that such processes can contribute to collaborative development of design knowledge in community of the learning sciences. Readers of ijCSCL are invited to take part in this endeavor and share their design knowledge with the community.

Keywords: Design-based research, Design principles, Collaborative knowledge-building, Peer-evaluation

Citation: Kali, Y. (2006) Collaborative knowledge building using a design principles database. ijcscl 1 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-8993-x
Authors: Gerhard Fischer, Markus Rohde, Volker Wulf

Abstract: Traditionally, universities focus primarily on instructionist teaching. Such an understanding has been criticized from theoretical and practical points of view. We believe that socio-cultural theories of learning and the concepts of social capital and social creativity hold considerable promise as a theoretical base for the repositioning of universities in the knowledge society. To illustrate our assumption, we provide case studies from the University of Colorado and the University of Siegen. These cases indicate how approaches to community-based learning can be integrated into a curriculum of applied computer science. We also discuss the role these didactical concepts can play within a practice-oriented strategy of regional innovation.

Keywords: Social capital, Social creativity, Community-based learning, Symmetry of ignorance, Distributed intelligence, Courses-as-seeds, Courses in practice (CiP), Undergraduate research apprenticeship program, Transdisciplinary education, Communities of practice (CoPs),

Citation: Fischer, G., Rohde, M. & Wulf, V. (2007) Community-based learning: The core competency of residential, research-based universities. ijcscl 2 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9009-1
Authors: Tammy Schellens, Hilde Van Keer, Bram De Wever, Martin Valcke

Abstract: This article describes the impact of learning in asynchronous discussion groups on students’ levels of knowledge construction. A design-based approach enabled the comparison of two successive cohorts of students (N = 223 and N = 286) participating in discussion groups for one semester. Multilevel analyses were applied to uncover the influence of student, group, and task variables on the one hand, and the specific impact of a particular form of scripting – namely the assignment of roles to group members – on the other. Results indicate that a large part of the overall variability in students’ level of knowledge construction can be attributed to the discussion assignment. More intensive and active individual participation in the discussion groups and adopting a positive attitude towards the learning environment also positively relates to a higher level of student knowledge construction. Task characteristics – differences between the consecutive discussion themes – appeared to significantly affect levels of knowledge construction, although further analysis revealed that these differences largely disappeared after correcting for task complexity. Finally, comparisons between both cohorts revealed that the introduction of student roles led to significantly higher levels of knowledge construction. An effect size of 0.5 was detected.

Keywords: Asynchronous discussion groups, Computer-supported collaborative learning, Higher education, Online learning, Scripting

Citation: Schellens, T., Van Keer, H., De Wever, B. & Valcke, M. (2007) Comparing knowledge construction in two cohorts of asynchronous discussion groups with and without scripting. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9016-2
Authors: Oliver Scheuer, Frank Loll, Niels Pinkwart, Bruce M. McLaren

Abstract: Argumentation is an important skill to learn. It is valuable not only in many professional contexts, such as the law, science, politics, and business, but also in everyday life. However, not many people are good arguers. In response to this, researchers and practitioners over the past 15–20 years have developed software tools both to support and teach argumentation. Some of these tools are used in individual fashion, to present students with the “rules” of argumentation in a particular domain and give them an opportunity to practice, while other tools are used in collaborative fashion, to facilitate communication and argumentation between multiple, and perhaps distant, participants. In this paper, we review the extensive literature on argumentation systems, both individual and collaborative, and both supportive and educational, with an eye toward particular aspects of the past work. More specifically, we review the types of argument representations that have been used, the various types of interaction design and ontologies that have been employed, and the system architecture issues that have been addressed. In addition, we discuss intelligent and automated features that have been imbued in past systems, such as automatically analyzing the quality of arguments and providing intelligent feedback to support and/or tutor argumentation. We also discuss a variety of empirical studies that have been done with argumentation systems, including, among other aspects, studies that have evaluated the effect of argument diagrams (e.g., textual versus graphical), different representations, and adaptive feedback on learning argumentation. Finally, we conclude by summarizing the “lessons learned” from this large and impressive body of work, particularly focusing on lessons for the CSCL research community and its ongoing efforts to develop computer-mediated collaborative argumentation systems.

Keywords: ollaborative argumentation, Argumentation systems, Argument visualization, Analysis and feedback, Empirical studies of argumentation system

Citation: Scheuer, O., Loll, F., Pinkwart, N., & McLaren, B. M. (2010) Computer-supported argumentation: A review of the state of the art. ijcscl 5 (1), pp. 43-102

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9080-x
Authors: Nathan Dwyer, Daniel D. Suthers

Abstract: The design of collaborative representations faces a challenge in integrating theoretical communication models with the context-sensitive and creative practices of human interaction. This paper presents results from a study that identified multiple, invariant communicative practices in how dyads appropriated flexible, paper-based media in discussions of wicked problems. These invariants, identified across media, participants and topics are a promising first step towards creating an abstract model for design that connects representational affordances and communicative functions. The authors identify areas where this model may challenge conventional design wisdom and discuss directions for further research.

Keywords: Descriptive studies, Interactional practices, Representational affordances, Shared workspaces, Video analysis

Citation: Dwyer, N. & Suthers, D. D. (2006) Consistent practices in artifact-mediated collaboration. ijcscl 1 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9001-1
Authors: Thomas Herrmann, Andrea Kienle

Abstract: Computer-supported discursive learning (CSDL) systems for the support of asynchronous discursive learning need to fulfil specific socio-technical conditions. To understand these conditions, we employed design experiments combining aspects of communication theory, empirical findings, and continuous improvement of the investigated prototypes. Our theoretical perspective starts with a context-oriented model of communication which is—as a result of the experiments—extended by including the role of a third-party such as a facilitator. The theory-driven initial design requirements lead to the CSCL-prototype, KOLUMBUS, emphasizing the role of annotations. In KOLUMBUS, annotations can be immediately embedded in their context of learning material. Practical experience with the prototype in five cases reveals possibilities for implementing improvements and observing their impact. On this basis, we provide guidelines for the design of CSDL systems that focus on the support of asynchronous discursive learning.

Keywords: Communication, Facilitation, Design of CSCL-systems, Evaluation

Citation: Herrmann, T. & Kienle, A. (2008) Context-oriented communication and the design of computer-supported discursive learning. ijcscl 3 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9045-5
Authors: Maarit Arvaja

Abstract: This paper presents a methodology designed to explore the role of context in collaborative knowledge construction activity in asynchronous web-based discussion. The discussions of two student groups participating in a web-based teacher education course were compared. The comparison aimed to highlight the differences and similarities between the groups’ knowledge construction activity through studying the thematic structure, communicative functions and contextual resources used in their discussions. The results indicated that the different backgrounds of the two student groups influenced the way context was created and interpreted, and how meanings were negotiated. The differences and similarities between the groups’ activity illuminated the situated and mediated nature of learning. The possibilities of the methodology used in this study for evaluating collaborative knowledge construction in context are also discussed.

Keywords: Collaborative knowledge construction, Computer-supported collaborative learning, Context, Higher education, Socio-cultural learning theory

Citation: Arvaja, M. (2007) Contextual perspective in comparing meaning negotiations of two small groups in web-based discussion . ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9013-5
Authors: Gustav Lymer, Jonas Ivarsson, Oskar Lindwall

Abstract: This study investigates video recordings of design reviews in architectural education, focusing on how presentations and discussions of designs are contingent on the specific tools employed. In the analyzed recordings, three different setups are utilized: traditional posters, digital slide-show technologies, and combinations of the two. This range of different setups provides a set of contrasts that make visible the role of technologies in shaping the ways in which the reviews are conducted. The analysis is structured in three themes. First, we examine the sequential organization of digital presentations in relation to the spatial structure of poster-based presentations. Second, the different ways in which shared attention is established in digital, paper-based, and hybrid presentation practices are analyzed. Third, we address part-whole relations—how details in presented materials are put in relation to the overarching project or the presentation as a whole. Taken together, the analyses suggest that the detailed organization of the design review is transformed in subtle yet consequential ways through the introduction of digital slide-show technologies. These transformations are consequential not only locally, for the design review itself, but also for the instructive work that is accomplished through this practice. We conclude by discussing some implications for design, arguing that an increased awareness of how the practice is influenced by the different setups might be key for the proper adaptation of presentation technologies to particular purposes.

Keywords: rchitectural education, Design reviews, Ethnomethodology, Video analysis, Presentation practice and technolog

Citation: Lymer, G., Ivarsson, J., & Lindwall, O. (2009) Contrasting the use of tools for presentation and critique: Some cases from architectural education. ijcscl 4 (4), pp. 423-444

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9073-9
Authors: Nancy Ares

Abstract: This paper presents results of a case study conducted in secondary mathematics classrooms using a new generation of networked classroom technology (Participatory Simulations). Potential for drawing on youths’ cultural practices in networked learning environments is explored in terms of opportunities for traditionally underserved students to participate in powerful mathematical discourse and practice. As mediated by the networked technology, the multiple modes of participation and opportunities to contribute to the group’s accomplishment of its task served as important avenues for underserved students to bring to bear resources they develop through participating in everyday practices of their communities. The goal is to provide examples of networked activities’ potential for leveraging cultural practices of marginalized groups through pedagogy that invites youth to draw on linguistic resources and interaction patterns they develop as members of cultural groups.

Citation: Ares, N. (2008) Cultural practices in networked classroom learning environments. ijcscl 3 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9044-6
Authors: Marc Stadtler, Rainer Bromme

Abstract: Drawing on the theory of documents representation (Perfetti et al., Toward a theory of documents representation. In: H. v. Oostendorp & S. R. Goldman (Eds.), The construction of mental representations during reading. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum, 1999), we argue that successfully dealing with multiple documents on the World Wide Web requires readers to form documents models; that is, to form a representation of contents and sources. We present a study in which we tested the assumption that the use of metacognitive strategies is crucial to the formation of documents models. A total of 100 participants with little medical knowledge were asked to conduct an Internet research on a medical topic. Participants were randomly assigned to four experimental groups that received different types of metacognitive prompts: participants either received evaluation prompts, monitoring prompts, both types of prompts, or no prompts. A control group took paper-and-pencil notes. Results showed that laypersons receiving evaluation prompts outperformed controls in terms of knowledge about sources and produced more arguments relating to the source of information when justifying credibility judgments. However, laypersons receiving evaluation prompts were not better able to indicate the source of information after Internet research than controls. In addition, laypersons receiving monitoring prompts acquired significantly more knowledge about facts, and performed slightly better on a comprehension test. It is concluded that the results underline the importance of metacognition in dealing with multiple documents.

Keywords: Comprehension of multiple documents, Metacognition, Metacognitive tools, Internet research, Expert–layperson-communication

Citation: Stadtler, M. & Bromme, R. (2007) Dealing with multiple documents on the WWW: The role of meta-cognition in the formation of documents models. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9015-3
[[54]]
[[GettingStarted]]
Authors: Jan van Aalst

Abstract: The study reported here sought to obtain the clear articulation of asynchronous computer-mediated discourse needed for Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia’s knowledge-creation model. Distinctions were set up between three modes of discourse: knowledge sharing, knowledge construction, and knowledge creation. These were applied to the asynchronous online discourses of four groups of secondary school students (40 students in total) who studied aspects of an outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and related topics. The participants completed a pretest of relevant knowledge and a collaborative summary note in Knowledge Forum, in which they self-assessed their collective knowledge advances. A coding scheme was then developed and applied to the group discourses to obtain a possible explanation of the between-group differences in the performance of the summary notes and examine the discourses as examples of the three modes. The findings indicate that the group with the best summary note was involved in a threshold knowledge-creation discourse. Of the other groups, one engaged in a knowledge-sharing discourse and the discourses of other two groups were hybrids of all three modes. Several strategies for cultivating knowledge-creation discourse are proposed.

Keywords: Knowledge sharing, Constructivism, Knowledge building, Knowledge creation, Argumentation

Citation: van Aalst, J. (2009) Distinguishing knowledge-sharing, knowledge-construction, and knowledge-creation discourses. ijcscl 4 (3), pp. 259-287

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9069-5
Authors: Julia Gressick, Sharon J. Derry

Abstract: We service mathematics and science teachers. Groups worked primarily online in an asynchronous discussion environment on a 6-week task in which they applied learning-science ideas acquired from an educational psychology course to design interdisciplinary instructional units. We employed an adapted coding system previously developed by Li et al. (Cognition and Instruction, 25(1), 75–111, 2007) to determine that group leadership was highly distributed among participants (Spillane 2007). We illustrated that leadership emerged through different forms of participation described in this paper and that, in some cases, individuals specialized in specific leadership roles within groups. Findings helped validate the theoretical concept of group cognition and led us to suggest an approach to online asynchronous learning for college students that depends more on students’ emergent leadership skills than on prescriptive assignment or scripting of participant roles.

Keywords: roup cognition, Leadership, Online collaboration, Problem-based learnin

Citation: Gressick, J. & Derry, S. J. (2010) Distributed leadership in CSCL groups. ijcscl 5 (2), pp. 211-236

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9086-4
Authors: David Birchfield, Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz

Abstract: Conversational technologies such as email, chat rooms, and blogs have made the transition from novel communication technologies to powerful tools for learning. Currently virtual worlds are undergoing the same transition. We argue that the next wave of innovation is at the level of the computer interface, and that mixed-reality environments offer important advantages over prior technologies. Thus, mixed reality is positioned to have a broad impact on the future of K-12 collaborative learning. We propose three design imperatives that arise from our ongoing work in this area grounded in research from the learning sciences and human-computer interaction. By way of example, we present one such platform, the Situated Multimedia Arts Learning Lab [SMALLab]. SMALLab is a mixed-reality environment that affords face-to-face interaction by colocated participants within a mediated space. We present a recent design experiment that involved the development of a new SMALLab learning scenario and a collaborative student participation framework for a 3-day intervention for 72 high school earth science students. We analyzed student and teacher exchanges from classroom sessions both during the intervention and during regular classroom instruction and found significant increases in the number of student-driven exchanges within SMALLab. We also found that students made significant achievement gains. We conclude that mixed reality can have a positive impact on collaborative learning and that it is poised for broad dissemination into mainstream K-12 contexts.

Keywords: -12 learning, Mixed reality, Collaboration, Teaching experiment, Social computing, Human-computer interaction, Science learnin

Citation: Birchfield, D. & Megowan-Romanowicz, C. (2009) Earth science learning in SMALLab: A design experiment for mixed reality. ijcscl 4 (4), pp. 403-421

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9074-8
Authors: Lynn Clouder, Jayne Dalley, Julian Hargreaves, Sally Parkes, Julie Sellars, Jane Toms

Abstract: The authors work as online tutors for a BSc (Hons) physiotherapy programme at Coventry University in the United Kingdom. This paper represents a stage in our developing understanding, over a 3 year period, of the impact of group dynamics on online interaction among physiotherapy students engaged in sharing with their peers their first experiences of clinical practice. The literature exploring online interaction tends to situate meaning either in theories borrowed from conventional face-to-face interaction or on virtual interaction. Research focusing on ‘blended learning’ that combines face-to-face and online interaction is limited in terms of considering how group dynamics impact groups that are constituted and reconstituted in the two very different learning contexts. Using a case study approach, the authors consider how group dynamics change as groups move from face-to-face to online collaboration in pursuit of learning objectives. We characterize typical features of the cases and draw conclusions based on similarities and differences. Findings suggest that group learning is linked to group cohesion, which appears to be mediated by social and cognitive factors that students bring with them. Social presence appears vital to positive group dynamics and is a precursor to cognitive presence, which develops when groups rise above their desire to be sociable and supportive. Group dynamics, whether positive or negative, and their consequent impact on interaction appear to be relatively stable across contexts once the group scene is set through face-to-face interaction. Engagement and interaction of individual students, however, can alter when face-to-face interaction moves online.

Keywords: Group dynamics, Online discussion forums, Blended learning

Citation: Clouder, L., Dalley, J., Hargreaves, J., Parkes, S., Sellars, J., Toms, T. (2006) Electronic [re]constitution of groups: Group dynamics from face-to-face to an online setting. ijcscl 1 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9002-0
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

Theories of CSCL have often focused on the discourse of student groups and their possible modes of participation in this discourse as definitive of collaborative learning. Lave & Wenger (1991), for instance, analyzed the increasing participation of novices in the discourses of communities of practice. Scardamalia & Bereiter (1996) proposed the use of networked computers to promote literate participation of students in knowledge-building discourses. Many contemporary theorists define their approaches in terms of dialog, communication and interaction. Most recently, Sfard (2008) has analyzed mathematical thinking of students as growing participation in specific discourses.

Research methods in CSCL tend to focus on the analysis of traces of communication and other indicators of participation in discourse in order to study phenomena of collaboration and to assess effectiveness of computational supports. Researchers often complain that such analysis is time-consuming and tedious, wishing that computers could take over some of this burden. In their contribution to this issue, Rosé and colleagues review the current state of the art of computational linguistics and outline prospects for computer support of discourse analysis.

The major limitation of automated processing of natural language—and for that matter of reliable manual coding procedures—is the central role of context in discourse; the determination of the significance of a given utterance depends considerably upon its indexical references to other elements in the discourse context. Kienle & Herrmann present a context-oriented theory of communication and explore through design-based research its implications for the design of technology to support collaborative/discursive learning. They discover that understanding the contextual embeddedness of discourse can be problematic even for human participants, who also can benefit from computer support in CSCL settings.

The challenge of supporting participation in CSCL settings is taken up by Schoonenboom in her study of scripting and the design of the software interface. Her concern is to help students from different countries establish the common ground that is necessary for providing a shared context of discussion. Continuing the ijCSCL flash theme of scripting, she provides detailed steps for students who are working at a distance and do not know each other to begin to participate in a discourse on sustainable development in the European Union. She also provides a carefully structured interface for Blackboard threaded discussion to support the scripted sequencing of the discourse. She then measures the effects of the script and the interface on student participation.

The theme of participation takes center stage in Ares’ investigation of the use of a computer simulation in a mathematics classroom with minority students. Here, the students already share a sub-culture, and the collaborative use of the simulation in the classroom serves to link their vernacular to a nascent mathematical discourse. The design of the technology, which provides networked collaborative control over the simulation, openes opportunities for the students to bring to bear their shared cultural practices as resources for mathematical learning and common ground for math discourse.

Oner, too, looks at participation in the discourse of mathematics, specifically at the genre known as “proof.” She argues that in contemporary math discussion both formal proof and perceptually guided exploration are important. CSCL approaches can support these two aspects through the use of knowledge-building environments with appropriate scaffolding and computational applications like dynamic geometry simulations. These can support not only the formal and exploratory discourses of mathematics, but also collaborative reflection on the relation of these complementary ways of knowing.
In this issue of ijCSCL, we introduce a new feature: a book review. We hope that book reviews will enliven the discourse within the journal by bringing in voices from outside of CSCL and confronting them with the issues of our field, or by taking a critical look at new book-length contributions by CSCL researchers. To inaugurate this feature, we review Sfard’s (2008) volume in the Cambridge series on Learning and Doing. Anna Sfard is well known in CSCL circles and is a member of the ijCSCL Editorial Board. However, her book is in the domain of mathematical cognition, and focuses neither on computer support nor on small-group collaborative learning (except in the general sense that learning by communicating is fundamentally social, intersubjective, or collaborative).  So we explore the implications of her participationist theory for collaborative small groups and computer-mediated discourse. For future issues, ijCSCL welcomes submissions of reviews on CSCL topics or books that could bring important new perspectives to CSCL or highlight major advances.
References

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1996). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. In T. Koschmann (Ed.), CSCL: Theory and practice of an emerging paradigm (pp. 249-268). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Sfard, A. (2008). Thinking as communicating: Human development, the growth of discourses and mathematizing. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2008) Explorations of participation in discourse. ijcscl 3 (3)
Authors: Brian Nelson, Diane Ketelhut

Abstract: In this paper, we present the results of an exploratory study into the relationship between student self-efficacy and guidance use in a Multi-User Virtual Environment (MUVE) science curriculum project. We describe findings from a sample of middle school science students on the combined impact on learning of student self-efficacy in scientific inquiry and use of individualized guidance messages, and on the interplay between levels of self-efficacy and use of an embedded guidance system in an educational MUVE. Results from our study showed that embedded guidance was associated with improved learning outcomes for learners across a spectrum of self-reported efficacy in science. However, we also found that learners with low levels of initial self-efficacy in science viewed fewer guidance messages than their higher efficacy peers, and did not perform as well as their higher efficacy peers regardless of guidance use level. At the same time, outcomes for low self-efficacy students who used the guidance system heavily were raised to the level of high self-efficacy students who did not use the system.

Keywords: Guidance, Inquiry, MUVEs, Self-efficacy, Science

Citation: Nelson, B. & Ketelhut, D. (2008) Exploring embedded guidance and self-efficacy in educational multi-user virtual environments. ijcscl 3 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9049-1
Authors: Hanni Muukkonen, Minna Lakkala

Abstract: The skills of knowledge-creating inquiry are explored as a challenge for higher education. The knowledge-creation approach to learning provides a theoretical tool for addressing them: In addition to the individual and social aspects in regulation of inquiry, the knowledge-creation approach focuses on aspects related to advancing shared objects of inquiry. The development of corresponding metaskills is suggested as an important long-term goal for higher education; these pertain, simultaneously to the individual, collective, and object-oriented aspects of monitoring inquiry. Taking part in collaborative inquiry toward advancing a shared knowledge object is foreseen as a means to facilitate the development of metaskills; the present study examines one undergraduate university course in psychology with that aim. The data consisted of a database discourse and students’ self-reflections after the course, examined by qualitative content analysis. Three analyses investigated discourse evolution, knowledge advancement, and the challenge of the inquiry practices. The student-groups differed markedly in their engagement in the inquiry efforts. The study gave insights concerning novel challenges evoked by knowledge-creating inquiry, relating in particular to commitment, epistemic involvement, dealing with confusion, and the iterative nature of knowledge advancement. We propose the following implication for educational practices: Although dealing with uncertainty and areas beyond one’s expertise, as well as engaging in self-directed collaborative inquiry, may seem overly demanding for students, such experiences are decisive for developing one’s skills in dealing with open-ended knowledge objects in a longer time frame.

Keywords: Inquiry learning, Knowledge-creation, Higher education, Metaskills, Progressive inquiry model, Trialogical learning framework, Collaborative learning, Epistemic objects

Citation: Muukkonen, H. & Lakkala, M. (2009) Exploring metaskills of knowledge-creating inquiry in higher education. ijcscl 4 (2), pp. 187-211

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9063-y
Authors: Eva Mary Bures, Philip C. Abrami, Richard F. Schmid

Abstract: This paper explores a labelling feature designed to support higher-level online dialogue. It investigates whether students use labels less often during a structured online dialogue than during an unstructured one, and looks at students' reactions to labelling and to both types of tasks. Participants are from three successive course offerings of a Master's-level course (n=37). All students are allowed but not required to use a labelling feature which enables them to insert phrases such as “Building on your point” directly into their online messages. All students participate in two types of online activities in small groups - first an unstructured online dialogue, then a structured online dialogue. Students tended to use labels significantly less often during the structured dialogue: F(1, 36)=5.950, p<0.05. Sixty-two percent of students used the feature more than once during the unstructured dialogue compared to 46% during the structured dialogue. The maximum number of labels that a student used in the unstructured dialogue was 28 versus 16 in the structured dialogue. Students generally found the structured dialogue to be more interesting and relevant, and to have clearer expectations. Student reactions to the labelling feature were mixed: The mean of satisfaction was 18.35, SD=3.88 (six items on a 5-point Likert scale). Students did not find labelling as useful during the structured dialogue: Perhaps labelling and the activity provided redundant scaffolding. These results imply that features built into the software should be implemented flexibly with thought to the other pedagogical scaffolds in the environment, particularly to the type of activity.

Keywords: abelling features, Asynchronous online dialogue, Type of online activit

Citation: Bures, E. M., Abrami, P. C., & Schmid, R. F. (2010) Exploring whether students' use of labelling depends upon the type of activity. ijcscl 5 (1), pp. 103-116

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9079-3
Authors: Karsten Stegmann, Armin Weinberger, Frank Fischer

Abstract: Online discussions provide opportunities for learners to engage in argumentative debate, but learners rarely formulate well-grounded arguments or benefit individually from participating in online discussions. Learners often do not explicitly warrant their arguments and fail to construct counterarguments (incomplete formal argumentation structure), which is hypothesized to impede individual knowledge acquisition. Computer-supported scripts have been found to support learners during online discussions. Such scripts can support specific discourse activities, such as the construction of single arguments, by supporting learners in explicitly warranting their claims or in constructing specific argumentation sequences, e.g., argument–counterargument sequences, during online discussions. Participation in argumentative discourse is seen to promote both knowledge on argumentation and domain-specific knowledge. However, there have been few empirical investigations regarding the extent to which computer-supported collaboration scripts can foster the formal quality of argumentation and thereby facilitate the individual acquisition of knowledge. One hundred and twenty (120) students of Educational Science participated in the study with a 2 × 2-factorial design (with vs. without script for the construction of single arguments and with vs. without script for the construction of argumentation sequences) and were randomly divided into groups of three. Results indicated that the collaboration scripts could improve the formal quality of single arguments and the formal quality of argumentation sequences in online discussions. Scripts also facilitated the acquisition of knowledge on argumentation, without affecting the acquisition of domain-specific knowledge.

Keywords: Computer-supported collaboration scripts, Argumentative knowledge construction, Online discussion

Citation: Stegmann, K., Weinberger, A. & Fischer, F. (2007) Facilitating argumentative knowledge construction with computer-supported collaboration scripts. ijcscl 2 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9026-0
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

Welcome new subscribers

Many researchers participated in the International Conference of the Learning Sciences (ICLS 2006) in Bloomington, Indiana in June, joining ISLS and signing up to receive ijCSCL. Some of the papers from that conference may be submitted for publication in future issues of the journal.

The CSCL SIG of Kaleidoscope — a network of over three hundred researchers and doctoral students in Europe — is now joining ISLS through a special trial membership. Each member will receive an issue of ijCSCL in the mail and have electronic access during 2006. We hope they will become permanent subscribers.

Kaleidoscope will be holding an innovative regional CSCL workshop in January: an Alpine Rendezvous (http://craftsrv1.epfl.ch/events/alpine). Other regional conferences related to CSCL are CRIWG (http://www.criwg.org/) in Valladolid, Spain this September, and ICCE (http://www.icce-2006.org/) in Beijing, China, in November.

It is already time to start preparing for the next international CSCL conference: CSCL 2007 will be held outside of New York City at Rutgers University in July. The deadline for paper submissions is November 1, 2006. The next ICLS conference will be in Utrecht, near Amsterdam, in the summer of 2008. ISLS members will receive savings on registration at these conferences. For non-ISLS members, the conference fees will also cover the cost of a full ISLS membership, including the option to subscribe to ijCSCL. So put these conferences on your schedule. If you would like to propose a site for a future ISLS conference, look for instructions at http://isls.org in the fall.

The CSCL Community of ISLS held elections recently. The new Executive Committee was announced at ICLS: Pierre Dillenbourg, Cindy Hmelo-Silver, Chris Hoadley, Paul Kirschner, Tim Koschmann, Naomi Miyake, Claire O´Malley, Roy Pea, Hans Spada, Gerry Stahl, Dan Suthers, and Barbara Wasson. The new members are all on the ijCSCL Editorial Board.

Please send news of interest to CSCL researchers to info@ijCSCL.org.
A proposal for a CSCL research agenda

This issue starts with a call for a theoretical focus that can bring together the many research strands within current CSCL research, directing them each in their own way to investigate the phenomena of intersubjective meaning making as the most appropriate object of analysis for CSCL as a unique and important science. It suggests that “intersubjective meaning making” is a more productive term than “collaborative learning,” which is only visible indirectly and retroactively. Such a focus has implications both for the design of technology support and for the synthesis of multiple methodologies. The other articles can, coincidentally, be read as examples of taking this tack, each revealing subtle complexities that arise in practice.
Anchored discussion

The second contribution looks at how anchoring can aid technologies for intersubjective meaning making. Building on previous explorations of anchored discussion, this article provides quantitative evidence for the advantages and disadvantages of situating online postings about a document in the presence of that document, as compared to a generic discussion forum in which postings cannot directly reference locations within the discussed object. Issues of grounding and situating discourse are often investigated by looking closely at detailed cases; here quantitative measures can confirm hypotheses arising from such cases across a larger corpus of online textual interaction. By looking at how meaning is variously constructed in the different media, the authors refine our understanding of the pedagogical pros and cons of anchored discussion, which came from specific cases and participant impressions.
A handheld network

The third article shows that the technology of networked handhelds, the pedagogy of rich math settings and the scaffolding of collaboration roles can support intersubjective meaning making in small groups, but that the detailed results are hard to predict. A carefully crafted experiment in a real classroom included pre- and post-test measurements as well as qualitative and quantitative analysis of the student discourse. However, close attention to specific utterances showed that the students constructed their own ways of interacting and learning, often in opposition to the structures, hypotheses and measurements of the experiment. Learning can take place even by students whose participation in group meaning making is not very visible and, conversely, visible utterances can be used by students to avoid contributing to the group knowledge construction.
Participation networks

Social network analysis (SNA) has for several years appealed to many CSCL researchers as a way of quantifying the levels of participation of students in learning communities. It is even exciting to think of feeding such measures back to the students to increase their awareness and motivate their further participation. However, SNA has often proven to be more work than it is worth for its shallow findings. This paper, however, enriches the depth of the analysis by carefully combining SNA with other quantitative and qualitative methods. It then investigates the use of this hybrid methodology in three strategically structured case studies, conducted at the University of Valladolid and the Open University of Catalonia in Spain. It thereby uncovers both the power and the limits of this particular approach to focusing multiple methods on group participation processes.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2006) Focusing on participation in group meaning making. ijcscl 1 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9960-2
Authors: Noel Enyedy, Christopher M. Hoadley

Abstract: The authors develop a framework for the design of tools to mediate collaboration intended to lead to learning. We identify two categories of media that are common in computer-supported collaborative learning and software in general: communication media and information media. These two types of media are then mapped onto two types of social activities in which learning is grounded: dialogue and monologue. Drawing on literature in learning theory, we suggest the need for interfaces that help students to transition from dialogue to monologue and back again. We examine in detail two cases of students participating in a computer-mediated science learning activity that involved technologies designed to support this transition, and suggest ways that the “middle space” can be supported with software and activities that transcend some of the traditional tradeoffs associated with information and communication interfaces.

Keywords: Dialogue, Monologue, Information media, Communication media

Citation: Enyedy, N. & Hoadley, C. M. (2006) From dialogue to monologue and back: Middle spaces in computer-mediated learning. ijcscl 1 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9000-2
Authors: Giasemi N. Vavoula, Mike Sharples

Abstract: We describe the future technology workshop (FTW), a method whereby people with everyday knowledge or experience in a specific area of technology use (such as using digital cameras) envision and design the interactions between current and future technology and activity. Through a series of structured workshop sessions, participants collaborate to envisage future activities related to technology design; build models of the contexts of use for future technologies; act out scenarios of use for their models; re-conceive their scenarios in relation to present-day technologies; list problems with implementing the scenarios; explore the gap between current and future technology and activity; and end by listing requirements for future technology. The method has been used successfully with children and adults to explore new technology–activity systems, including interacting with digital photographs and informal science learning.

Keywords: Activity, Collaborative design, Envisioning, Role-play, Scenarios

Citation: Vavoula, G. N. & Sharples, M. (2007) Future technology workshop: A collaborative method for the design of new learning technologies and activities. ijcscl 2 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9026-0
Authors: Norm Friesen

Abstract: Genre analysis, the investigation of typified communicative actions arising in recurrent situations, has been developed to study information use and interchange online, in businesses and in other organizations. As such, it holds out promise for the investigation of similarly typified communicative actions and situations in CSCL contexts. This study explores this promise, beginning with an overview of ways that genre analysis has been adapted and applied in related areas: in the study of group behavior in organizations, and of evolving and proliferating communicative forms, actions, and situations on the Internet (e-mails, blogs, FAQs, etc.). Focusing on the particular genre of the Internet “posting” in CSCL contexts, the paper hypothesizes that the educational use of this genre bears recognizable similarities with its generic antecedent, the letter. In testing this hypothesis, the paper describes a pilot case study of a set of CSCL postings (n = 136), which attempts to quantify the occurrence of rhetorical characteristics common to both the epistolary and CSCL “genres.” This content analysis shows the recurrence in this sample of a range of rhetorical markers (240 in total) that are characteristic of epistolary dynamics. It concludes by considering the implications of these findings and of a “genre approach” for CSCL research generally, and for community of inquiry models in particular.

Keywords: CSCL, Epistolary form, Genre analysis, Content analysis, Rhetorical analysis

Citation: Friesen, N. (2009) Genre and CSCL: The form and rhetoric of the online posting. ijcscl 4 (2), pp. 171-185

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9060-1
Authors: Joachim Kimmerle, Ulrike Cress

Abstract: A common challenge in many situations of computer-supported collaborative learning is increasing the willingness of those involved to share their knowledge with other group members. As a prototypical situation of computer-supported information exchange, a shared-database setting was chosen for the current study. This information-exchange situation represented a social dilemma: while the contribution of information to a shared database induced costs and provided no benefit for the individual, the entire group suffered when all members decided to withhold information. In order to alleviate the informationexchange dilemma, a group-awareness tool was employed. It was hypothesized that participants would use group awareness for self-presentational purposes. For the examination of this assumption, the personality variable ‘protective self-presentation’ (PSP) was measured. An interaction effect of group awareness and PSP was found: when an awareness tool provided information concerning the contribution behavior of each individual, this tool was used as a self-presentation opportunity. In order to understand this effect in more detail, single items of the PSP-scale were analyzed.

Keywords: Group awareness, Self-presentation, Information-exchange dilemma

Citation: Kimmerle, J. & Cress, U. (2008) Group awareness and self-presentation in computer-supported information exchange. ijcscl 3 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9027-z
Authors: Gerry Stahl
Gerry Stahl
Executive Editor

Regardless of whether particular stakeholders are interested in individual learning outcomes or in the knowledge-building accomplishments of teams, the power of collaborative learning emanates from its potential to coalesce multiple people into the coherent cognitive effort of a group. The research goal of the field of CSCL is to understand how this synergy takes place and to design ways of supporting its fragile processes. The rigorous study of group cognition is elusive because successful collaborative learning is (a) currently rare and hard to identify, (b) complex in the structure of its constituent mechanisms and the factors influencing them, and (c) unique in each of its situated instances.

There are now a number of theoretical frameworks available, which are influential in the CSCL research community, each, perhaps, with its own model of the influences on collaborative learning that must be taken into account. Figure 1 is an attempt to visualize major categories of these influences. It places at the center the dialogical interaction through which individual participants form into a collective knowledge-building agency.

 

Fig. 1

Figure 1. A diagram of major influences on group cognition.

 

The sequential nature of the interaction is what weaves contributions from the Bakhtinian voices of individuals into group processes of meaning making, as each responds to previous entries and elicits new ones. The meanings — shared by the group by virtue of their having been co-constructed in the collectively experienced sequential interaction — are embodied in team knowledge artifacts, whether linguistic phrases or physical objects. This collaborative knowledge building produces the team’s outcomes, which are driven by the team’s task.

A major thrust of the CSCL research agenda is to analyze the influences and constraints on the flow of knowledge building sketched in the preceding paragraph. Of course, a starting point is the determination of the individual voices of the participants: their background, perspectives, and abilities. What experiences do they bring to the interaction and what resources can they each contribute? These factors at the individual unit of analysis are preconditions of the collaboration; they are of interest to education and psychology in general, but not specifically CSCL’s concerns, which are more directed toward the group level of description.

By virtue of its name and its history, CSCL is especially oriented toward the computational technology and the digital media that support online group interaction. In addition, theories of situativity, activity, ethnomethodology, actor networks, and distributed cognition highlight the essential influences on collaboration of the ongoing interactional context, the teleological object of the activity, available conceptual tools, established social practices, immutable-mobile mediators, the evolving joint problem space, and the larger socio-cultural horizon.

Because CSCL is an empirical science, researchers must capture data that lends itself to the analysis of these various dimensions of group interaction. To plausibly demonstrate the nature of particular influences, they must somehow focus on the phenomena they wish to study and determine the role they are playing. The authors of the papers in this issue do so in very different ways, illustrating once more the vigorous diversity, which is a core strength of the CSCL research field. The first four studies investigate how various forms of scaffolding can guide the group interaction in a pedagogically desirable direction, while the final reflection shows that the interaction also depends upon — and helps to construct — internal preconditions of productive collaboration, such as mutual trust.

The opening paper by Christa S. C. Asterhan and Baruch B. Schwarz starts with a useful literature review of the most basic form of scaffolding: that in which an instructor personally intervenes to guide synchronous small-group discussions. The paper then looks at four classes that are using an online environment to structure argumentation while a teacher is participating with each small group as a moderator, using various typical styles of facilitation. First, student self-reports from the students are compiled about what form of moderation seemed most effective to them, and then knowledge-building artifacts from the classes are analyzed to determine the effectiveness of the teacher intervention. Underlining the ways in which different factors interact with each other (and thereby complicating the task of modeling the dimensions of collaboration as though they were independent factors), the authors stress how different the moderation of synchronous computer-mediated interaction is from that of face-to-face or asynchronous interaction. Furthermore, they report that different approaches to moderation taken by different teachers exhibit very different characteristics and results.

The next contribution to this issue reviews the concept of scaffolding further and explores it in the context of medical-school training. Problem-based learning (PBL) has been a popular form of small-group collaborative learning in medical schools for decades. Jingyan Lu, Susanne P. Lajoie, and Jeffrey Wiseman have been exploring ways to extend the PBL model to overcome certain of its limitations. Here they report on changes to the effectiveness of teacher scaffolding due to two innovations: (a) an innovative form of medical case for role-playing called “the deteriorating patient” and (b) the use of interactive whiteboards. They analyze the changes in scaffolding strategies and discourse patterns in response to these innovations.

The contributions to group discourse made by a given individual are obviously influenced by the information and knowledge that the person has — or the experiences and resources available to them. Their contributions are likely to gradually introduce this information into the group knowledge-building or problem-solving process. In fact, much of the power of collaborative learning can come from the pooling of different knowledge and alternative perspectives distributed within the group. However, finding out who knows what can take time and delay the ultimate problem solving. The experiment reported by Tanja Engelmann and Friedrich W. Hesse investigates how information about what the group participants each know can be introduced into the shared group understanding through the use of CSCL technology. Specifically, they use the popular classroom tool of concept maps, having each participant within the experimental condition display for their collaborators a concept map representing their own knowledge. Triads with access to each other’s concept maps proved to be more efficient in their collaborative problem solving.

The traditional concept of scaffolding, going back at least to Vygotsky, involved teachers or other students supporting collaboration and learning. Within CSCL, software tools (like argumentation environments, interactive whiteboards, or concept maps) have been used to support specific educational activities, and automated scripts have been used to guide students and teams through consecutive phases of a planned learning trajectory. CSCL researchers have found that the creation of one-off scripts is time consuming and hard to scale up for widespread classroom usage. For this reason, Christof Wecker, et al. discuss their effort to develop an infrastructure for scripts that can be ported to different collaboration environments. They do this by means of a browser plug-in, which can recognize inputs from different CSCL systems and provide responses in accordance with a cross-platform script definition. They illustrate its application in a realistic educational application setting.

CSCL researchers can become focused on trying to promote and control collaboration from outside the group itself. Taken too far, this can result in the fostering and administering of strategic communication and impression management, furthering external goals at the expense of the group’s own autonomy, agency, and sociability. Students can be influenced to engage in strategies designed to earn high grades rather than to build knowledge. For that reason, we close this reflection on guiding group cognition in CSCL by returning to the interpersonal resources of the group participants themselves. In the final paper of the issue, Anne Gerdes guides us in thinking about relations of trust among people: both how trust is required by collaborative undertakings as a spontaneous embodied experience of being-in-the-world-with-others and also how it may be engendered by the collaboration process itself. In contrast to journal articles that adopt an appearance of objectivity, this essay represents a new genre for ijCSCL: that of a brief, but deep reflection piece from a pointed perspective.

Citation: Stahl, G. (2010) Guiding group cognition in CSCL. ijcscl 5 (3), pp. 255-258

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9091-7
Authors: Tanja Engelmann, Friedrich W. Hesse

Abstract: For collaboration in learning situations, it is important to know what the collaborators know. However, developing such knowledge is difficult, especially for newly formed groups participating in a computer-supported collaboration. The solution for this problem described in this paper is to provide to group members access to the knowledge structures and the information resources of their collaboration partners in the form of digital concept maps. In an empirical study, 20 triads having access to such maps and 20 triads collaborating without such maps are compared regarding their group performance in problem-solving tasks. Results showed that the triads being provided with such concept maps acquired more knowledge about the others’ knowledge structures and information, focused while collaborating mainly on problem-relevant information, and therefore, solved the problems faster and more often correctly, compared to triads with no access to their collaborators’ maps.

Keywords: omputer-supported collaboration, Computer-supported collaborative problem solving, Group awareness, Knowledge and information awarenes

Citation: Engelmann, T. & Hesse, F.W. (2010) How digital concept maps about the collaborators’ knowledge and information influence computer-supported collaborative problem solving. ijcscl 5 (3), pp. 299-320

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9089-1
Authors: Kristine Lund, Gaëlle Molinari, Arnauld Séjourné, Michael Baker

Abstract: The objective of the research presented here was to study the influence of two types of instruction for using an argumentation diagram during pedagogical debates over the Internet. In particular, we studied how using an argumentation diagram as a medium of debate compared to using an argumentation diagram as a way of representing a debate. Two groups of students produced an individual argument diagram, then debated in pairs in one of the two conditions, and finally revised their individual diagrams in light of their debate. We developed an original analysis method (ADAM) to evaluate the differences between the argumentation diagrams constructed collaboratively during the interactions that constituted the experimental conditions, as well as those constructed individually before and after debate. The results suggest a complementary relationship between the usage of argumentation diagrams in the framework of conceptual learning. First, students who were instructed to use the argumentation diagram to represent their debate were less inclined to take a position in relation to the same graphical element while collaborating. On the other hand, students who were instructed to use the argumentation diagram alongside a chat expressed more personal opinions while collaborating. Second, the instructions given to the participants regarding the use of the argumentation diagram during the collaborative phase (either for debate or for representing a chat debate) have a significant impact on the post-individual graphs. In the individual graphs revised after the collaborative phase, participants who used the graph to represent their debate added more examples, consequences and causes. It follows that a specific usage for an argumentation diagram can be chosen and instructions given based on pedagogical objectives for a given learning situation.

Keywords: Argumentation diagram, CSCL, Socio-cognitive conflict, Multiple external representations, Pedagogical debate

Citation: Lund, K., Molinari, G., Séjourné, A. & Baker, M. (2007) How do argumentation diagrams compare when student pairs use them as a means for debate or as a tool for representing debate?. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9019-z
Authors: Maarten de Laat, Vic Lally, Lasse Lipponen, Robert-Jan Simons

Abstract: The focus of this study is to explore the advances that Social Network Analysis (SNA) can bring, in combination with other methods, when studying Networked Learning/Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (NL/CSCL). We present a general overview of how SNA is applied in NL/CSCL research; we then go on to illustrate how this research method can be integrated with existing studies on NL/CSCL, using an example from our own data, as a way to synthesize and extend our understanding of teaching and learning processes in NLCs. The example study reports empirical work using content analysis (CA), critical event recall (CER) and social network analysis (SNA). The aim is to use these methods to study the nature of the interaction patterns within a networked learning community (NLC), and the way its members share and construct knowledge. The paper also examines some of the current findings of SNA analysis work elsewhere in the literature, and discusses future prospects for SNA. This paper is part of a continuing international study that is investigating NL/CSCL among a community of learners engaged in a master’s program in e-learning.

Keywords: Social Network Analysis, Multi-method analysis, Learning, Teaching, Learning communities

Citation: de Laat, M., Lally, V., Lipponen, L. & Simons, R.-J. (2007) Investigating patterns of interaction in networked learning and computer-supported collaborative learning: A role for Social Network Analysis. ijcscl 2 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9006-4
Authors: Joan Moss, Ruth Beatty

Abstract: While it has been suggested that patterning activities support early algebra learning, it is widely acknowledged that the shift from perceiving patterns to understanding algebraic functions -- and correspondingly, from reporting empirical patterns to providing explanations -- is difficult. This paper reports on the collaborations of grade 4 students (n = 68) from three classrooms in diverse urban settings, connected through a knowledge-building environment (Knowledge Forum), when solving mathematical generalizing problems as part of an early algebra research project. The purpose of this study was to investigate the underlying principles of idea improvement and epistemic agency and the potential of knowledge building -- as supported by Knowledge Forum -- to support student work. Our analyses of student-generated collaborative workspaces revealed that students were able to find multiple rules for challenging problems and revise their own conjectures regarding those rules. Furthermore, the discourse was sustained over 8 weeks and students were able to find similarities across problem types without the support of teachers or researchers, suggesting that these grade-4 students had developed a disposition for evidence use and justification that eludes much older students.

Keywords: Early algebra, Collaborative mathematical discourse, Patterns and generalizing problems, Knowledge building, Knowledge forum, Epistemic agency

Citation: Moss, J. & Beatty, R. (2006) Knowledge building in mathematics: Supporting collaborative learning in pattern problems. ijcscl 1 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9003-z
Authors: Jun Oshima, Ritsuko Oshima, Isao Murayama, Shigenori Inagaki, Makiko Takenaka, Tomokazu Yamamoto, Etsuji Yamaguchi, Hayashi Nakayama

Abstract: The purpose of this study is to refine Japanese elementary science activity structures by using a CSCL approach to transform the classroom into a knowledge-building community. We report design studies on two science lessons in two consecutive years and describe the progressive refinement of the activity structures. Through comparisons of student activities on-and off-line, it was found that the implementation of a CSCL environment facilitated students’ idea-centered activity. The task requirement for students to engage in collective and reciprocal activities reflecting on their own ideas was also effective if it required students to use their conceptual understanding for producing something concrete.

Keywords: CSCL, Japanese elementary science, Knowledge building, Design studies

Citation: Oshima, J., Oshima, R., Murayama, I., Inagaki S., Takenaka, M., Yamamoto, T., Yamaguchi, E. & Nakayama, H.(2006) Knowledge-building activity structures in Japanese elementary science pedagogy. ijcscl 1 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-8995-8
Authors: Nikol Rummel, Hans Spada, Sabine Hauser

Abstract: In an earlier study, we had tested if observing a collaboration model, or alternatively, following a collaboration script could improve students’ subsequent collaboration in a computer-mediated setting and promote their knowledge of good collaboration. Both model and script showed positive effects. The current study was designed to further probe the effects of model and script by comparing them to conditions in which the learning was supported by providing elaboration support (instructional prompts and a reflective self-explanation phase). In addition, we applied a newly developed, innovative rating scheme to analyze the collaborative process: The rating scheme combines qualitative evaluation with quantitative assessment. Forty dyads were tested, eight in each of the following conditions: model plus elaboration, model, script plus elaboration, script, and control. Observing a collaboration model with elaboration support yielded the best results over all other conditions on measures of the quality of collaborative process and on outcome variables. Model without elaboration was second best. The results for the script conditions were mixed; on some variables, even below those of the control condition. The results of the current study lead us to challenge the positive view on collaboration scripts prevalent in CSCL research. We propose adaptive scripting as a possible solution.

Keywords: Computer-mediated collaboration, Collaboration script, Elaboration support, Observational learning, Worked-out collaboration example

Citation: Rummel, N., Spada, H. & Hauser, S. (2009) Learning to collaborate while being scripted or by observing a model. ijcscl 4 (1), pp. 69-92

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9054-4
Authors: David Hung, Denneth Lim, Victor Chen, Thiam Seng Koh

Abstract: There has long been a call for schools to prepare students for the twenty-first century where skills and dispositions differ significantly from much of what has historically characterized formal education. The knowledge based economy calls for policy and pedagogical efforts that would transform schools. Schools are to foster communities of learners. This paper suggests that para-communities may be points of leverage in the fostering of adaptive schools. A critical analysis is done on the differences between para-communities (such as online communities) and schools; and an argument is made that they each serve differing goals and should be left distinct because they achieve different societal and economic demands.

Keywords: Online community, Community of practice, Adaptive organization, Adaptive school, Paracommunity, Community of interest, Community of learners, Trust-networks

Citation: Hung, D., Lim, D., Chen, V. & Koh, T. S. (2008) Leveraging Online Communities in Fostering Adaptive Schools. ijcscl 3 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9051-7
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[[使用說明|GettingStarted]]



Authors: Andri Ioannidou, Alexander Repenning, David Webb, Diane Keyser, Lisa Luhn, Christof Daetwyler

Abstract: Why has technology become prevalent in science education without fundamentally improving test scores or student attitudes? We claim that the core of the problem is how technology is being used. Technologies such as simulations are currently not used to their full potential. For instance, physiology simulations often follow textbooks by sequentially exposing individual systems such as the circulatory and respiratory systems one at a time, leaving out essential comprehension of system interactions. Moreover, the standard computer lab hides students behind large monitors and ignores the social aspect of learning. We have created a new kind of infrastructure, called Collective Simulations to provide engaging inquiry-based science learning modules that uniquely combine social learning pedagogies with distributed simulation technology. This infrastructure creates immersive learning experiences based on wirelessly connected computers and enables radically different classroom learning experiences that engage students and teachers simultaneously. Collective Simulations allow students to learn about the intricacies of interdependent complex systems by engaging in discourse with other students and teachers. As part of our Mr. Vetro Collective Simulation, students learn about physiology through technology-enhanced role-play. Each group controls physiological variables of a single organ on their computer. A central simulation gathers all the data and projects the composite view of a human. In an example activity, the heart and lung teams collaborate to adjust parameters and reach homeostasis. Results from formal evaluation studies demonstrate a positive impact on scientific inquiry, student learning, and students’ interest in personal health issues. This article describes Mr. Vetro and its underlying architecture and presents the evaluation results.

Keywords: ollective Simulations, Distributed simulations, Social learning pedagogies, Interdependent complex systems, Meaningful learnin

Citation: Ioannidou, A., Repenning, A., Webb, D., Keyser, D., Luhn, L., & Daetwyler, C. (2010) Mr. Vetro: A Collective Simulation for teaching health science. ijcscl 5 (2), pp. 141-166

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9082-8
Authors: Christa S. C. Asterhan, Baruch B. Schwarz

Abstract: In this paper, we present findings on moderation of synchronous, small-group argumentation in blended, co-located learning environments. Drawing on findings from the literature on human facilitation of dialogue in face-to-face settings, we first elaborate on the potential promise of this new practice. However, little is known about what constitutes effective human facilitation in synchronous e-discussions. A multi-method exploratory approach was then adopted to provide first insights into some of the difficulties and characteristics of moderation in these settings. To this end, we focused on (1) students’ perspectives on what constitutes effective e-moderation of synchronous peer argumentation in classrooms and (2) the relations between characteristics of actual and perceived moderation effectiveness. The analyses presented in this paper reveal that the role of the e-moderator in synchronous peer discussions is a complex one and that expectations from e-moderators seem at times even contradictory. Also, comparisons with findings on moderation in other communication formats (e.g., asynchronous, face-to-face) show that insights on effective instructional practices in these formats cannot be simply transferred to synchronous communication formats. We close this paper by briefly describing a tool that provides real-time support for e-moderators of synchronous group discussions, and whose development had been sparked by these findings in a further cycle of our design research program. Several questions and hypotheses are articulated to be investigated in future research, both with these new tools and in general.

Keywords: nline peer discussions, Argumentation, Human support, Teacher and tutor roles, Synchronous CM

Citation: Asterhan, C.S.C. & Schwarz, B.B. (2010) Online moderation of synchronous e-argumentation. ijcscl 5 (3), pp. 259-282

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9088-2
Authors: Pierre Tchounikine

Abstract: This paper presents a conceptual analysis of the technological dimensions related to the operationalization of CSCL macro-scripts. CSCL scripts are activity models that aim at enhancing the probability that knowledge generative interactions such as conflict resolution, explanation or mutual regulation occur during the collaboration process. We first recall basics about CSCL scripts and macro-scripts. Then, we propose an analysis of some core issues that must be made explicit and taken into account when operationalizing macro-scripts, such as the reification of some aspects of the script within the technological setting, the strategy within which students are presented with the technological setting and the uncertainties related to scripts and technological setting perception and enactment. We then present SPAIRD, a model that we propose as a means to conceptualize the relations between scripts and technological settings used to operationalize them. This model describes four points of view on the script (structural model, implementation-oriented model, student-oriented models and platform specification) and the underlying design rationale (learning hypothesis, pedagogic principle and design decisions). In order to exemplify SPAIRD’s usefulness we propose examples of how it allows drawing general propositions with respect to the couple script + technological setting. Finally, we present an analysis of current state-of-the-art technological approaches with respect to this conceptualization, and research directions for the design and implementation of technological settings that present the properties identified in our analysis. In particular, we study the interest of model-driven approaches, flexible technological settings and model-based script engines.

Keywords: CSCL macro-scripts, Operationalization, Technological setting, Computer science

Citation: Tchounikine, P. (2008) Operationalizing macro-scripts in CSCL technological settings. ijcscl 3 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9039-3
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

Multiple paradigms for analyzing shared knowledge in collaboration

Collaborative learning is all about sharing knowledge. Without a shared base of knowledge (common ground), discourse itself is impossible, let alone collaborative interaction. Collaborators must share a means of communication (language), a joint focus (object-orientation), and a compatible orientation (perspective). In addition to being dependent upon the presence of existing shared knowledge, successful collaboration or collaborative learning involves the construction of new knowledge, created jointly and thereby shared by the participants. Knowledge can take many forms, not necessarily rational, propositional, explicit, factual knowledge. There is tacit and explicit knowledge, focal and background, propositional and procedural, personal and institutional, individual and group.

Studies of CSCL each tend to focus on a certain form of knowledge and assume a certain way of sharing this knowledge. These choices depend upon the theoretical position implicitly or explicitly adopted by the study. You may find it interesting to figure out which paradigm of shared knowledge corresponds to each of the articles in this issue.

The topic of paradigms of shared knowledge may seem abstrusely theoretical and remote from the practical concerns of CSCL. However, it strongly affects whether a given educational intervention—incorporating pedagogical resources, computer technologies, scripting, grouping of students—will foster effective collaborative learning. In fact, it may affect this even more when the teachers, researchers, or other CSCL designers are not explicitly aware of their assumptions about shared knowledge.

The four articles of this issue, which deal with computer support for shared knowledge, are all focused on the practical design of technologies to support collaborative learning: wikis, virtual reality, PowerPoint, and group formation software. They each presume a different paradigm of shared knowledge. The following paragraphs define four paradigms spanning a range:

The paradigm of sharing individual mental representations. Perhaps the most commonsensical view of shared knowledge in a small group is that the individual members of the group each possess the same knowledge. This can be elaborated theoretically by hypothesizing that each member has mental representations that are sufficiently similar to specific mental representations of each of the other members. The classic analysis of grounding (Clark & Brennan, 1991) that is often cited in CSCL research describes how two typical collaborators might establish shared knowledge by externalizing their ideas and explicitly comparing the propositional expressions of their mental representations. This paradigm assumes that individuals possess well-formed opinions and can unproblematically express them. Sharing is here taken to be a matter of transferring and comparing ideas in ways that typically do not change the ideas.

The paradigm of sharing an object. A quite different view conceives of shared knowledge as a natural consequence of a group being collaboratively involved with the object of their work together. They are all oriented in common toward the same object (an artifact, a problem, a goal) and thereby come to share knowledge of that object, in particular the knowledge about that object that arises from their work with it. The sharing of knowledge about a common object does not need special coordination, once the object is truly shared. A recent ijCSCL article (Çakır, Zemel & Stahl, 2009) described an example of how students in an online group worked to define and share multiple realizations of a mathematical object; once they could all “see” the same object, the construction of new shared knowledge (such as the formulation of an algebraic expression to solve their problem) proceeded quickly. Another recent article (Dohn, 2009) discussed how the affordances of an object must be enacted; in the collaborative case, this is accomplished interactively as the group comes to know and share the object. In both analyses, the shared knowledge is new knowledge for all the participants, arising out of their interactions with each other, with the shared object, and with other resources for communication and understanding, including available computer supports.

The paradigm of sharing a situation. If we broaden the notion that shared knowledge comes from a joint focus on an object of collaboration, we come to the idea that a group can share knowledge by being situated in a common context—a joint problem space (Roschelle & Teasley, 1995) or an indexical ground of reference (Hanks, 1992). The situation includes the shared object, but it also includes other resources and constraints, such as the affordances of a CSCL environment. Above all, it includes the past discourse of the group, which has created a complex network of shared concepts, interactions and experiences. Duranti and Goodwin (1992) emphasize that the situation and the discourse “stand in a mutually constitutive relationship to each other, with talk, and the interpretive work it generates, shaping context as much as context shapes talk” (p. 31). According to this paradigm, the engagement in collaborative discourse can automatically generate shared knowledge as an ongoing process.

The paradigm of sharing a community. The social sciences generally take an even broader view. They argue that the shared knowledge that makes life together possible comes from belonging to the same communities, cultures, and societies. It is the understanding of the same historically accumulated knowledge, values, perspectives, artifacts, and ways of life—largely encapsulated in language—that makes communication possible. In proposing that we broaden our thinking about computer support to include complex technological infrastructures, Jones, Dirckinck-Holmfeld, and Lindström (2006) tried to show how the institutional macro-level could be related to the mezzo-level of collaboration and even to the micro-level of fine-grained interaction analysis.

The existence of multiple effective paradigms for understanding something like shared knowledge is not necessarily problematic. It may be possible to select the most appropriate paradigm for any given study. However, it does raise the question of how the paradigms might fit together—a topic for another time. Now we turn to four concrete proposals for supporting shared knowledge.
Intersubjectivity in collaborative learning

In the first article of this issue, Johann Larusson and Richard Alterman claim that wiki technology is particularly suited for enabling students to create an online intersubjective space that supports their collaboration. The wiki’s malleable and easy-to-use interface, which contributes to its broad applicability, is, however, in need of specific kinds of additional functionality for collaborative learning settings. The paper describes a Wiki Design Platform that provides a suite of awareness, navigation, communication, and analysis components and scaffolds.

Two case studies demonstrate how different selections of components from the suite can help create an online intersubjective space for quite different forms of collaboration in a college classroom. In the first case study, student teams collaborate on HCI design projects. In the second, the students co-blog in the wiki about their course readings.

One might think that the design projects foster shared knowledge through the joint focus on the artifact being designed, while the co-blogging supported individuals externalizing their individual understandings. In fact, the paradigm of shared knowledge in this article is more complex because the authors refer to their theory of intersubjectivity (Alterman, 2007). For them, the intersubjective space is partially biological, but also social and cultural. In addition, it is related to the history of individual and group activities, and it provides a background for individuals to interpret each other’s actions and (mental) motives. It is, therefore, not immediately clear which paradigm the presented concept of intersubjectivity falls into, or what form of shared knowledge is central to the suite of wiki tools or to the educational interventions in the case studies.
Collaborative learning in a mixed-reality classroom

The design of SMALLab, as presented by David Birchfield and Colleen Megowan-Romanowicz, pivots on three principles:

    * Direct face-to-face interaction among co-located participants within the computationally mediated space should be cultivated. 
    * Thought and action should be distributed across multiple participants through an active, generative process that unfolds in real time. 
    * Immediate (spatial and temporal) consolidation of emergent conceptual models should follow the active learning process. 

Each of these design principles supports shared knowledge. They provide the preconditions and mechanisms for knowledge to be shared among students in a classroom through their structured interaction.

In addition, the mixed-reality intervention involves the computer-supported projection of a virtual reality into the physical space of the classroom, interacting with the behaviors of students. This creates an environmental situation, embodying dramatic and interactive representations of otherwise abstract earth sciences concepts. The reported study demonstrates that situating groups of students in such a mixed-reality setting can be highly motivating even for at-risk students, leading to their construction of scientific shared knowledge.

Together, the design principles, the mixed-reality technology, and the whole-class activities may be considered to bring together the paradigms of individual, object-oriented, situated, and community knowledge sharing.
Tools for presentation and critique in education

Architectural education traditionally employs extensive use of apprenticeship modes of sharing knowledge (Schön, 1983). In particular, design studios are scripted occasions for students to present designs and for professionals to publically reflect on them. Through careful conversation analysis of design studio sessions, Gustav Lymer, Jonas Ivarsson, and Oskar Lindwall investigate the effects of different technologies—such as paper posters, PowerPoint slideshows, and combinations thereof—for supporting presentation and critique in such sessions.

For knowledge to be shared, it is necessary that the participants can see the same thing in the same way. In the two previous articles, this was an important, but implicit principle. The wiki and the virtual reality were designed to create shared perceptual spaces, where salient objects could be seen by all. The previously referenced article, (Çakır et al., 2009), analyzed how students explicitly shared their ways of seeing in an online setting—much as (Goodwin, 1994) did for face-to-face settings. Here, the authors tease apart the ways in which presentation technologies mediate the sharing of ways of seeing, an important constituent of sharing knowledge.
Theory-driven group formation

In the previous articles, the authors design an interaction space or educational setting into which teachers can place groups of students. The question then arises as to how to form student groups that will engage in optimal collaborative learning processes within the given spaces. In the final article of ijCSCL volume four, Seiji Isotani, Akiko Inaba, Mitsuru Ikeda, and Riichiro Mizoguchi propose the reverse procedure. They start from the individual students’ educational needs and goals to then form group activities that are responsive to those needs. Of course, to expect classroom teachers to match each of their students’ needs to appropriate CSCL theories, technologies and pedagogies—and then to form compatible groupings of students in selected activities—without adequate support is not feasible.

The paper, therefore, presents a framework or ontology of categories for analyzing, specifying, and coordinating student needs, theories, technologies, and best practices. By starting from the needs of individual students, the authors hypothesize that it will be possible to group together students who can support one another and to select personally tuned collaborative-learning activities that can help the members of a group to achieve their goals as individuals and as a group. It is important to keep in mind when reading this technical paper that it is not trying to automate group formation, but to support teachers in their role as facilitators of collaboration and orchestrators of knowledge sharing.
References

Alterman, R. (2007). Representation, interaction, and intersubjectivity. Cognitive Science, 31(5), 815–841.

Çakır, M. P., Zemel, A., & Stahl, G. (2009). The joint organization of interaction within a multimodal CSCL medium. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(2), 115–149. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-009-9061-0.

Clark, H., & Brennan, S. (1991). Grounding in communication. In L. Resnick, J. Levine & S. Teasley (Eds.), Perspectives on socially-shared cognition (pp. 127–149). Washington, DC: APA.

Dohn, N. B. (2009). Affordances revisited: Articulating a Merleau-Pontian view. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(2), 151–170. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-009-9062-z.

Duranti, A., & Goodwin, C. (Eds.). (1992). Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Goodwin, C. (1994). Professional vision. American Anthropologist, 96(3), 606–633.

Hanks, W. (1992). The indexical ground of deictic reference. In A. Duranti & C. Goodwin (Eds.), Rethinking context: Language as an interactive phenomenon (pp. 43–76). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Jones, C., Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L., & Lindström, B. (2006). A relational, indirect, meso-level approach to CSCL design in the next decade. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 1(1), 35–56. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-006-6841-7.

Roschelle, J., & Teasley, S. (1995). The construction of shared knowledge in collaborative problem solving. In C. O'Malley (Ed.), Computer-supported collaborative learning (pp. 69–197). Berlin, Germany: Springer Verlag.

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. New York, NY: Basic Books.
Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2009) Paradigms of shared knowledge. ijcscl 4 (4), pp. 365-369

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9075-7
Authors: John M. Carroll, Umer Farooq

Abstract: Learning about information technology is typically not a first-order goal for community-based volunteer organizations. Nonetheless, information technology is vital to such groups for member recruiting and management, communication and visibility to the community, and for primary group activities. During the past 12 years, we have worked with community groups in Centre County, Pennsylvania, and Montgomery County, Virginia. We have built partnerships with these groups to better understand and address their learning challenges with respect to information technology. In this paper, we suggest that patterns, standard solution schemata for recurring problems (as used in architecture and software engineering, among other design domains), can be a paradigm for codifying and developing an understanding of learning in and by community organizations. Patterns are middle-level abstractions; they capture regularities of practices in ways that are potentially intelligible, verifiable, and perhaps useful to the practitioners themselves. We present two example patterns and discuss issues and directions for developing patterns as a theoretical foundation for community-based learning.

Keywords: Community informatics, Community-based learning, Design, Informal learning, Information technology, Organizational informatics, Patterns

Citation: Carroll, J. M. & Farooq, U. (2007) Patterns as a paradigm for theory in community-based learning. ijcscl 2 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9008-2
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

Practice perspectives in CSCL

Gerry Stahl & Friedrich Hesse
Executive Editors
Conference on Practices in CSCL

The theme of this year’s CSCL conference is “CSCL Practices.” It is concerned with practices relating to technology-based collaborative learning. According to the conference call, the CSCL community is not only concerned with studying and designing effective tools to support CSCL practices, but also with identifying specific educational and professional practices that are associated with their appropriate usages. In order to study practices in a reflective way, powerful theories and analytical approaches are required. The aim of CSCL research is to understand how learning emerges: on an individual level, on a group-cognition level, and at the community level. The articles in this issue of ijCSCL address this goal in specific ways.
The concept of practice is a complicated one. It comes from the Greek praxis—which may be why we are going to Rhodes this year, to connect to our philosophic roots—in contrast to theoria. Modern practice perspectives since Marx (1845/1967) argue for a unity of theory and practice. In common parlance, practice just refers to the things we do. Methodologically, practice indicates that we should be paying attention in our research to the ways in which people actually interact with one another, predominantly in dyads and small groups. According to Schatzki, Knorr Cetina, and Savigny (2001), for some researchers there has been a “practice turn” in contemporary theory, in which analytic focus has shifted from explicit knowledge and social structures to “practices as embodied, materially mediated arrays of human activity centrally organized around shared practical understanding” (p. 2).
The nascent CSCL field was influenced by Lave & Wenger’s (1991) analysis of collaborative learning as social practices within communities of practice.  A related inspiration, Scardamalia and Bereiter’s (1996) proposal of CSCL technologies like their CSILE system, suggested introducing some of the practices of scientific research communities into classrooms as fledgling knowledge-building communities. As we shall see in this issue’s articles, the practice perspective can be applied at the individual and group levels of description as well as at the community one. We shall also see investigations of how practices are embodied, mediated and shared within CSCL settings.
The proposal to adopt practice perspectives in CSCL is a substantive one. It contrasts starkly with the view of collaborative learning in terms of observing regularities based on pre-defined and controlled variables of interaction. While a regularity view of causation offers causal descriptions involving sets of manipulated variables, it is less suited to address finer explanations of how observed patterns of interaction unfold over time (Shadish, Cook, and Campbell 2002). Providing such explanations is the field where the study of practice comes into play. Practices are not commonly described in terms of regularity among controlled variables, nor are they usually measured with computations of statistical variance. This does not mean that studies from practice perspectives cannot include quantitative measurements, hypotheses for investigation, specific research questions, rigorous analyses, and scientific results. Rather, the criteria for the most appropriate methods of research, analysis and reporting may be quite different from those for research efforts predicated upon statistical regularities among identifiable variables. For instance, contrast the studies in this issue with Kapur and Kinzer (2009) and Rummel, Spada, and Hauser (2009) in the previous issue.
Of course, ijCSCL is committed to publishing major contributions to CSCL from all scholarly perspectives. We plan to publish discussions of these methodological differences, their rationale and the possibilities for integration in future issues of the journal. At the CSCL 2009 conference, ijCSCL will sponsor a symposium on theory and practice approaches. In this issue, we present a set of papers analyzing the role of practices in CSCL.
Studying the group practices that support collaboration in CSCL

The first article in this issue, by Murat Cakir, Alan Zemel, and Gerry Stahl, investigates group practices: How does a small group of students organize its interaction within a particular CSCL online environment so that it can accomplish its knowledge-building and problem-solving goals? The paper identifies several characteristics of the group practices in a detailed case study and relates these to the design of the mediating software. The CSCL technology used was a dual-interaction environment combining text chat and a shared whiteboard. The multimodal nature of activity made salient for the students and for the researchers the need for coordination of meaning making. By focusing on coordination practices, the analysis reveals interactional methods that the student group used to organize its joint activity. Thereby, the researchers were able to make visible mechanisms of grounding, shedding theoretical light on issues of common ground and intersubjectivity that are fundamental to an understanding of collaborative learning from a practices perspective.
This work is part of the larger Virtual Math Teams (VMT) Project (Stahl, 2009). The analysis of group practices by the students using the VMT software provided the primary evaluation component of the project’s design-based research process. The affordances (see below) of the technology were determined in terms of the ways in which the user groups enacted the designed features and adapted their interaction practices to the technical environment. The research project included development of pedagogy and problem design as much as of technology, and the analysis of student group practices provided feedback on the whole intervention.
Associate Editor Dan Suthers coordinated the review of this submission to maintain the journal’s double-blind peer-review process.
Affordances of technology are enacted by user practices

Affordances are the features of an artifact or of a communication medium that determine what one can do with them. For instance, an important affordance analyzed in the VMT environment was persistence. Unlike most audio and video media, the text- and graphics-based VMT components retained inscriptions for later viewing and reference. This was consequential for the ability of students to explain their postings and activities to each other, and thereby to establish a basis of collaborative activity. The chat, whiteboard, and wiki components each had subtly different forms of persistence, as the analysis pointed out by describing how the group took advantage of these affordances.
The second article, by Nina Bonderup Dohn, reconsiders the nature of affordances, a contested term in CSCL and within the broader human-computer interaction (HCI) literature. She builds on early ijCSCL papers by Dwyer and Suthers (2006), Jones, Dirckinck-Holmfeld, and Lindström (2006), and Suthers (2006), which emphasized the importance from a practice perspective of analyzing the affordances of CSCL technologies for group meaning making. She proposes that affordances not be considered objective properties of artifacts independent of the people who use them. Rather, affordances are relative to the “interaction potential” of the people who see and make use of the artifacts. The term “interaction potential” is not restricted to a person’s current “knowledge in the head or in the world” (Norman, 1990). Rather, it is related to the analysis of “body schema” developed by the premier French phenomenologist, Merleau-Ponty (1945/2002).
The potential that someone—or some group or some community—has to interact with a given artifact is a function of their lifelong engaged being-in-the-world (Heidegger, 1927/1996). Here we note that these matters, which have traditionally been discussed in terms of individuals, apply as well to small groups or communities of practice. Interestingly, this article applies Merleau-Ponty’s analysis of embodiment to the virtual world, in which actors are largely disembodied. For instance, students in a CSCL environment do not see each other as embodied presences and they do not touch or physically manipulate the objects that they share on their screens of pixels. Here the term “interaction potential” takes on a different sense. It is not a matter of Merleau-Ponty’s embeddedness in the physical world, but of interaction in a new sense, whose affordances must now be analyzed. Space, time, and causation in the virtual world are designed affordances, different from those in the physical world of bodily being.
Genres of practice adapt to new technologies

When people, groups, and communities move from the familiar physical and cultural world to brave new virtual realms, they carry with them their body schemas and other baggage that have defined their physical existence. The fit is not usually perfect, and a little dance takes place between their practices and the affordances of their new surrounds. In his article, Norm Friesen draws out some of the steps in this dance as it took place with the diffusion of email and threaded-discussion forums.
CSCL practitioners—teachers of online courses—have often looked to online media such as threaded discussion boards to support progressive knowledge building or critical inquiry. For instance, the widely used Blackboard learning management system for distance education features threaded discussion. When CSCL researchers analyze the results of student discourse in these media, they are often disappointed, as the early studies of Hakkarainen (see below) illustrate. Students tend to engage in informal socializing, sharing of unsubstantiated personal opinions, joking, and posting statements of little intellectual depth. Why do students make such use of technology that was designed by researchers to support collaborative knowledge building and intended by teachers to promote critical inquiry practices? According to this article, it is because the students enact the affordances of the new technology in accordance with the communication genres of the past.
If one looks carefully at the genre of the student communication in threaded discussion forums, one sees the characteristics of the epistle or personal letter, rather than that of scholarly argumentation. While email is formatted along the lines of a business memo, brief postings in threaded discussion or SMS chat tend to adopt the genre of informal social conversation and personal letters. This is what students are used to, based on our cultural heritage. To change the practices of computer-mediated interaction to a form more akin to genres of logical deduction and scientific conjectures or refutations, requires training the students in new practices, not merely providing digital media. The affordances of the technologies are to be found not in the plans of the programmers or instructors, but in the practices of the users.
Exploring the metaskills needed for new practices

A discussion of current practice perspectives within CSCL would not be complete without contributions from the K-P Labs Project, a large European Union effort led by Scandinavian researchers. In this issue, we include a pair of papers from the lab in Helsinki, which recently merged the labs directed by Hakkarainen and Engeström. In a recent issue of ijCSCL, we published another article from the discussions in the K-P Labs Project by Lund & Rasmussen (2008), which emphasized the theoretical notion of object orientation. Here we have a paper by Hanni Muukkonen and Minna Lakkala that takes another approach to object orientation in knowledge-creation practices.
In thinking about collaborative learning theories, I often distinguish analysis at the individual, small-group, and community levels of description (e.g., Stahl 2009, chap. 28). The “trialogical” framework of the K-P Labs Project instead distinguishes the individual, collaborative, and object-oriented aspects. This shifts the focus for the third aspect from the agents—in any configuration—to the knowledge object. This emphasis is familiar from activity theory, where the activity system in a workplace is strongly oriented toward the goals to be achieved and artifacts to be produced. In a classroom setting, it calls for a focus of students, project groups, and classes on the systematic improvement of ideas and other knowledge objects. Accordingly, collaborative learning pedagogies provide for student groups to engage in critical inquiry around open-ended questions so they will develop the skills needed to develop (locally) new knowledge about ill-structured problems.
Using a well-developed coding scheme for analyzing knowledge-creation practices (or the lack thereof), this article explores the kinds of problems that students have when faced with enacting their own knowledge-creation practices. Just as seen in the previous article, students tend to stick with their accustomed genres of practice, sharing opinions more than building on shared knowledge objects. Becoming knowledge-creating learners requires the development of specific metaskills, as detailed in the article.
Theory of the knowledge-practice perspective

According to the conventional notion of theory, a statement of the theory of practice perspectives would be expected to introduce this issue. However, from a practice perspective, practices have the priority and theory comes later, as a reflection on the experiences—after the owl of Minerva has already flown, in Hegel’s (1807/1967) classical metaphor. In the final article of this issue, Kai Hakkarainen reflects on issues of his research, dating back more than a decade to the start of his dissertation.
He wants to understand why it is so hard to promote knowledge-creation processes in classrooms, even using CSCL technologies. It is not enough, he argues, to facilitate sharing and building on ideas. A classroom has to develop a culture of knowledge-creation practices. As analyzed in the first article in this issue, the technology has to be iteratively developed in response to enacted student practices to take advantage of the subtle ways in which knowledge creation is supported by the materiality of externalizing ideas—for example, through forms of persistence, visibility, and integration. This is a matter of how the affordances of the technology in the sense of the second article are related to the interaction potential of the students, which is itself a moving target. The genres of social practices in the classroom—to use the terminology of the third article—must also gradually evolve. The possibilities of new practical genres rely upon the development of appropriate metaskills for engaging in knowledge-creation processes. All these factors must move in a coordinated and coherent unity of design-based research driving change in group practices, technology affordances, interaction genres, community metaskills, and trialogical learning.
This defines a tall order for students, teachers, and researchers to attain the potential of CSCL practices. The CSCL 2009 conference should provide an opportunity for us to take a step or two forward in this direction.
References

Dwyer, N., & Suthers, D. (2006). Consistent practices in artifact-mediated collaboration. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 1(4), 481–511. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-006-9001-1.

Hegel, G. W. F. (1807/1967). Phenomenology of spirit (J. B. Baillie, Trans.). New York, NY: Harper & Row.

Heidegger, M. (1927/1996). Being and time: A translation of Sein und Zeit (J. Stambaugh, Trans.). Albany, NY: SUNY Press.

Jones, C., Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L., & Lindström, B. (2006). A relational, indirect, meso-level approach to CSCL design in the next decade. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 1(1), 35–56. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-006-6841-7.

Kapur, M., & Kinzer, C. (2009). Productive failure in CSCL groups. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(1), 21–46. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-008-9059-z.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lund, A., & Rasmussen, I. (2008). The right tool for the wrong task? Match and mismatch between first and second stimulus in double stimulation. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 3(4), 387–412. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-008-9050-8.

Marx, K. (1845/1967). Theses on Feuerbach. In L. G. K. Easton (Ed.), Writings of the young Marx on philosophy and society (pp. 400–401). New York, NY: Doubleday.

Merleau-Ponty, M. (1945/2002). The phenomenology of perception (C. Smith, Trans. 2 ed.). New York, NY: Routledge.

Norman, D. (1990). The design of everyday things. New York, NY: Doubleday.

Rummel, N., Spada, H., & Hauser, S. (2009). Learning to collaborate while being scripted or by observing a model. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(1), 69–92. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-008-9054-4.

Scardamalia, M., & Bereiter, C. (1996). Computer support for knowledge-building communities. In T. Koschmann (Ed.), CSCL: Theory and practice of an emerging paradigm (pp. 249–268). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Schatzki, T. R., Knorr Cetina, K., & Savigny, E. v. (Eds.). (2001). The practice turn in contemporary theory. New York, NY: Routledge.

Shadish, W. R., Cook, T. D., & Campbell, D. T. (2002). Experimental and quasi-experimental designs for generalized causal inference. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin.

Stahl, G. (Ed.). (2009). Studying virtual math teams. New York, NY: Springer. Computer-supported collaborative learning book series, vol. 11. Available at http://GerryStahl.net/vmt/book.

Suthers, D. (2006). Technology affordances for intersubjective meaning making: A research agenda for CSCL. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 1(3), 315–337. Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11412-006-9660-y.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2009) Practice perspectives in CSCL. ijcscl 4 (2), pp. 109-114

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9065-9
Authors: Manu Kapur, Charles K. Kinzer

Abstract: This study was designed as a confirmatory study of work on productive failure (Kapur, Cognition and Instruction, 26(3), 379–424, 2008). N = 177, 11th-grade science students were randomly assigned to solve either well- or ill-structured problems in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment without the provision of any external support structures or scaffolds. After group problem solving, all students individually solved well-structured problems followed by ill-structured problems. Compared to groups who solved well-structured problems, groups who solved ill-structured problems expectedly struggled with defining, analyzing, and solving the problems. However, despite failing in their collaborative problem-solving efforts, these students outperformed their counterparts from the well-structured condition on the individual near and far transfer measures subsequently, thereby confirming the productive failure hypothesis. Building on the previous study, additional analyses revealed that neither preexisting differences in prior knowledge nor the variation in group outcomes (quality of solutions produced) seemed to have had any significant effect on individual near and far transfer measures, lending support to the idea that it was the nature of the collaborative process that explained productive failure.

Keywords: Ill-structured problem solving, Well-structured problem solving, Synchronous collaboration, Problem-solving failure

Citation: Kapur, M. & Kinzer, C. K. (2009) Productive failure in CSCL groups. ijcscl 4 (1), pp. 21-46

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9059-z
Authors: Manoli Pifarre, Ruth Cobos

Abstract: This paper aims to better understand the development of students’ metacognitive learning processes when participating actively in a CSCL system called KnowCat. To this end, a longitudinal case study was designed, in which 18 university students took part in a 12-month (two semesters) learning project. The students followed an instructional process, using specific features of the KnowCat design to support and improve their interaction processes, especially peer-learning processes. Our research involved both supervising the students’ collaborative learning processes throughout the learning project and focusing our analysis on the qualitative evolution of their interaction processes and of their metacognitive learning processes. The results of the current research suggest that the pedagogical use of the KnowCat system may favour and improve the development of the students’ metacognitive learning processes. In addition, the implications of the design of CSCL networks and related pedagogical issues are discussed.

Keywords: etacognitive learning, Self-regulated learning, Peer interaction, Peer scaffolding, Qualitative researc

Citation: Pifarre, M. & Cobos, R. (2010) Promoting metacognitive skills through peer scaffolding in a CSCL environment. ijcscl 5 (2), pp. 237-253

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9084-6
Authors: E. Michael Nussbaum, Denise L. Winsor, Yvette M. Aqui, Anne M. Poliquin

Abstract: We examine the effect of online Argumentation Vee Diagrams (AVDs) on the quality of students’ argumentation during asynchronous, online discussions. With AVDs, students develop arguments on both sides of a controversial issue and then develop an integrated, overall final conclusion. In this study, students used AVDs individually before composing discussion notes, and then—at the end of the discussion—jointly created a group AVD using Wiki technology. Compared to a control group, the experimental intervention was found to significantly enhance the integration of arguments and counterarguments (specifically, compromises) and fostered opinion change. For AVDs to be effective, however, it was found to be necessary to include specific scaffolds on how to evaluate argument strength and/or to provide practice and feedback in using the AVDs.

Keywords: Argument, Argumentation, Computer-mediated communication, Computer-supported collaborative learning, Cooperative learning, Critical thinking, Discussion groups, Group discussion, Internet, Web-based instruction

Citation: Nussbaum, E. M., Winsor, D. L., Aqui, Y. M. & Poliquin, A. M. (2007) Putting the pieces together: Online argumentation vee diagrams enhance thinking during discussions. ijcscl 2 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9025-1
Authors: Hugo Fuks, Mariano Pimentel, Carlos José Pereira de Lucena

Abstract: Very often, when using a chat tool where more than one participant is talking simultaneously, it is difficult to follow the conversation, read all the different messages and work out who is talking to whom about what. This problem has been dubbed “Chat Confusion.” This article investigates this problem in debate sessions in an online university course. Chat Confusion has been singled out as the main limitation to using chat in educational activities. Confusion needs to be reduced for understanding to increase, making it easier to track what is being discussed during a learning activity. This study investigated the phenomena responsible for causing this confusion. A version of the Mediated Chat tool was developed for each problem identified and was subsequently tested in online courses. This article describes the Mediated Chat development process, the problems identified, and the results obtained from the case studies.

Keywords: Chat, 3C collaboration, Groupware Development Process, LMS

Citation: Fuks H., Pimentel M. & Pereira de Lucena C. J. (2006) R-U-Typing-2-Me? Evolving a chat tool to increase understanding in learning activities. ijcscl 1 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-6845-3
Authors: Michael Baker, Jerry Andriessen, Kristine Lund, Marie van Amelsvoort, Matthieu Quignard

Abstract: ICT tools have been developed to facilitate web-based learning through and learning about argumentation. In this paper we will present an example of a learning activity mediated by Digalo-software for knowledge sharing through visually supported discussion-developed in a university setting. Our aim is to examine, in particular, socio-cognitive construction of knowledge and argumentation by students debating a controversial question in history. We propose a descriptive approach of understanding and meaning-making processes based on two levels of analysis: (1) a topic meaning-making process oriented level and (2) an argumentation oriented level. We focus our studies on how the participants-small groups of students-develop understanding of the topic, their arguments and their interactions through the use of different functionalities of this software. Our results show that interactive and argumentative processes are themselves objects of learning and develop through collective activity. Development of the understanding of the topic through argumentation is discussed and linked to the design of the activity and the affordances of the Digalo software.

Keywords: Argumentation, Dialogue, Learning, Argumentative maps, ICT tool

Citation: Baker, M., Andriessen, J., Lund, K., van Amelsvoort, M. & Quignard, M. (2007) Rainbow: A framework for analyzing computer-mediated pedagogical debates. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9021-5
Authors: Anne Gerdes

Abstract: This paper analyses preconditions for trust in virtual learning environments. The concept of trust is discussed with reference to cases reporting trust in cyberspace and through a philosophical clarification holding that trust in the form of self-surrender is a common characteristic of all human co-existence. In virtual learning environments, self-surrender might fail, due to a setting that affords strategic communication and impression management. To obtain the kind of unconditional commitment necessary for learning, one might benefit from the insights from open-source communities, in which self-articulation of goals and volunteerism promote productivity. Balancing free will in connection with study initiatives with inquiry teaching methods might encourage a practice which favours mastery-oriented learning strategies and the seeking of knowledge for its own sake.

Keywords: rustful collaboration, Learning strategies, Self-surrender, Reflectio

Citation: Gerdes, A. (2010) Revealing preconditions for trustful collaboration in CSCL. ijcscl 5 (3), pp. 345

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9090-8
Authors: Christof Wecker, Karsten Stegmann, Florian Bernstein, Michael J. Huber, Georg Kalus, Ingo Kollar, Sabine Rathmayer, Frank Fischer

Abstract: Collaboration scripts are usually implemented as parts of a particular collaborative-learning platform. Therefore, scripts of demonstrated effectiveness are hardly used with learning platforms at other sites, and replication studies are rare. The approach of a platform-independent description language for scripts that allows for easy implementation of the same script on different platforms has not succeeded yet in making the transfer of scripts feasible. We present an alternative solution that treats the problem as a special case of providing support on top of diverse Web pages: In this case, the challenge is to trigger support based on the recognition of a Web page as belonging to a specific type of functionally equivalent pages such as the search query form or the results page of a search engine. The solution suggested has been implemented by means of a tool called S-COL (Scripting for Collaborative Online Learning) and allows for the sustainable development of scripts and scaffolds that can be used with a broad variety of content and platforms. The tool’s functions are described. In order to demonstrate the feasibility and ease of script reuse with S-COL, we describe the flexible re-implementation of a collaboration script for argumentation in S-COL and its adaptation to different learning platforms. To demonstrate that a collaboration script implemented in S-COL can actually foster learning, an empirical study about the effects of a specific script for collaborative online search on learning activities is presented. The further potentials and the limitations of the S-COL approach are discussed.

Keywords: ollaboration scripts, Scaffolding, Collaborative learning, Web-based learnin

Citation: Wecker, C., Stegmann, K., Bernstein, F., Huber, M.J., Kalus, G., Kollar, I., Rathmayer, S., & Fischer, F. (2010) S-COL: A Copernican turn for the development of flexiblyreusable collaboration scripts. ijcscl 5 (3), pp. 321-344

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9093-5
Authors: Jingyan Lu, Susanne P. Lajoie, Jeffrey Wiseman

Abstract: Small-group medical problem-based learning (PBL) was a pioneering form of collaborative learning at the university level. It has traditionally been delivered in face-to-face text-based format. With the advancement of computer technology and progress in CSCL, educational researchers are now exploring how to design digitally-implemented scaffolding tools to facilitate medical PBL. The “deteriorating patient” (DP) role play was created as a medical simulation that extends traditional PBL and can be implemented digitally. We present a case study of classroom usage of the DP role play that examines teacher scaffolding of PBL under two conditions: using a traditional whiteboard (TW) and using an interactive whiteboard (IW). The introduction of the IW technology changed the way that the teacher scaffolded the learning. The IW showed the teacher all the information shared within the various subgroups of a class, broadening the basis for informed classroom scaffolding. The visual records of IW usage demonstrated what students understood and reduced the need to structure the task. This allowed more time for engaging students in challenging situations by increasing the complexity of the problem. Although appropriate scaffolding is still based on the teacher’s domain knowledge and pedagogy experience, technology can help by expanding the scaffolding choices that an instructor can make in a medical training context.

Keywords: caffolding, Role play, PBL, Medical education, Content analysis, CSCL, CSCL tools, Argumentation tools, Visualization tool

Citation: Lu, J., Lajoie, S.P., & Wiseman, J. (2010) Scaffolding problem-based learning with CSCL tools. ijcscl 5 (3), pp. 283-298

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9092-6
Authors: Joerg M. Haake, Hans-Rüdiger Pfister

Abstract: This study reports findings from an experimental field study of scripted collaboration for net-based learning in the context of a one-semester university course on operating systems. In scripted collaboration, activities of learners are coordinated and guided according to particular rules, implemented via respective tools in the learning environment. Forty-two distributed groups of three students collaborated on five successive assignments employing the virtual learning environment CURE. Three collaborative tasks—brainstorming, clustering, and essay writing—were implemented as scripts with dedicated tools guiding the net-based collaborative process. Half of the groups collaborated via scripted task versions, and, as a control, half of the groups performed the tasks in a non-scripted manner. No general advantage of scripting was found concerning acquisition of knowledge; nor was overscripting observed. Collaborative scripting appears to be neither generally advantageous nor disadvantageous, but highly contingent on the particular content and task under consideration. Results suggest that scripting might be slightly more supportive in more complex tasks such as essay writing, in contrast to undemanding tasks such as brainstorming.

Keywords: omputer-supported collaborative learning, Net-based learning, Scripted collaboration

Citation: Haake, J. M. & Pfister, H.-R. (2010) Scripting a distance-learning university course: Do students benefit from net-based scripted collaboration?. ijcscl 5 (2), pp. 191-210

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9083-7
Authors: Meng Yew Tee, Dennis Karney

Abstract: Research on knowledge cultivation often focuses on explicit forms of knowledge. However, knowledge can also take a tacit form—a form that is often difficult or impossible to tease out, even when it is considered critical in an educational context. A review of the literature revealed that few studies have examined tacit knowledge issues in online learning environments. The purpose of this study was to develop a greater understanding of the conditions and processes that help promote the sharing or cultivation of tacit knowledge in a formal online course setting. Using naturalistic inquiry as the methodology of this study, an online graduate business course offered at a private, non-profit United States-based university was purposively selected as the research site. The study found that the online course encouraged processes and created conditions consistent with Nonaka‘s model of knowledge creation and the concept of ba (or shared context)—encouraging students to share, and to construct knowledge through socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. The results suggest that purposefully developing a ba-like environment may be a useful approach to facilitating online learning, creating a strong potential to support learning processes necessary for students to cultivate tacit knowledge.

Keywords: acit knowledge, Knowledge construction, Learning environment, Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalizatio

Citation: Tee, M. Y. & Karney, D. (2010) Sharing and cultivating tacit knowledge in an online learning environment. ijcscl 5 (4), pp.

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9095-3
2006~2010
ijCSCL
Authors: Jochen Rick, Mark Guzdial

Abstract: Since 1998, we have been developing and researching CoWeb, a version of Wiki designed to support collaborative learning. In this article, we summarize our results of situating CoWeb across the academic landscape of Georgia Tech. In architecture, CoWeb enabled faculty to serve more students in a design-based course. In English composition, a comparison study demonstrated significant learning benefits without incurring disproportionate costs. Yet, situating CoWeb was not always successful. In many STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) classes, students actively resisted collaboration. From these studies, we conclude that the culture of the classroom and the discipline needs to be compatible with the medium for computer-supported collaborative learning to be effective. Finally, we demonstrate how collaboration can be designed into the culture. A new class on introductory computing was explicitly designed to take advantage of the collaborative possibilities that CoWeb affords. We report our findings of the success of this approach. We characterize this research as a scholarship of application. We demonstrate that this mode of scholarship is a viable mode of scholarship in the learning sciences. Unlike traditional scholarship of discovery, we are not solely concerned with discovering new knowledge. Instead, we support others in the application of a new technology to serve genuine and complex learning situations. By doing so, we seek to understand the potential that one new medium, a Wiki, has for supporting learning.

Keywords: Design-based research, Scholarship of application, WikiWikiWeb, CoWeb, Multimedia, Media theory, Culture of the classroom

Citation: Rick, J. & Guzdial, M. (2006) Situating CoWeb: a scholarship of application. ijcscl 1 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-6842-6
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

CSCL and the study of social practices

Ever since Lave & Wenger’s paradigm-shaking book on Situated Learning (1991), discussions about how people learn have included considerations of how participation in communities-of-practice and in related social institutions evolves. Concepts about learning have to take more seriously into account the identity and behavior of the learners within their sociocultural settings. Unfortunately the theory of situated learning is too often construed as a questionable assumption of communities-of-practice everywhere, or as an antiquated romanticizing of apprenticeship. But Lave’s perspective is rooted in a serious philosophy of social praxis. To understand phenomena related to learning, one must study the ways in which people interact with one another.

The consideration of social practices seems particularly relevant to collaborative learning. Individual learning may take countless forms and can be analyzed in terms of the manifold theories of psychology and education; it is highly dependent upon mental conceptions, personal attitudes, modes of content presentation, etc. Learning that takes place in small groups, however, relies additionally upon the establishment of patterns of interaction to guide communication and to support coordination of the group.

When collaborative learning is computer-supported, the need for the group to adopt effective social practices is both more necessary and more complicated. The subtle social cues of intonation, gesture, facial expression, body language, etc. that have accompanied human social life for millennia may be missing in virtual contexts. As people struggle to interact through awkward computer interfaces, they need to adapt accustomed social practices to the deficits and affordances of the technology, the objective of their activity and the constraints of their interpersonal relationships.

The four articles in this issue can be read — among other ways — as studies of social practices in CSCL settings, although the papers were not written with this as their central concern. They illustrate that this theme can be investigated with a variety of methods, and begin to suggest the centrality of social practices to both individual and group cognition.
1. Spaces for monologic/dialogic practices

In the first issue of ijCSCL, Wegerif (2006) argued that mastery of dialogic practices formed the basis for the development of individual thinking skills. He called for CSCL software that opened spaces for dialog among students. In this issue, Enyedy and Hoadley consider how software can be designed to support both monological and dialogical learning in concert by opening interaction spaces that help students to move between individual work and group practices. By carefully studying interaction excerpts from CSCL settings, the authors conclude not only that individual contributions are essential to dialog as the interanimation of multiple perspectives, but also that individual cognition should be considered as involving social practices of interaction.
2. Inquiry practices

For some years, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics has included among its recommendations and standards pedagogical approaches in which students “analyze and evaluate the mathematical thinking and strategies of others; communicating mathematical thinking coherently and clearly to peers; and make and investigate mathematical conjectures” (NCTM, 2000). Subsequent research on math education indicates that it is particularly difficult for students to explain their problem solving to others and to engage in collaborative reflection. Moss & Beatty explore whether software designed for knowledge building can help to support social practices of mathematical explanation. They adopt Knowledge Forum with young students who are experienced with using the software for collaborative inquiry learning in science, and they have the students use it with pre-algebra pattern problems. Using both coding-and-counting and discourse analysis, the authors find that the students do succeed in explaining their work to each other and comparing different solution paths. The software defines social practices for doing this, which are reinforced within an inquiry-learning classroom so that the students can exert “epistemic agency” in carrying out these practices of building knowledge themselves, without direct teacher intervention.
3. Group dynamics

Clouder and colleagues explore the dynamics of blended learning, how social practices change as groups of students move back and forth between face-to-face and distance interaction. After analyzing various phases within an action research approach, the authors stress continuity across the changes that seems to result in advantageous group dynamics. They stress the pivotal role of the tutor in orchestrating the sequence of phases and the corresponding group dynamics. In keeping with other educational research, they indicate that blended learning has advantages over both face-to-face and distance by themselves. The virtual venue helps some students to find their voice — but only on the basis of healthy constitution of the group in the face-to-face socializing. This paper suggests that the study of social practices in CSCL should include consideration of contrasts and continuities between the alternating phases of blended learning.
4. Consistent practices

The topic of intersubjective meaning making was highlighted in the previous issue of ijCSCL in relation to technological affordances (Suthers, 2006). In this issue, Dwyer & Suthers investigate the establishment of consistent social practices to support synchronous interaction without visual contact. In this way, they explore how people compensate for one of the major differences between face-to-face and distant interaction. Interestingly, they do this in a lab setting where the participants can actually talk, see each other’s hands and use ordinary household media like pencil and paper — thus isolating the difference that visual contact makes to social practices among dyads. They present pairs of college students with wicked problems to discuss using paper-based artifacts and observe the negotiation of innovative practices for textual communication, guided by an ethnomethodological approach. They thus establish a kind of baseline for computer-mediated interaction by seeing the kinds of practices formed using non-digital artifacts under conditions analogous to online environments.
A year of ijCSCL

This issue completes volume 1, a milestone for the journal. The vision of a high-quality, peer-reviewed international journal for the publication of innovative ideas and significant findings is now an established reality. The journal is readily available at www.SpringerLink.com in its official electronic format through the many universities worldwide that subscribe to Springer’s educational journals. Archival paper copies are mailed quarterly to hundreds of individual subscribers through membership at www.ISLS.org. The full text of all articles is available in open source at www.ijCSCL.org.

The journal is truly a product of the CSCL research community. The Editorial Board includes 43 leading researchers of CSCL and CSCW. In addition, at least 54 other researchers participated in the reviewing of submitted papers. The reviews have been exceptional. Almost every article printed underwent major revisions in response to three or four incisive reviews. These revisions resulted in substantial improvements to the presentation format of the papers. The reviewers — including Board members — are the backbone of the journal. If you would like to join the review board and participate in this stimulating and important process, drop a note to info (at) ijcscl.org.

As of mid-October, we have received 84 submissions. Of these, we have published 19 and rejected 25. Seven are currently being revised in response to reviewer feedback and the remaining 33 are under review for volume 2. If you have empirical findings or theoretical developments that you think are important for the CSCL research community and that you feel are well-developed enough for a journal presentation, please review the Submission Procedures and the Instructions for Authors at www.ijCSCL.org and submit your paper. We welcome submissions from every part of the world, from any discipline relevant to the concerns of CSCL and using any appropriate scientific methodology or academic style.

Please do not forget to subscribe to ISLS and ijCSCL for 2007. Your membership fee will be deducted from your registration at CSCL ’07 this summer or ICLS ’08 next summer — see www.ISLS.org for details.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2006) Social practices of computer-supported collaborative learning. ijcscl 1 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9004-y
Authors: Lars Kobbe, Armin Weinberger, Pierre Dillenbourg, Andreas Harrer, Raija Hämäläinen, Päivi Häkkinen, Frank Fischer

Abstract: Collaboration scripts facilitate social and cognitive processes of collaborative learning by shaping the way learners interact with each other. Computer-supported collaboration scripts generally suffer from the problem of being restrained to a specific learning platform. A standardization of collaboration scripts first requires a specification of collaboration scripts that integrates multiple perspectives from computer science, education and psychology. So far, only few and limited attempts at such specifications have been made. This paper aims to consolidate and expand these approaches in light of recent findings and to propose a generic framework for the specification of collaboration scripts. The framework enables a description of collaboration scripts using a small number of components (participants, activities, roles, resources and groups) and mechanisms (task distribution, group formation and sequencing).

Keywords: Activities, Collaborative learning, Collaboration scripts, CSCL scripts, Group formation, Roles, Sequencing, Task distribution

Citation: Kobbe, L., Weinberger, A., Dillenbourg, P., Harrer, A., Hämäläinen, R., Häkkinen, P. & Fischer, F. (2007) Specifying computer-supported collaboration scripts. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9014-4
Authors: Eddy Y. C. Lee, Carol K. K. Chan, Jan van Aalst

Abstract: We describe the design of a knowledge-building environment and examine the role of knowledge-building portfolios in characterizing and scaffolding collaborative inquiry. Our goal is to examine collaborative knowledge building in the context of exploring the alignment of learning, collaboration, and assessment in computer forums. The key design principle involved turning over epistemic agency to students; guided by several knowledge-building principles, they were asked to identify clusters of computer notes that indicated knowledge-building episodes in the computer discourse. Three classes of 9th grade students in Hong Kong used Knowledge Forum in several conditions: Knowledge Forum only, Knowledge Forum with portfolios, and Knowledge Forum with portfolios and principles. Results showed: (1) Students working on portfolios guided knowledge-building principles showed deeper inquiry and more conceptual understanding than their counterpart (2) Students' knowledge-building discourse, reflected in portfolio scores, contributed to their domain understanding; and (3) Knowledge-building portfolios helped to assess and foster collective knowledge advances: A portfolio with multiple contributions from students is a group accomplishment that captures the distributed and progressive nature of knowledge building. Students extended their collective understanding by analyzing the discourse, and the portfolio scaffolded the complex interactions between individual and collective knowledge advancements.

Keywords: Knowledge building, Assessment, Portfolios, Collaborative inquiry, Asynchronous networked environment

Citation: Eddy Y. C. Lee, Carol K. K. Chan & Jan van Aalst (2006) Students assessing their own collaborative knowledge building. ijCSCL 1 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-6844-4
Authors: Alejandra Martínez, Yannis Dimitriadis, Eduardo Gómez-Sánchez, Bartolomé Rubia-Avi, Iván Jorrín-Abellán, Jose A. Marcos

Abstract: This paper describes the application of a mixed-evaluation method, published elsewhere, to three different learning scenarios. The method defines how to combine social network analysis with qualitative and quantitative analysis in order to study participatory aspects of learning in CSCL contexts. The three case studies include a course-long, blended learning experience evaluated as the course develops; a course-long, distance learning experience evaluated at the end of the course; and a synchronous experience of a few hours duration. These scenarios show that the analysis techniques and data collection and processing tools are flexible enough to be applied in different conditions. In particular, SAMSA, a tool that processes interaction data to allow social network analysis, is useful with different types of interactions (indirect asynchronous or direct synchronous interactions) and different data representations. Furthermore, the predefined types of social networks and indexes selected are shown to be appropriate for measuring structural aspects of interaction in these CSCL scenarios. These elements are usable and their results comprehensible by education practitioners. Finally, the experiments show that the mixed-evaluation method and its computational tools allow researchers to efficiently achieve a deeper and more reliable evaluation through complementarity and the triangulation of different data sources. The three experiments described show the particular benefits of each of the data sources and analysis techniques.

Keywords: Authentic learning scenarios, BSCW, Empirical case studies, Interaction analysis tool, Interpretive evaluation, Mixed evaluation methods, Situated learning, Social network analysis, Participatory aspects of learning

Citation: Martínez, A., Dimitriadis, Y., Gómez-Sánchez, E., Rubia-Avi, B., Jorrín-Abellán, I. & Marcos, J. A. (2006) Studying participation networks in collaboration using mixed methods in three case studies. ijcscl 1 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-8705-6
Authors: Nilufar Baghaei, Antonija Mitrovic, Warwick Irwin

Abstract: We present COLLECT-UML, a constraint-based intelligent tutoring system (ITS) that teaches object-oriented analysis and design using Unified Modelling Language (UML). UML is easily the most popular object-oriented modelling technology in current practice. While teaching how to design UML class diagrams, COLLECT-UML also provides feedback on collaboration. Being one of constraint-based tutors, COLLECT-UML represents the domain knowledge as a set of constraints. However, it is the first system to also represent a higher-level skill such as collaboration using the same formalism. We started by developing a single-user ITS that supported students in learning UML class diagrams. The system was evaluated in a real classroom, and the results showed that students’ performance increased significantly. In this paper, we present our experiences in extending the system to provide support for collaboration as well as domain-level support. We describe the architecture, interface and support for collaboration in the new, multi-user system. The effectiveness of the system has been evaluated in two studies. In addition to improved problem-solving skills, the participants both acquired declarative knowledge about effective collaboration and did collaborate more effectively. The participants have enjoyed working with the system and found it a valuable asset to their learning.

Keywords: Collaboration support, Computer supported collaborative learning, Constraint-based modelling, Evaluation, Intelligent tutoring system, Problem-solving support, UML class diagrams

Citation: Baghaei, N., Mitrovic, A. & Irwin, W. (2007) Supporting collaborative learning and problem solving in a constraint-based CSCL environment for UML class diagrams. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9018-0
Authors: Jürgen Buder, Daniel Bodemer

Abstract: This paper describes the development of augmented group awareness tools that take mutual user ratings of their online discussion contributions as input, aggregate these data, and visually feed these data back to the members in real time, thereby informing participants about how the group as a whole perceives their contributions. A specific group awareness tool was experimentally tested in a CSCL scenario using online controversies about a physics domain. The learning material was distributed across group members to create a situation where an individual minority member with a scientifically correct viewpoint faces a majority favoring a plausible, but incorrect viewpoint. It was hypothesized that in unsupported CSCL groups an incorrect majority would dominate a correct minority, whereas in groups that were supported by an augmented group awareness tool minority influence could be strengthened by making minority contributions salient. The paper reports results in support of this hypothesis, and discusses the mechanisms leading to the benefits of group awareness tools for collaborative learning.

Keywords: Awareness, Social influence, Social navigation

Citation: Buder, J. & Bodemer, D. (2008) Supporting controversial CSCL discussions with augmented group awareness tools. ijcscl 3 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9037-5
Authors: Diler Öner

Abstract: In this paper, I review both mathematics education and CSCL literature and discuss how we can better take advantage of CSCL tools for developing mathematical proof skills. I introduce a model of proof in school mathematics that incorporates both empirical and deductive ways of knowing. I argue that two major forces have given rise to this conception of proving: a particular learning perspective promoted in reform documents and a genre of computer tools, namely dynamic geometry software, which affords this perspective of learning within the context of mathematical proof. Tracing the move from absolutism to fallibilism in the philosophy of mathematics, I highlight the vital role of community in the production of mathematical knowledge. This leads me to an examination of a certain CSCL tool whose design is guided by knowledge-building pedagogy. I argue that knowledge building is a suitable pedagogical approach for the proof model presented in this paper. Furthermore, I suggest software modifications that will better support learners’ participation in authentic proof tasks.

Keywords: Mathematical proof, NCTM reform, Dynamic geometry software, Knowledge forum

Citation: Öner, D. (2008) Supporting students' participation in authentic proof activities in CSCL environments. ijcscl 3 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9043-7
Authors: Jacques Lonchamp

Abstract: Future CSCL technologies are described by the community as flexible, tailorable, negotiable, and appropriate for various collaborative settings, conditions and contexts. This paper describes the key design issues of a generic synchronous collaborative learning environment, called Omega+. In this approach, model-based generalizing is applied to the four dimensions of collaborative learning: the situation, the interaction, the process, and the way of monitoring individual and group performance. These four aspects are explicitly specified in a set of models that serve as parameters for the generic environment. This opens the possibility of combining many structuring/scaffolding techniques that have been proposed in isolation in the CSCL literature. The paper also emphasizes the specificities and difficulties of evaluating a comprehensive generic support approach. Experimental evaluations conducted by system designers generally isolate the effects of a particular design feature on learning. This kind of evaluation can hardly demonstrate the usefulness of a generic model at the global level and the feasibility of system customization by non-specialist teachers. To address these difficulties, Omega+ is integrated into a larger collaborative web platform dedicated to CSCL practice, evaluation (by collecting anonymized logs), and dissemination (by supporting the technical and pedagogical development of teachers).

Keywords: CSCL, Synchronous learning, Model-based genericity, Interaction model, Process model, Artifact model, Effect model, Evaluation, Dissemination

Citation: Lonchamp, J. (2006) Supporting synchronous collaborative learning: A generic, multi-dimensional model. ijcscl 1 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-8996-7
Authors: Daniel D. Suthers

Abstract: Now well into its second decade, the field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) appears healthy, encompassing a diversity of topics of study, methodologies, and representatives of various research communities. It is an appropriate time to ask: what central questions can integrate our work into a coherent field? This paper proposes the study of technology affordances for intersubjective meaning making as an integrating research agenda for CSCL. A brief survey of epistemologies of collaborative learning and forms of computer support for that learning characterize the field to be integrated and motivate the proposal. A hybrid of experimental, descriptive and design methodologies is proposed in support of this agenda. A working definition of intersubjective meaning making as joint composition of interpretations of a dynamically evolving context is provided, and used to propose a framework around which dialogue between analytic approaches can take place.

Keywords: CSCL research agenda, Intersubjective meaning making, Representational guidance, Technology affordances

Citation: Suthers, D. D. (2006) Technology affordances for intersubjective meaning making: A research agenda for CSCL. ijcscl 1 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9660-y
Authors: Andrea Kienle, Martin Wessner

Abstract: Ten years of international CSCL conferences (1995–2005) provide an occasion to reflect on the formation of the CSCL community. Based on quantitative analysis of conference proceedings, lists of participants and program committee members, and on qualitative study of policies and motives, this paper offers insights into the growth of the CSCL community in its first decade. The analysis focuses on participation at different levels of the community. In particular, focus is on the continuity of active and passive membership, the geographical distribution, and the international connectivity of the community. Contrary to expectations, only a relatively small number of people have participated continuously in the community. Concerning the geographical distribution, we found that the community is increasingly international in conference participation, authors, and program committees. The international connectivity of the community is also increasing, which can be seen in a growing number of citations and co-authorships across different countries. In order to interpret the results of our quantitative study, we conducted a qualitative, e-mail-based survey. In this survey we wanted to elaborate the policy of the conference organization, the reasons for international co-authorships and the motivations for participation in CSCL conferences. We contacted 84 members of different target groups (organizers, members of international co-authorships, and randomly selected participants on different levels of participation). The findings are suggestive for the further development of the CSCL community.

Keywords: CSCL community, Community analysis, Citation analysis, Social network analysis, Continuity of participation

Citation: Kienle, A. & Wessner, M. (2006) The CSCL Community in its First Decade: Development, Continuity, Connectivity. ijcscl 1 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-6843-5
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse
The Web of Science

As it enters its fifth year of publication, ijCSCL has learned that it has been selected for coverage in Thomson Reuters products and services (formerly ISI). Beginning with Volume 3, Number 1, 2008, ijCSCL will be indexed and abstracted in the Web of Science under the following categories:

    * Social Sciences Citation Index®/Social Scisearch®
    * Journal Citation Reports/Social Sciences Edition
    * Current Contents®/Social and Behavioral Sciences

Because the journal was accepted starting with 2008, the first Impact Factor will be calculated for 2010, which will be published in June 2011.

This is the most prestigious form of indexing for academic journals. Universities and other institutions in many countries consider journals indexed by ISI to be top-rank publications in matters of tenure and promotion. It is rare for new journals to be accepted for indexing so quickly. ijCSCL has been considered the logical place to publish major contributions to the field of CSCL ever since it was founded by the CSCL community in 2006. However, now, the decision by ISI should mean that scholars working in the broader field will—even more than in the past—consider ijCSCL to be a premier publication venue.

ISI’s announcement is not only a tribute to the Editorial Board and many other reviewers who have worked hard to guide authors to meet high standards of academic publication. It is also due to the authors who took the risk to publish in a new journal and the readers who have subscribed through ISLS and supported the journal.

More than anything else, the journal’s increased stature is a clear and direct reflection of the maturing of the field of CSCL. The history of the field can be traced to a workshop in Maratea, Italy, in 1989. The establishment of a regular biannual CSCL conference in 1995 defined a persistent research community. With the 2001 conference in Maastricht and the 2005 conference in Taipei, as well as the founding of ISLS as a supporting institution, the community became self-consciously international and permanent. The Springer CSCL book series and the Springer ijCSCL journal provide crucial publication outlets specifically founded for this field. The decision by ISI is a further landmark in the growth of our field.
Volume 5, issue 1

The institutional maturation of the CSCL field is matched by developments in the field’s research and theory. This issue of the journal illustrates some of the changes.

This issue sees the publication of some substantial contributions—as partially reflected in their length. As Executive Editors, we are often asked how long a journal article should be, as though the goal was to produce a certain quantity of words. The answer is that the main consideration is to have something important to say, a significant contribution to the field. The length should be just enough to clearly express and support the claims—and no longer. A quick scan through the past four volumes shows that most articles averaged about twenty formatted journal pages. However, we are open to shorter articles: book reviews, notes, reports on international developments in CSCL. We are also open to longer articles, as in this issue: The first paper presents a complex framework that requires lengthy motivation, presentation, and illustration and the second paper reviews, with impressive thoroughness, one of the most extensive realms of research in CSCL. Neither of these papers is likely to strike the interested reader as verbose; they are just long enough to convey their message.

The articles in this issue illustrate some ways in which the CSCL field is maturing. They demonstrate a continuing breadth of concern with theory, methodology, pedagogy, technology, sub-domains, and empirical investigation. At the same time, they show a heightened level of self-reflection and a greater depth of analysis. In particular, they illustrate an intense and ongoing effort within this diverse multidisciplinary field to understand how research elaborated within incommensurate theoretical frameworks can contribute productively to a field with concerns in common.

This year’s opening article addresses the central problem of sequentiality in CSCL discourse: How are we to analyze, represent, and understand the ways in which one action takes up the contribution of a previous action in an online interaction? This temporal structure underlies the possibility of collaborative learning—of thought itself, whether individual or group—yet our theories and methods have not sufficiently focused on this fabric of interaction. Daniel D. Suthers, Nathan Dwyer, Richard Medina, and Ravi Vatrapu present the thinking of their lab in Hawaii over the past several years on this important theme.

One of the subareas of CSCL which has gotten perhaps the most attention is argumentation. A particularly clear way to look at collaborative learning is to study how people debate and argue about a claim. CSCL researchers have long and hard explored a variety of technologies for computer support of argumentation, looking both at helping students to learn to argue effectively and at using argumentation skills to learn collaboratively. Oliver Scheuer, Frank Loll, Niels Pinkwart, and Bruce M. McLaren have joined efforts from their AI labs in Germany and the US to undertake a comprehensive review of this extensive and productive effort by the CSCL community.

Structuring or scaffolding the sequential flow of student interactions has long been a central interest in CSCL, including supporting argumentation moves, scripting classroom discourse processes, or providing a selection of utterance categories (perhaps including labels, prompts, opening phrases). In their empirical analysis of the use of labeling under different conditions, Eva Mary Bures, Philip C. Abrami, and Richard F. Schmid of Canada argue that multiple forms of scaffolding may interfere with each other and that labeling should be designed flexibly so it can be tuned to the level of structure already existing in the educational activity.

On a theoretical and methodological level, the multidisciplinary field of CSCL has struggled with the substantial tensions, if not conflicts, between different approaches or even incommensurate paradigms in the work of different research groups. For instance, researchers in the cognitive science tradition favor quantitative studies aiming to measure the effects of mental representations of individuals, whereas researchers focused on situated interaction often opt for qualitative studies that reveal social practices, community participation, and group phenomena. There has been increasing discussion within the CSCL community about how to maintain a coherent and productive discourse with these diverse voices. Marc Clarà and Teresa Mauri of Spain close this issue of ijCSCL with the suggestion that multi-vocality in our field can be a healthy characteristic as long as we can find ways to bring the various findings into communication with each other. Focusing on content-analysis research, the authors identify three dimensions along which studies in this subfield of CSCL can be brought into dialectic relations with one another.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2010) The CSCL field matures. ijcscl 5 (1), pp. 1-3

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9077-5
Authors: J. van der Pol, W. Admiraal, P. R. J. Simons

Abstract: A system for “anchored discussion” is compared with a system for traditional forum discussion (Blackboard), and their collaborative and communicative affordances for the collaborative processing of academic texts are investigated. Results show that discussion in the system for anchored discussion is more directed at processing the meaning of texts than discussion in the traditional forum, which is more oriented towards the sharing of personal opinions and experiences. This difference in orientation produces a more constructive collaboration in the system for anchored discussion, versus a more debate-like collaboration in the forum discussion. Additionally, while messages in the traditional forum resemble usual discussion or email conversation and contain social and regulative comments, discussion in the system for anchored discussion is seen to be more efficient and “to-the-point.” We conclude that for collaborative text comprehension by undergraduate students, anchored discussion might be more suitable than traditional forum discussion. Finally, the observed differences can be explained by the stronger defined collaborative context in the system for anchored discussion, which focuses participants’ collaborative intentions and their frames of reference.

Keywords: CSCL, Anchored discussion, Annotation, Collaborative literature processing, Theory oriented discussion, Mutual understanding

Citation: van der Pol, J., Admiraal, W. & Simons, P. R. J. (2006) The affordance of anchored discussion for the collaborative processing of academic texts. ijcscl 1 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-9657-6
Authors: Maria Beatrice Ligorio, Giuseppe Ritella

Abstract: In this paper, we use the concept of chronotope to analyse the co-construction of spatial and temporal frameworks during collaborative interaction. A chronotope is a genre of movement or pacing in the space that participants adopt over the temporal duration of an activity. We look in particular at the conjunction point of time and space as revealing how collaboration works and what role is played by technology. Six sessions during which 10 teachers prepared a pedagogical scenario to be implemented in school were filmed and qualitatively analysed. The tempo of the activity was found to vary considerably depending on various factors, such as the features of the tools used, the aims of the activity, and the skills employed by the participants to achieve them. Three different tempos were identified, which we named, using a musical metaphor, Adagio, Andante, and Allegretto. Some representative excerpts of each of these tempos, and of the moving from one tempo to another, are selected and discussed. Our results allow an in-depth understanding of coordination within a group of teachers working on planning a common educational scenario for their classrooms with the mediation of a software tool.

Keywords: hronotope, Heterotopia, Teachers, Video analysis, Socio-constructivism, Bakhtin, Software supporting face-to-face interactio

Citation: Ligorio, M. B. & Ritella, G. (2010) The collaborative construction of chronotopes during computer-supported collaborative professional tasks. ijcscl 5 (4), pp.

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9094-4
Authors: Judith Schoonenboom

Abstract: This study focuses on how to support students who have to work together in small groups, and who do not know each other, in performing grounding discussion. It compares two different implementations of a script, one using a structured interface, one using a textual instruction, on students’ discussion behavior. The experiment involved two grounding discussions that were performed by 42 students from several countries, working together at a distance in small international groups of four to six students. Our main hypothesis was that the script would lead to better grounding discussions, and that the structured interface would strengthen the effect of the script. Several qualitative and quantitative analyses showed that (1) the script led to more and longer input to the discussion, more discussions, and the structured interface led to even longer inputs; (2) the script led to more effort on the grounding discussions, compared to other course components; and (3) the script led to better adherence to the order of course components, with the structured interface having an additional effect.

Citation: Schoonenboom, J. (2008) The effect of a script and an interface in grounding discussions. ijcscl 3 (3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9042-8
Authors: Murat Perit Çakir, Alan Zemel, Gerry Stahl

Abstract: In order to collaborate effectively in group discourse on a topic like mathematical patterns, group participants must organize their activities in ways that share the significance of their utterances, inscriptions, and behaviors. Here, we report the results of a ethnomethodological case study of collaborative math problem-solving activities mediated by a synchronous multimodal online environment. We investigate the moment-by-moment details of the interaction practices through which participants organize their chat utterances and whiteboard actions as a coherent whole. This approach to analysis foregrounds the sequentiality of action and the implicit referencing of meaning making—fundamental features of interaction. In particular, we observe that the sequential construction of shared drawings and the deictic references that link chat messages to features of those drawings and to prior chat content are instrumental in the achievement of intersubjectivity among group members’ understandings. We characterize this precondition of collaboration as the co-construction of an indexical field that functions as a common ground for group cognition. Our analysis reveals methods by which the group co-constructs meaningful inscriptions in the dual-interaction spaces of its CSCL environment. The integration of graphical, narrative, and symbolic semiotic modalities in this manner also facilitates joint problem solving. It allows group members to invoke and operate with multiple realizations of their mathematical artifacts, a characteristic of deep learning of mathematics.

Keywords: Group cognition, Interaction analysis, Dual-interaction space, Ethnomethodology, Indexicality, Mathematics education, Text chat, Visual reasoning, Common ground, Joint problem space

Citation: Çakir, M. P., Zemel, A. & Stahl, G. (2009) The joint organization of interaction within a multimodal CSCL medium. ijcscl 4 (2), pp. 115-149

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9061-0
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

Collaborative groups in context

Pierre Dillenbourg and Fabrice Hong bring our flash theme of scripting to a conclusion with a pedagogical design model for scripting classroom activities. Their theoretical framework for conceptualizing and structuring pedagogical scripts defines three primary social levels on which learning, interaction and knowledge building can take place: that of the individual student, the small workgroup and the class as a whole (including the teacher). An effective script not only works on a given level, but more importantly relates the activities at each level to each other to form an effective integrated pedagogical process. The authors propose their suggestive SWISH principle as a stimulus for collaborative learning. Collaboration, they argue, takes place most effectively in a relatively unconstrained small group process of peers working together to overcome some cognitive barrier to the shared accomplishment of a joint task. In order to set up the groups oriented to their tasks and to introduce the barriers without interfering with the self-directed nature of small-group collaboration, a script specifies how to form small groups and organize tasks while operating on the teacher-centered classroom level, and then “split when interaction should happen” (SWISH) onto the small-group level. Following the collaboration phase, the script then specifies individual- and class-level activities to share, solidify and internalize the knowledge building that took place in the groups. While supporting the idea that small-group interaction is key to collaborative learning, the article stresses the essential role of integrating that interaction in coherent processes involving individual and class activities as well. This recognition represents a major step forward for CSCL theory. The article provides a detailed analytic framework for thinking about and supporting this complex and often overlooked need for an effective pedagogy that integrates across social levels.

Another major pedagogical problem in many CSCL applications is that students and teachers often focus on procedural learning and minimize the conceptual learning that was intended by the curriculum designers. Ingeborg Krange and Sten Ludvigsen illustrate this problem in striking detail. In their case study, a computer system to support collaborative learning of genetic theory includes a table for identifying the DNA genetic codes of amino acids used to build proteins. It also includes a 3-D game interface for building a protein in a molecule-level virtual world and then using it in a human-level virtual world. The human-level game is supposed to motivate students to learn the science necessary to save a life, but instead distracts from the science altogether. During the problem-solving collaboration, most students are so focused on the game goal that they restrict the science learning to manipulating the information in the table without even allowing a curious student to ask what the symbols in the table are supposed to represent conceptually—i.e., how genes, amino acids and proteins are related. The game narrative distracts from, rather than motivates the science inquiry. The table artifact becomes an end-in-itself to manipulate, rather than a mediator for understanding connections among biological concepts. The authors argue that this common pedagogical problem in science education arose because of the way in which mediating tools at three social levels intersected in the concrete situation of this classroom: the school as curriculum deliverer, the knowledge domain (high school genetics) and the computer tool (a website with the table and the 3-D virtual world environment). Although the teacher and students enacted the joint task and their collaborative priorities together as a small group, they were situated in a context that included the institutional constraints of the school, the conceptualizations of the domain of biology and the pedagogical design embedded in the software. Without taking these multiple levels of constraints into account, one cannot expect CSCL activities to succeed in inspiring students with deep insights into contemporary understandings of genetics and other sciences.

The paper by Bernhard Nett looks at an even higher-level context for a CSCL application: a multi-institutional, inter-disciplinary consortium of the type becoming increasingly common, particularly within the European Union. A group of faculty from institutes of law, computer science and economics across Germany undertook the task of implementing innovative forms of CSCL for college education in “computers and law.” Nett’s analysis traces the emergence of a community of practice within the effort, in which the tutors associated with the project formed an effective small group that overcame serious institutional barriers to collaboration at the faculty level. Through both face-to-face and computer-mediated communication, the group of tutors proposed, implemented, refined and facilitated a MOO environment for use by the students. The tutor community generally played an important integrative role within the project, allowing the curriculum provided by the faculty to be effectively taken up—along with the MOO—by the student body. As seen in this analysis, a community of practice evolves through specific group processes, which cannot be scripted as part of an organizational plan, but which may play a crucial role in the success of a larger, more formal learning organization.
Quantitative and qualitative analysis on many levels

The typical levels within CSCL interventions, according to Dillenbourg and Hong, are: individual, small group and class. The analyses of these and other levels by Krange and Ludvigsen and by Nett are qualitative. It is also possible to conduct quantitative analyses of processes at these levels and of the interplay between levels. Ulrike Cress argues for the importance of conducting such studies and provides an in-depth introduction to a statistical method for analyzing the results. Multilevel analysis (MLM)—or hierarchical linear modeling (HLM)—is becoming increasingly popular in CSCL and related research, but is relatively complicated to conduct. It allows one to do regression analysis when individual subjects are nested in groups, as is usually the case in collaborative learning. If one tests individual students before and after some group activity, then the learning that may have taken place could be a function of the skills, backgrounds and efforts of the individuals, but it could also be a function of the interactions that took place within the groups. For instance, if one wants to test whether girls learned more than boys, that comparison would be confounded by whether each of the girls or boys was in a good group or a bad group. MLM separates the effects at different levels and reports how much of the variance is due to individual effects and how much to group effects. In order to do this, understandably but unfortunately, MLM requires larger sample sizes than are common in CSCL studies. Cress addresses this and other issues for adapting MLM to CSCL.

One technique to finesse the problem of larger sample sizes is to “fake” the group interaction so that all the individuals experience the same small-group processes. The experiment reported by Joachim Kimmerle and Ulrike Cress does just that. Over a hundred subjects were put into conditions with varying forms of social awareness about the actions of other members of their small group. The experiment subjected the participants to a classic information-exchange dilemma in which individuals had a disincentive to contribute their own knowledge to the group but benefited if the group was well-informed. Although subjects believed they were interacting with other subjects in small groups, the inputs from other members were simulated to standardize the group-level effects. The experiment was able to confirm its hypothesis about a group-level effect on the individuals without actually having real groups! In addition, finer analysis of the effects provided empirical evidence to refine the theoretical social psychology model behind the hypotheses.
Reviews in the first 2 years

From the founding of the journal to the time this issue was prepared for publication—basically during 2006 and 2007—354 reviews were completed, not counting meta-reviews by Executive and Associate Editors supervising the review processes. This resulted in 45 papers being accepted for publication and 63 papers being rejected out of a total of 128 submissions (there are currently 20 submissions in the review and revision pipeline). Following is a list of most of the reviewers involved; in many cases these reviewers sought the assistance of colleagues, who may not be included in this list:

Shaaron Ainsworth, Rick Alterman, Jerry Andriessen, Hans Christian Arnseth, Gerardo Ayala, Michael Baker, Daniel Bodemer, Jacqueline Bourdeau, Bertram Bruce, Amy Bruckman, Jürgen Buder, Murat Perit Cakir, John M. Carroll, Carol K. K. Chan, Tak-Wai Chan, Elizabeth Sandra Charles, Cesar Alberto Collazos, Charles Crook, Lucilla Crosta, Ton de Jong, Sharon Derry, Pierre Dillenbourg, Angelique Dimitrakopoulou, Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Paul Dourish, Nathan Dwyer, Noel Enyedy, Brian Foley, Andrea Forte, Hugo Fuks, Ricki Goldman, Jonathan Grudin, Frode Guribye, Jörg M. Haake, Päivi Häkkinen, Thomas Herrmann, Cindy E. Hmelo-Silver, Christopher Hoadley, Ulrich Hoppe, Christine Joyce Howe, James M. Hudson, Sanna Järvelä, Patrick Jermann, Richard Joiner, Christopher Jones, Regina Jucks, Yael Kali, Victor Kaptelinin, Manu Kapur, Andrea Kienle, Joachim Kimmerle, Paul A. Kirschner, Matthew J. Koehler, Timothy Koschmann, Thérèse Laferrière, Minna Helena Lakkala, Victor Lally, Mary Lamon, Nancy Law, Lasse Lipponen, Jacques Lonchamp, Chee-Kit Looi, Rose Luckin, Sten R. Ludvigsen, Kristine Lund, Andreas Lund, Johan Lundin, Richard Medina, Naomi Miyake, Anders Mørch, Daisy Mwanza-Simwami, Bonnie Nardi, Matthias Nückles, Hiroaki Ogata, Claire O'Malley, Jun Oshima, Roy Pea, Ruediger Pfister, Janet Read, Peter Reimann, Jochen Rick, Tim Sean Roberts, Markus Rohde, Jeremy Roschelle, Liam Rourke, Nikol Rummel, Nadira Saab, Johann W. Sarmiento, Tammy Schellens, Gregg Schraw, Baruch Schwarz, Anna Sfard, David Williamson Shaffer, Wesley Shumar, Amy Soller, Nancy Songer, Hans Spada, Marc Stadtler, Constance Steinkuehler, Jan-Willem Strijbos, Masanori Sugimoto, Daniel Suthers, Berthel Sutter, Gustav Taxén, Ramon Prudencio Toledo, Jan van Aalst, Ravi Kiran Vatrapu, Marjaana Veermans, Barbara Wasson, Jim Waters, Rupert Boudewijn Wegerif, Armin Weinberger, Gordon Wells, Martin Wessner, Tobin Frye White, Fatos Xhafa, Joyce Yukawa, Nan Zhou.

We apologize if any reviewer names were unintentionally missed. Note that having two executive editors and five associate editors to supervise the double-blind peer-review process allowed us to review the last two papers in this issue from the research lab that Friedrich Hesse directs without involving anyone from the lab in the reviewing or the acceptance decisions.

The high quality of the papers published in ijCSCL is largely attributable to the incisive critiques and suggestions from these reviewers and the openness of the authors to adopt most of the suggestions in a collaborative spirit. Almost no articles are published without extensive rewriting in response to the double-blind peer reviews exchanged through our electronic system. In this sense, the production of the journal is itself an effective exercise in computer-supported collaborative learning and community knowledge building.
Welcome to ijCSCL volume 3!

We anticipate an exciting year now that ijCSCL is well established. If you have a breakthrough paper for the CSCL research community, please submit it. If you have any questions about a potential submission or would like to join our world-class community of reviewers, contact us at info (at) ijcscl.org. Please make sure that your subscription is up to date by renewing your ISLS membership at www.isls.org. We look forward to seeing you June 24–28 at ICLS in Utrecht. 

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2008) The many levels of CSCL. ijcscl 3 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9036-y
Authors: Pierre Dillenbourg, Fabrice Hong

Abstract: Macro scripts structure collaborative learning and foster the emergence of knowledge-productive interactions such as argumentation, explanations and mutual regulation. We propose a pedagogical model for the designing of scripts and illustrate this model using three scripts. In brief, a script disturbs the natural convergence of a team and in doing so increases the intensity of interaction required between team members for the completion of their collaborative task. The nature of the perturbation determines the types of interactions that are necessary for overcoming it: for instance, if a script provides students with conflicting evidence, more argumentation is required before students can reach an agreement. Tools for authoring scripts manipulate abstract representations of the script components and the mechanisms that relate components to one another. These mechanisms are encompassed in the transformation of data structures (social structure, resources structure and products structure) between script phases. We describe how this pedagogical design model is translated into computational structures in three illustrated scripts.

Keywords: Scripts, Pedagogical design model

Citation: Dillenbourg, P. & Hong, F. (2008) The mechanics of CSCL macro scripts. ijcscl 3 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9033-1
Authors: Ulrike Cress

Abstract: Per definition, CSCL research deals with the data of individuals nested in groups, and the influence of a specific learning setting on the collaborative process of learning. Most well-established statistical methods are not able to analyze such nested data adequately. This article describes the problems which arise when standard methods are applied and introduces multilevel modelling (MLM) as an alternative and adequate statistical approach in CSCL research. MLM enables testing interactional effects of predictor variables varying within groups (for example, the activity of group members in a chat) and predictors varying between groups (for example, the group homogeneity created by group members’ prior knowledge). So it allows taking into account that an instruction, tool or learning environment has different but systematic effects on the members within the groups on the one hand and on the groups on the other hand. The underlying statistical model of MLM is described using an example from CSCL. Attention is drawn to the fact that MLM requires large sample sizes which are not provided in most CSCL research. A proposal is made for the use of some analyses which are useful.

Keywords: Multilevel models, Hierarchical linear models, Quantitative analysis for CSCL

Citation: Cress, U. (2008) The need for considering multilevel analysis in CSCL research — An appeal for the use of more advanced statistical methods. ijcscl 3 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9032-2
Authors: Diana Laurillard

Abstract: Collaborative technologies offer a range of new ways of supporting learning by enabling learners to share and exchange both ideas and their own digital products. This paper considers how best to exploit these opportunities from the perspective of learners’ needs. New technologies invariably excite a creative explosion of new ideas for ways of doing teaching and learning, although the technologies themselves are rarely designed with teaching and learning in mind. To get the best from them for education we need to start with the requirements of education, in terms of both learners’ and teachers’ needs. The argument put forward in this paper is to use what we know about what it takes to learn, and build this into a pedagogical framework with which to challenge digital technologies to deliver a genuinely enhanced learning experience.

Keywords: Learning theory, Collaborative learning, Pedagogy, Conversational Framework, Constructionism

Citation: Laurillard, D. (2009) The pedagogical challenges to collaborative technologies. ijcscl 4 (1), pp. 5-20

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9056-2
Authors: Annika Lantz-Andersson

Abstract: Students frame activities in school in specific ways which are fundamental for their learning and problem solving. The introduction of digital technology and multimedia applications leads to additional aspects to consider, creating a need for research on interaction and activities in relation to new tools. The aim of this study is to analyze how students frame computer-supported collaborative learning situations. The analytic agenda is based on sociocultural assumptions of learning. Data have been collected through video documentation of secondary school students’ interactions with educational software in mathematics. The results show that when the students work with task solving in educational software and “get stuck”, they negotiate how to understand the activity; sometimes they search for the answer in their own actions, and sometimes they consider the answer to be within the technology. Goffman’s concept of frameworks can be applied to understand this alternative as a continuous shift between employing social frameworks where the students themselves are playing an active role in the understanding of the task, and employing natural frameworks, where their difficulties are understood to be, in Goffman’s words, due to natural determinants, that is, to the design of the technology. The main conclusion is that, in interactional activities using digital technology, there is a possibility that the participants’ activities are framed in such a way that they do not consider themselves as being accountable for the lack of understanding of the educational content.

Keywords: Meaning making, Word problems, Problem solving, Digital tools, Multimedia tool, Framing, Frameworks, Agency

Citation: Lantz-Andersson, A. (2009) The power of natural frameworks: Technology and the question of agency in CSCL settings. ijcscl 4 (1), pp. 93-107

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9058-0
Authors: Andreas Lund, Ingvill Rasmussen

Abstract: Using Vygotsky’s notion of double stimulation as an analytical tool, we discuss the complex relationship between tasks, tools, and agency in CSCL environments. Empirically we examine how learners in a Norwegian senior high school class learning English as a foreign language approach and respond to an open-ended and collectively oriented task using a wiki. Our findings show that collectively oriented knowledge and language production takes place locally in small groups as well as in the larger collective of the class, and that learners find it difficult to maintain awareness of both levels of activity. However, when facing a breakdown in the wiki application, learners sustained strategies that carried many of the characteristics of collective production. We argue that there is a need to further theorize the task-tool relationship in activities involving collective knowledge production and that we need to align pedagogical as well as technological designs in order to give support for such efforts.

Keywords: Double stimulation, Wiki, Tasks, Collaborative knowledge construction

Citation: Lund, A. & Rasmussen, I. (2008) The right tool for the wrong task? Match and mismatch between first and second stimulus in double stimulation. ijcscl 3 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9050-8
Authors: Baruch B. Schwarz, Amnon Glassner

Abstract: Argumentative activity has been found beneficial for construction of knowledge and evaluation of information in some conditions. Many theorists in CSCL and some empiricists have suggested that graphical representations may help in this endeavor. In the present study, we examine effects of type of ontology and of synchronicity in students that engage intuitively, without training, in e-discussions. Fifty-four Grade 7 students from two classes participated in the study. We tested the effects of using an informal argumentative ontology and control over turn taking on the average number of claims and arguments relevant to the issue at stake, the average number of different types of references to peers (productive. etc.), and on the number of chat expressions (nicknames, swear words, etc.). We found that when providing both an informal argumentative ontology and control over turn taking, students express less chat expressions and fewer references that are not new relevant claims or arguments to their peers, but express more relevant claims and arguments. These findings suggest the immediate beneficial role of the combination of an informal ontology and control over turn taking in the co-elaboration of knowledge.

Keywords: Argumentation, Knowledge construction, E-discussions and learning

Citation: Schwarz, B. B. & Glassner, A. (2007) The role of floor control and of ontology in argumentative activities with discussion-based tools. ijcscl 2 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9024-2
Authors: Gerry Stahl

The collaborative group and its members

In his keynote at the CSCL 2007 conference, Gerhard Fischer cited Kipling’s verse on the dialectic of group and individual. This dialectic is necessarily a primary concern for any theory of CSCL. The current issue of ijCSCL addresses this theme in diverse ways. While some established disciplines privilege the individual and others the social, theories of collaborative learning must center on the dialectical relationship between them. Approaches like cultural-historical activity theory (Engeström 1999), actor-network theory (Latour 2007) and situated learning (Lave 1991) sketch their union in general terms. The papers in this issue take a more focused and applied approach, investigating the role of specific CSCL tools in mediating the relationship between individual and group.

If one accepts Vygotsky’s (1930/1978) principle that distinctively human cognitive skills are developed in groups (socially, inter-subjectively) first and only subsequently on that basis internalized into mental (individual, inner-subjective) abilities, then one can pose the fundamental CSCL question: How can technology be used to facilitate this intersubjective-to-individual process of collaborative learning? As we have discovered in past CSCL research, this is a complex problem. One must create and coordinate: (1) a group knowledge-building space, (2) a set of individuals engaged as a group and (3) channels of interaction between the social and personal systems. Structuration theory (Giddens 1984) generalizes the relationship between these levels, stating that each of us as individuals with our identities are products of socialization processes within a society which, however, as Marx (1852/1963, p. 15) pointed out, is made by people, “but they do not make it just as they please... but under circumstances directly encountered, given and transmitted from the past.” Stated more locally, action and interaction are radically situated in a reflexive way, with the situation created by and essentially including the behaviors for which it provides a context (Garfinkel 1967). Even the lone wolf draws its strength from origins in the pack.
The interplay between a community wiki and its individual contributors

The paper by Ulrike Cress & Joachim Kimmerle presents a conceptual framework for thinking about an evolving Wikipedia article as a communication system in interaction with the people who write and edit it. The individual authors are also conceptualized as systems, although in their cases as cognitive systems. The paper borrows its notion of system from Luhman’s influential work and pairs it up with Piaget’s seminal view of equilibration to characterize the interactions between systems. Each system—the wiki and the user—forms a system with boundaries distinguishing its identity from the outside. From the viewpoint of each system, information crosses its boundary from the other system and causes changes such as accommodation or assimilation. Whether or not one accepts these descriptions as adequate or considers the cognitive psychology perspective of the authors compatible with Luhman’s systems theory, one must see this paper as an unusually clear attempt to model the interaction between individuals in a group or community and the social artifact that embodies their collaborative knowledge.
Representing the group’s opinions to its members

Many people who analyze group processes in CSCL settings come up with the idea of feeding a representation of the processes back to the participants to guide their behavior. However, few of these researchers actually implement a system with such feedback, let alone measure the impact of such a feedback process. As we have seen in the flash theme on argumentation, continued in this issue, many CSCL systems have been concerned with how computer-mediated group discussion influences individual conclusions. Jürgen Buder & Daniel Bodemer study this in their paper. They show members of an online small group the opinions of other members on a topic being debated. Their study focuses on the influence of majority opinion and approaches this from a social-psychology perspective and methodology. Since its beginnings in the aftermath of fascism, social psychology has been critical of group cognition. It tends to emphasize negative possibilities of peer pressure, group-think and mob mentality rather than exploring how collaboration can be guided to positive outcomes. In this paper, the authors show how well-designed feedback can provide such guidance—e.g., by having participants rate the novelty of postings in order to increase the salience of minority views. This paper and the preceding wiki analysis provide nice examples of the effort by the group at the Knowledge Media Research Center in Tübingen (directed by Friedrich Hesse) to apply the methods and theories of cognitive psychology to studying the behavior of computer-supported collaborative groups.
Annotating individual perspectives within a group document

Joanna Wolfe touches on the flash theme of argumentation in CSCL by exploring how annotations can spark critical thought about a text. Anchored annotations—where reader comments are placed visually adjacent to referenced textual sources—have often been recommended by CSCL researchers. Here the author compares different annotation styles in lab settings. Her findings are reminiscent of Piaget’s concept of assimilation, where suggestions contrary to one’s opinions stimulate critical reflection. She argues that annotations can be most effective in fostering reconsideration of one’s opinions if the annotations are not only anchored but also selectively filtered to display just a couple of postings, representing conflicting perspectives. Of course, in such a quantitative and manipulated study, cognition tends to be taken as sets of fixed opinions of individuals rather than as results of the co-construction of meaning in group interaction. Although the lab studies reported do not reflect a strong sense of collaborative learning, they imply important lessons for individual and group learning in contexts of collaborative knowledge building, for they suggest that changes in individual ideas can be triggered and influenced by conflicting perspectives within a group.
Group practices to arrange individual arguments

Maarten Overdijk brings our flash theme of argumentation to a conclusion with the last paper from the original set of submissions coordinated by Dan Suthers. In this paper, the author problematizes the effect of technologies like scripts and computer-based work spaces for group argumentation. He insists that one sees how group practices emerge when a certain technology in a specific situation is appropriated (enacted) and reproduced (structuration) in group interaction. The paper provides a micro-analysis of how small groups of students visually organize their contributions in a graphical argumentation space. The particular characteristics of this collaboration medium force the students to adopt or invent procedures for placing their contributions next to each other. Different groups establish differing social practices and to various degrees negotiate or adopt group practices. The diverse appropriations of the technology both reflect and support varying degrees of collaboration or inter-animation of contributions from the members of the group. In the data provided in the paper, one can see that some teams develop group arguments through responses to each other while others mainly state individual beliefs, depending on their adoption of specific practices for communicating through the technological medium.
Individuals enact scripting of group processes

Pierre Tchounikine continues our flash theme on scripting, coordinated by Barbara Wasson. A macro-script, as defined in previous papers on this theme in ijCSCL, structures phases of the group process without interfering in the discourse that takes place within small groups during each phase. It may, for instance, specify how the groups are formed, what roles are assigned, which technologies and media are to be used, where the task is defined. All of these scripted factors can influence as well as enable the interaction of individuals within the structured group processes. Conversely, the script itself must be locally enacted and interpreted by involved individuals, such as students, teachers, researchers. As one reads this detailed paper, one realizes that there is an unlimited number of considerations entering into the process of operationalizing a macro script—and that these factors must be conceptualized in a flexible way to allow them to be adapted to concrete situations and people. The theme of scripting flashed up within a network of researchers steeped in computer science. Technology is central to their perspective. Although ideas like jigsawing groups of students originated in unmediated classroom practices, the scripting approach is particularly interested in ways to support theories, models, development tools, scripting and scripted interaction with computer software. In this way, the dialectic of lone wolf and pack becomes more complex in our case, transforming it into Vygotsky’s triangle of mediation involving technology as well as the personal and the social.
The CSCL book series as part of our group knowledge

Not so long ago, it was difficult for individuals to find and access the CSCL community’s research literature. Important contributions were scattered in diverse un-indexed journals, out-of-print edited volumes and unavailable conference proceedings. Thanks to efforts coordinated with ISLS, Springer, the ACM and others, things have improved dramatically. The first major advance was the establishment of a CSCL book series at Kluwer (now Springer), primarily for edited collections around specific themes. Then ijCSCL was founded explicitly to provide a home for new research publications on CSCL. CSCL conference papers have recently been made available in the ACM digital library. Of course, the world—driven by technological innovations—has also changed in the meanwhile, with increased copyright freedom for authors to make their publications available on the Web, well indexed by Google Scholar. In addition, overviews of CSCL research are available (Stahl et al. 2006; Strijbos et al. 2004), with CSCL-related books for sale on Amazon.

The leadership of the CSCL book series published by Springer has recently transitioned from Pierre Dillenbourg—the founding editor—to Naomi Miyake and Christopher Hoadley. Coincidently, Pierre, Naomi and Chris are all on the ijCSCL Board of Editors and have been active in many ways in the building of the CSCL community, cognitive science, the learning sciences and ISLS. Under Pierre’s editorship, the CSCL book series has published the following volumes covering many important themes in the CSCL research field:

   1. Arguing to Learn: Confronting Cognitions in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Environments. Andriessen, Jerry; Baker, Michael; Suthers, Daniel D. (Eds.). 2003.
   2. Designing for Change in Networked Learning Environments: Proceedings of the International Conference on Computer Support for Collaborative Learning 2003. Wasson, Barbara; Ludvigsen, Sten; Hoppe, Ulrich (Eds.). 2003.
   3. What We Know About CSCL: And Implementing It In Higher Education. Strijbos, Jan-Willem; Kirschner, Paul A.; Martens, Rob L. (Eds.). 2004.
   4. Advances in Research on Networked Learning. Goodyear, Peter; Banks, Sheena; Hodgson, Vivian; McConnell, David (Eds.). 2004.
   5. Barriers and Biases in Computer-Mediated Knowledge Communication: And How They May Be Overcome. Bromme, Rainer; Hesse, Friedrich W.; Spada, Hans (Eds.). 2005.
   6. Scripting Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Cognitive, Computational and Educational Perspectives. Fischer, Frank; Kollar, Ingo; Mandl, Hans; Haake, Jörge M. (Eds.). 2007.
   7. Dialogic Education and Technology: Expanding the Space of Learning. Wegerif, Rupert. 2007.
   8. The Teacher's Role in Implementing Cooperative Learning in the Classroom. Gillies, Robyn M.; Ashman, Adrian; Terwel, Jan (Eds.). 2008.
   9. The Role of Technology in CSCL. Hoppe, Ulrich H.; Ogata, Hiroaki; Soller, Amy (Eds.). 2008.
  10. Interactive Artifacts and Furniture Supporting Collaborative Work and Learning. Dillenbourg, Pierre; Huang, Jeffrey; Cherubini, Mauro (Eds.). 2009.
  11. Studying Virtual Math Teams. Stahl, Gerry (Ed.). 2009.

Conferences remain important community events to share among individuals the knowledge being pursued in research labs around the world. Enjoy ICLS 2008!
References

Engeström, Y. (1999). Activity theory and individual and social transformation. In Y. Engeström, R. Miettinen, & R.-L. Punamäki (Eds.) Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 19–38). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Garfinkel, H. (1967). Studies in ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.

Giddens, A. (1984). Elements of the theory of structuration. In A. Giddens (Ed.) The constitution of society (pp. 1–40). Oakland: University of California Press.

Kipling, R. (1894). The jungle book. London: Penguin.

Latour, B. (2007). Reassembling the social: An introduction to actor-network-theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Lave, J. (1991). Situating learning in communities of practice. In L. Resnick, J. Levine, & S. Teasley (Eds.) Perspectives on socially shared cognition (pp. 63–83). Washington, DC: APA.

Marx, K. (1852/1963). The eighteenth brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. New York: International.

Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., & Suthers, D. (2006). Computer-supported collaborative learning: An historical perspective. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.) Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp. 409–426). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press

Strijbos, J. W., Kirschner, P., & Martens, R. (2004). What we know about CSCL: And implementing it in higher education. Dordrecht: Kluwer.

Vygotsky, L. (1930/1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Citation: Stahl, G. (2008) The strength of the lone wolf. ijcscl 3 (2)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9041-9
Authors: Peter Reimann

Abstract: Although temporality is a key characteristic of the core concepts of CSCL—interaction, communication, learning, knowledge building, technology use—and although CSCL researchers have privileged access to process data, the theoretical constructs and methods employed in research practice frequently neglect to make full use of information relating to time and order. This is particularly problematic when collaboration and learning processes are studied in groups that work together over weeks, and months, as is often the case. The quantitative method dominant in the social and learning sciences—variable-centred variance theory—is of limited value for studying change on longer time scales. We introduce the event-centred view of process as a more generally applicable approach, not only for quantitative analysis, but also for providing closer links between qualitative and quantitative research methods. A number of methods for variable- and event-centred analysis of process data are described and compared, using examples from CSCL research. I conclude with suggestions on how experimental, descriptive, and design-oriented research orientations can become better integrated.

Keywords: Process analysis, Qualitative methods, Quantitative methods, Research methods

Citation: Reimann, P. (2009) Time is precious: Variable- and event-centred approaches to process analysis in CSCL research. ijcscl 4 (3), pp. 239-257

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9070-z
Authors: Marc Clarà, Teresa Mauri

Abstract: The research field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) includes a large variety of approaches which present significant theoretical and methodological differences. This diversity complicates the articulation of the knowledge that is produced within this investigative framework. The paper addresses this problem from a dialectic view. We propose that the main reason for this problem is not the theoretical and methodological diversity itself, but rather the difficulty of situating one specific result within this diversity in a way that makes dialectic relations between results visible and mutual transformation of the approaches possible. In the present paper, we propose a set of indicators, applicable to content analysis approaches, aimed to facilitate this reciprocal positioning of the results in the field. These indicators come from what we term “critical methodological aspects”: those aspects of the methodological infrastructure that are directly related to theoretical positions. We consider three critical methodological aspects in content analysis schemes: the units of analysis, the relations to be established, and the dimensions of analysis. Indicators regarding these aspects are proposed and defined, and their use for facilitating dialectical relations between results is exemplified by means of the examination of five specific approaches.

Keywords: SCL, Content analysis, Critical methodological decisions, Dialectic

Citation: Clarà, M. & Teresa, T. (2010) Toward a dialectic relation between the results in CSCL: Three critical methodological aspects of content analysis schemes. ijcscl 5 (1), pp. 117-136

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9078-4
Authors: Sinem Siyahhan, Sasha A. Barab, Michael P. Downton

Abstract: We implemented a five-week family program called Family Quest where parents and children ages 9 to 13 played Quest Atlantis, a multiuser 3D educational computer game, at a local after-school club for 90-minute sessions. We used activity theory as a conceptual and an analytical framework to study the nature of intergenerational play, the collaborative activity between parents and children in the context of role-playing virtual game environment, and the opportunities and challenges of bringing parents and children together around an educational video game. Our analyses of five parent-child dyads revealed that the nature of intergenerational play is different for different parent-child dyads, but has positive outcomes. Implications of the study for supporting family learning and bonding through video games are discussed.

Keywords: ollaborative problem solving, Informal learning environments, Intergenerational play, Parent-child interaction, Video game

Citation: Siyahhan, S., Barab, S. A., & Downton, M. P. (2010) Using activity theory to understand intergenerational play: The case of family quest. ijcscl 5 (4), pp.

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-010-9097-1
Authors: Christine Greenhow, Brad Belbas

Abstract: Trends in higher education have contributed to the need for more coordination and collaboration among different constituencies involved in instructional design and delivery. As researchers and educational technologists working in a large public research university, our research focuses on understanding the interactions among various stakeholder groups involved in e-Learning courses. In this paper we provide an interpretation of how Activity-Oriented Design Methods (AODM) based on Activity Theory can be used to develop a more comprehensive understanding of collaborative knowledge building practices among course design teams and their students. We also discuss how these methods can inform instructional design and development within distance education programs. In the absence of universally accepted methods for applying activity theoretical perspectives, these methods provide an analytic scheme for identifying the essential elements of an activity and for examining their interrelationships or contradictions, which are essential to improving the activity overall. The procedures described here have been used in a series of e-Learning case studies at our institution. We draw from one case to illustrate our interpretation of Activity-Oriented Design Methods. The themes discussed in this paper have implications for a broad audience of educational researchers, technologists, instructional systems designers, faculty, course assistants, and administrators concerned with examining and advancing collaboration among different groups in developing e-Learning.

Keywords: Activity theory, Collaboration, Course development, E-learning, Higher education, Qualitative methods

Citation: Greenhow, C. & Belbas, B. (2007) Using activity-oriented design methods to study collaborative knowledge-building in e-learning courses within higher education. ijcscl 2 (4)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9023-3
Authors: Nathalie Muller Mirza, Valérie Tartas, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont, Jean-François de Pietro

Abstract: In this paper we present a framework for analysing when and how students engage in a specific form of interactive knowledge elaboration in CSCL environments: broadening and deepening understanding of a space of debate. The framework is termed “Rainbow,” as it comprises seven principal analytical categories, to each of which a colour is assigned, thus enabling informal visualisation by the analyst of the extent to which students are engaging in interaction relating to potential achievement of its pedagogical goal. The categories distinguish between activities that are part of the prescribed assignment and activities that are not, and between task-focused and non-task-focused activities. Activities focused on managing the interaction itself are distinguished from argumentative interaction. Notably, an operational definition of what it means to broaden and deepen understanding in this case is also provided here. The functional Rainbow analysis is complemented by an analysis of topics and subtopics that enables identification of one form of conceptual deepening of the question. In comparison with existing analysis techniques, Rainbow synthesises much of what is known into a single framework, with a broad theoretical base. The usability and educational relevance of the framework has been validated experimentally across a variety of collaborative learning tasks and communication media. Possible and actual extensions to the framework are discussed, with respect to additional CSCL tools, domains and tasks.

Keywords: Argumentation, Collaborative learning, Debate, Interaction analysis, Methodology, Pedagogy

Citation: Mirza, N. M., Tartas, V., Perret-Clermont, A.-N., & de Pietro, J. F. (2007) Using graphical tools in a phased activity for enhancing dialogical skills: An example with Digalo. ijcscl 2 (2-3)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9022-4
Authors: Nina Bonderup Dohn

Abstract: In upper tertiary educational programmes around the world, the new Web-mediated communication practices termed Web 2.0 are introduced as learning activities with the goal of facilitating learning through collaborative knowledge construction. The aim of this paper is to point to discrepancies in the views of learning, knowledge, and the goals of the practice implicit in Web 2.0 and educational practices and to argue that these discrepancies lead to theoretical tensions and practical challenges when Web 2.0 practices are utilized for educational purposes. The article is structured into four main parts: First, Web 2.0 is characterized from a practice perspective. Second, some conceptual discrepancies between the "practice logics" of Web 2.0 and educational practices are identified. Third, the question of transcending the discrepancies is raised through a discussion of related pedagogical strategies. Fourth, it is argued that the conceptual discrepancies bear out in practice as concrete challenges concerning collaboration, evaluation, and the general aim and status of the material produced by students. These challenges are illustrated with examples from the author’s practical experience with Web 2.0-mediated learning activities in eight courses at the BA and MA levels.

Keywords: Web 2.0 in education, Concepts of knowledge, Concepts of learning, Practice logic, Body schema, Evaluation

Citation: Bonderup Dohn, N. (2009) Web 2.0: Inherent tensions and evident challenges for education. ijcscl 4 (3), pp. 343-363

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9066-8
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse
An Advance in the Field of CSCL

The start of a second year of ijCSCL marks a significant step forward in the history of the CSCL research field. The journal is not just a venue for academic papers, but a medium of discourse about new directions and new understandings within an active community exhibiting diverse perspectives.

The journal has not merely persisted for a full year/volume; it has been adopted by the CSCL community as an important voice. Almost a hundred papers have been submitted to the journal from around the world, covering all aspects of CSCL theory, methodology, technology and practice. A total of two hundred researchers have volunteered to be reviewers, including an illustrious Editorial Board of 42 people. Many of the submitted papers expand on exceptional presentations from CSCL conferences, workshops and research labs. The paper that won the “European CSCL Award for Excellence in the Field of CSCL Research” at January’s CSCL SIG rendezvous in the Swiss Alps (Arnseth & Ludvigsen, 2006) was published in ijCSCL.

Like a meeting or a conference, a journal can provide a place to communicate what is going on in a community. Meetings and conferences, however, permit certain kinds of informality and direct interaction with the audience. So it is natural to concentrate on meetings and conferences when a field like CSCL is starting to develop. When a journal becomes part of the community’s communications, more formal ways of presenting assumptions, theories and outcomes start to take prominence. Journal articles reflect more mature research efforts, more intense peer review and more rigorous editing than conference papers.

During the first year of ijCSCL, a highly engaged Editorial Board and additional reviewers from the field did an exceptional job of carefully reading the submitted papers and providing deep and detailed constructive advice to improve the papers. Virtually all published papers went through extensive critique and revision. Although it may not be visible to most readers, all papers had clearer organization and stronger arguments as a result of the review process — even though they may have been based on conference papers or dissertations that had already benefited from a great deal of review and editing. In addition, the many papers that could not be published in ijCSCL each received several detailed reviews, helping their authors to learn from the experience and to understand what was needed for future publication. In such ways, the journal also serves as a means for mutual assistance within the community — for community-based collaborative learning.

The journal is thus both an avenue of more formal communication than conferences and a special form of interaction between authors and reviewers. This kind of anonymous interaction and critique can be more frank and detailed than at a conference. If ijCSCL serves these dual purposes of publication and feedback, then its first anniversary marks a real start to advancing the field.
The CSCL Research Community Supports ijCSCL

As we start to publish our second volume of ijCSCL, the Board of Editors would like to thank all the members of the CSCL community who have supported the journal through its first year. The following researchers contributed reviews to ijCSCL to date:

Shaaron Ainsworth, Hans Christian Arnseth, Daniel Bodemer, Jürgen Buder, Murat Perit Cakir, John M. Carroll, Carol K.K. Chan, Elizabeth Charles, Cesar Alberto Collazos, Charles Crook, Lucilla Crosta, Lone Dirckinck-Holmfeld, Nathan Dwyer, Noel Enyedy, Brian Foley, Andrea Forte, Hugo Fuks, Frode Guribye, Päivi Häkkinen, Christine Joyce Howe, James Hudson, Patrick Jermann, Richard Joiner, Christopher Jones, Regina Jucks, Yael Kali, Victor Kaptelinin, Manu Kapur, Andrea Kienle, Minna Lakkala, Victor Lally, Nancy Law, Lasse Lipponen, Jacques Lonchamp, Rose Luckin, Johan Lundin, Richard Medina, Anders Mørch, Daisy Mwanza-Simwami, Jun Oshima, Ruediger Pfister, Janet Read, Peter Reimann, Jochen Rick, Tim Roberts, Nikol Rummel, Nadira Saab, Johann Sarmiento, Wesley Shumar, Jan-Willem Strijbos, Berthel Sutter, Gustav Taxén, Ramon Prudencio Toledo, Jan van Aalst, Ravi Vatrapu, Marjaana Veermans, Jim Waters, Rupert Boudewijn Wegerif, Gordon Wells, Martin Wessner, Tobin Frye White, Joyce Yukawa, Nan Zhou.

Along with the members of the Editorial Board, these reviewers not only determined what was selected to publish in the journal and gave valuable insights to all submitting authors, they also contributed significantly to guiding the major revisions through which all accepted papers passed before being published. In this way, the community establishes the content and tone of the journal.

We look forward to thanking you in person for your support and your interest in ijCSCL at the international conference of CSCL 2007 at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA, near New York City, July 16-21 (see http://www.isls.org/cscl2007 for details).
Flash Themes in CSCL

As mentioned in the introduction to issue 2 of volume 1, a number of workshops on topics in CSCL proposed developing special issues for ijCSCL. These were not topics solicited by the ijCSCL Editorial Board, but arose out of the work and concerns of practitioners. They are themes which “flashed” up in the field through a kind of spontaneous combustion of hot topics, stirred up by experiences in the wild. Responding to these openly and welcoming such suggestions has been a way for ijCSCL to give voice to the concerns of the field in a timely and flexible way and to stay at the leading edge of a rapidly evolving discipline.
This year, ijCSCL begins to publish papers on these flash themes. Reviews of papers on these themes are being coordinated by Associate Editors of ijCSCL (as indicated in parentheses below) in a move to broaden editorial responsibilities as the journal becomes more established. Future issues will include papers on the flash themes of:

    * Scripting in CSCL (reviews coordinated by Barbara Wasson)
    * Methods for Evaluating CSCL (Claire O’Malley)
    * Graphical Support for CSCL (Daniel D. Suthers)

In this issue, two papers on the theme of "Learning in Communities" are published. They arose out of a workshop by that name organized by Jack Carroll and Chris Hoadley at Penn State University (USA), August 14-17, 2006. The workshop was attended by 29 researchers, mostly from North America, and was sponsored by the NSF (grant IIS-0511198). A report on the workshop itself appeared previously in the Journal of Community Informatics (Carroll & Bishop, 2005). Six other papers derived from the workshop are under review for the Journal of CSCW. The workshop at Penn State built on related workshops at ICLS 2004 and CSCL 2005, which resulted in special issues in the ACM SigGroup Bulletin (Klamma, Rohde, & Stahl, 2004) and in Behavior & Information Technology (Rohde, Wulf, & Stahl, 2006).
Computer-Supported Community-Based Learning

Lave & Wenger (1991) brought home the importance of “communities of practice” (CoPs) for learning. In this issue, we have a pair of articles investigating the role of communities in learning within contemporary institutions. Together, they suggest a specific form of CSCL, where the term “collaborative” is specified as referring to collaboration that is “community based” in the sense of CoPs providing socio-cultural contexts in which collaborative learning can take place. They illustrate community-based learning related to the university and related to what in the USA are known as non-profit organizations and elsewhere as non-governmental organizations (NGOs). By publishing these articles, we bring considerations from CSCW (computer-supported cooperative work) and HCI (human-computer interaction) into the CSCL discussion.

Fischer, Rohde & Wulf elaborate on the concept of CoPs with distinctions that have developed in reaction to Lave & Wenger, distinguishing networks of practice and communities of interest from CoPs as variants. The community-based focus is a move within CSCL to the level of what Jones, Dirckinck-Holmfeld, & Lindström (2006) called the “macro-scale” in the first issue of ijCSCL. Here, a community is not only learning via computer-supported media, but they are also learning about how to design and use computer-supported “community-based” learning technology. In a transitional period for institutions of higher learning, when online learning threatens the viability and competitiveness of brick-and-mortar universities, it is timely to ask how residential research universities can develop unique and attractive approaches to computer-supported community-based learning by involving students in real-world research in academic labs and local industry.

Carroll & Farooq propose a middle layer of theoretical constructs they call frameworks, which mediate between general patterns and individual cases. Based on long experience working with non-profit community-based organizations struggling with computer technology, the authors want to formulate generalizations that will provide practical guidance in dealing with common problems that arise in this context. They draw on the idea of design patterns (Alexander, 1977) and the literature that has developed in computer science and CSCL based on Alexander’s approach. We may dispute the definition of pattern used here as a simplification of Alexander’s pattern languages and we may wonder if this sense of theory is strong enough for our field — as one reviewer did — but the authors seem to be pointing in a promising direction. Just as the nature of residential research universities in the age of distance education is in turmoil, voluntary and neighborhood-based organizations are threatened in the age of social fragmentation and globalization. In both cases, there seems to be no general solution; pattern languages of inter-related partial solutions generalized from multiple experiences and adaptable to concrete cases may provide the best solution.
Methods for Analyzing Collaborative Interaction

The theme of methodology is one that permeates discussions of CSCL and generates endless controversy. This is not a flash theme, but an enduring one. It probably plays a role in every issue of ijCSCL, not only this one.

To understand the nature of collaboration or a set of collaborative activities, one has to know about the various dimensions of interaction that take place. What are the key dimensions and how can they be measured or analyzed? Researchers in CSCL have tried to apply diverse theories and methodologies, many borrowed from established fields of social science research. The results are still heavily contested. This issue of ijCSCL features two articles that explicitly explore importing quantitative methodologies into CSCL in combination with complementary approaches.

Meier, Spada & Rummel differentiate as many as nine dimensions of interaction for quantitative analysis and assessment. They derived these through an interesting combination of bottom-up qualitative content analysis with generalization, refined through top-down theory-informed considerations. Operationalized for reliable application, these dimensions are then used to develop and successfully apply a rating scheme for assessing the quality of computer-supported collaboration processes among dyads of college students engaged in videoconferencing. It is suggested that such a ranking approach has advantages over coding for many research questions, while still allowing a quantitative comparison of alternative conditions.

A quite similar interest drives the paper by De Laat, Lally, Lipponen & Simons. They are interested in synthesizing and extending the understanding of patterns of collaboration in the context of networked learning or CSCL. They start with a general overview of the utility of social network analysis (SNA) in social science and in previous CSCL studies. Then they bring in content analysis and critical event recall as complementary tools. Their paper provides an additional example of the usability of SNA.

While the last two articles mentioned strive to produce quantitative support for generalization, the paper by Rourke & Kanuka argues explicitly for a qualitative approach as a way of gaining deeper insight into important CSCL phenomena. Much CSCL research aims to support discourse that stimulates critical thinking and even argumentation; much CSCL literature also bemoans the common failure of online discourse to achieve high levels of critical reflection, often using quantitative measures based upon coding, ranking or SNA, for instance. This paper adopts a “naturalistic paradigm” in which “realities are multiple, constructed and holistic … so that it is impossible to distinguish causes from effects.” It inquires into the life contexts of several students in an in-depth case study of online learning in order to explore the manifold and subtle barriers that mitigate the ideal of online critical discourse. Thereby, one catches a glimpse of personal factors that influence the diverse ways that individual students interact to co-construct reality, course materials and understandings of each other — factors that might well slip through the sieves of methods that aggregate data for the sake of generalized findings.

Perhaps the implication of the papers in this issue is that CSCL needs to promote the inter-animation of complementary quantitative and qualitative perspectives rather than hoping to converge on a single ideal method.
References

Alexander, C. (1977). A pattern language: Towns, buildings, construction. New York City, NY: Oxford University Press.

Arnseth, H. C., & Ludvigsen, S. (2006). Approaching institutional contexts: Systemic versus dialogic research in CSCL. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL), 1(2), 167-185.

Carroll, J. M., & Bishop, A. P. (2005). Special section on learning in communities. The Journal of Community Informatics, 1(2), 116-133. Retrieved from http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/article/view/335/243.

Jones, C., Dirckinck-Holmfeld, L., & Lindström, B. (2006). A relational, indirect and meso level approach to design in CSCL in the next decade. International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL), 1(1).

Klamma, R., Rohde, M., & Stahl, G. (2004). Special issue on: Community-based learning: Explorations into theoretical groundings, empirical findings and computer support. SigGroup Bulletin, 24(4), 1-100. Retrieved from http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/publications/journals/cbl.pdf.

Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rohde, M., Wulf, V., & Stahl, G. (2006). Special issue on: Computer support for learning communities. Behavior and Information Technology (BIT). Retrieved from http://www.cis.drexel.edu/faculty/gerry/pub/bit.pdf.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2007) Welcome to the future: ijCSCL volume 2. ijcscl 2 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9010-8
Authors: Ingeborg Krange, Sten Ludvigsen

Abstract: This article discusses the relationship between procedural and conceptual problem solving in a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment designed within the field of science education. The contribution of this article, and our understanding of this phenomenon, is anchored in our socio-cultural interpretation, and that implies distinctive inputs for the design and re-design of these kinds of learning environments. We discuss institutional aspects linked to the school as a curriculum deliverer, as well as to the presentation of the knowledge domain and the construction of the CSCL environment. The data is gathered from a design experiment in a science setting in a secondary school, and video data is used to perform an interaction analysis. More specifically, we follow a group of four secondary school students who solve a biological problem in a computer-based 3D model supported by a website. Our findings are clear in the sense that the procedural types of problem solving tend to dominate the students’ interactions, while conceptual knowledge construction is only present where it is strictly necessary to carry out the problem solving. Based on our analyses, we conclude that this can be explained partly by how the knowledge domain is presented and how the CSCL environment is designed, but that the main reason is linked to the institutional aspects related to the school as curriculum deliverer where its target is to secure that the students actually solve problems that are predefined in the syllabus list. We argue that this affords some particular challenges, linked to making conceptual knowledge constructions in science education explicit in the CSCL environment, and to encouraging the teachers and the school as a curriculum deliverer to give this kind of knowledge construction a prioritised value.

Keywords: Learning, Scientific concepts, Teacher intervention, Dialogical approach, Design experiment, Interaction analysis, Networked 3D learning environment, Computer-based 3D models, Website

Citation: Krange, I. & Ludvigsen, S. (2008) What does it mean? Students’ procedural and conceptual problem solving in a CSCL environment designed within the field of science education. ijcscl 3 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-007-9030-4
Authors: Johann Ari Larusson, Richard Alterman

Abstract: Prior research has highlighted the value of using wikis to support learning. This paper makes the case that the wiki has several properties that are particularly amenable for constructing applications that support the “collaborative” part of a variety and range of different time/different place student collaborations. In support of the argument, the paper presents the WikiDesignPlatform (WDP). The WDP supplies a suite of awareness, navigation, communication, transcription, and analysis components that provide additional functionality beyond the standard wiki feature set. Two case studies are presented, which have different coordination, communication, and awareness requirements for the “collaborative” part of the students’ collaborative learning activities. The evidence shows that under both conditions, a prefabricated wiki provides a sufficiently rich intersubjective space that adequately supports the students’ collaborative work.

Keywords: ikis, Asynchronous non-collocated collaborative learning, Coordinatio

Citation: Larusson, J. A. & Alterman, R. (2009) Wikis to support the “collaborative” part of collaborative learning. ijcscl 4 (4), pp. 371-402

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-009-9076-6
Authors: Gerry Stahl
CSCL in a more global context

As we begin to publish volume 4 of ijCSCL, the world has changed and the opportunities for CSCL have been transformed along with it. I am writing this introduction to our new journal volume in early November, immediately after the election of Barack Obama in the US and during a period of unprecedented economic volatility around the globe.
The recent events dramatically accentuate the rapid globalization of all aspects of life. In the US, we change from a parochial culture oriented toward America’s rural past to a government led by someone with personal roots in Africa and Asia and with a respect for ideas and collaboration. The economic crisis forces nations around the world to work together in order to pursue their own self-interest in a complexly intertwined and interdependent globe.
The US election—viewed by many as an election of international import—illustrates the importance of an educated population for democracy. Obama’s support came from the most educated regions of the country. His campaign emphasized argumentation and reason over emotion and faith. To follow the election process, one had to comprehend polling, statistics, sampling and economics. It also helped to be conversant with email, blogging and new computer interface displays. Just as John Dewey emphasized almost a century ago and as people in developing nations have seen repeatedly, education and democracy need to go forward together.
Despite the crushing pressure to address the economy, Obama still maintains his commitment to improving education in America. He wants to support schools, teachers and instructional technology in order to raise student test scores. This is where CSCL can provide new vision, tools and approaches. Research in the learning sciences confirms the importance of schools, teachers, technology and test scores, but demonstrates the need to go beyond these basic infrastructural elements. Students need to be engaged in constructing knowledge—for themselves and with their peers. They need to become involved in the cultures of knowledge building in various subject domains and to become conversant in the related media for expressing their own understandings.
CSCL offers innovative and powerful ways to take advantage of computer technology to provide new forms of learning. Too often, technology is viewed as a way of automating education and reducing costs, without changing the traditional view of education as the transfer of facts from an authoritative source to a relatively passive student’s memory. CSCL proposes new media to support new experiences for students, in which they can interact with other students in structured environments with well-conceived tasks to learn through exploration and discussion.
Although most CSCL systems are still experimental prototypes, once fully developed with all the supports needed for deployment they could provide effective learning environments to broad audiences of students. In doing so, they would even make it possible for students to collaborate across national borders, preparing them for an ever more global world.
Mature CSCL environments could be disseminated throughout the world, providing access for students inside and outside of schools to rich digital resources in productive interactional settings. The catch is that students, teachers, parents, schools and politicians all have to transform how they think about education so that they can appreciate and support the profound kinds of learning that can take place in CSCL experiences.
Some countries have begun to commit to constructivist and collaborative learning as appropriate to our global knowledge-building economy. It is up to CSCL researchers to continue to provide persuasive evidence for transforming our educational institutions in this direction. The attempt to promote progressive education has been frustratingly slow since Dewey first called for it. We still need curriculum, technologies, theories, models, documented successes and reproducible interventions.
The US has fallen behind recently, with its policy of “no child left untested.” At this juncture of history, it seems both hopeful and urgent to move in more collaborative directions. Can CSCL researchers make a difference and help education catch up to its historical mission internationally? Yes we can!
A framework for distinguishing learning approaches

As we prepare for CSCL 2009 in Rhodes, we publish a keynote from CSCL 2007 in New Brunswick. In her paper based on her keynote address, Diana Laurillard provides a theoretical framework for distinguishing instructionist, social, constructionist and collaborative learning—whether computer-supported or not. Such a framework can guide the design of technologies driven by the pedagogical requirements of collaborative learning. As the paper points out, educational technologies are often commercially available systems that were designed for the business and leisure markets, not in response to the specific needs of learning. They are generic communication media, perhaps bundled with record-keeping facilities to aid school administration. In contrast, the presented framework stresses the communicative needs of collaborative learners to access explanations, pose questions, offer conceptual understandings, set learning goals, repeat practice, reflect, discuss, debate, articulate and document their ideas. By spelling out pedagogical needs, such a framework provides a welcome basis for evaluating and comparing CSCL systems in terms of the important issues. It may be a useful tool for arguing that popular systems like smart-boards or Blackboard, as usually applied in classrooms, do not support specific desirable aspects of robust collaborative learning. It may suggest new techniques—not only technological functionality but also classroom practices.
The paradox of productive failure

If you look at the sequence of models of instructionist, social, constructionist and collaborative learning it is striking how they become increasingly complicated. Common-sense conceptions of instructionist learning paint a simple picture: Students are given facts and they store them for display on request; students either know the facts and can recall them in tests or they have not learned them. Collaborative learning is much messier than that: There are group processes, which are driven by contributions from group members and which may affect future performances by the individuals. In their paper, Manu Kapur & Charles Kinzer explore an interesting twist in the interplay of group and individual problem-solving performance. They confirm their earlier finding that Indian high school students who were in groups that failed to solve ill-structured physics problems later out-performed students who had been in groups that succeeded in solving well-structured problems. Failure in collaborative group knowledge building had a paradoxically positive learning effect in the longer run. From a Vygotskian perspective, this is not so surprising. Challenging ill-structured problems carefully selected in the zone of proximal development of the students provided an opportunity for the groups to develop problem-solving skills that the individual group members could subsequently internalize, individualize or make their own during post tests. The fact that these were purely peer groups—unlike in Vygotsky’s examples—accounts for the fact that they did not fully succeed in the purposefully out-of-reach goal, but they nevertheless forged significant steps in working on the problem. The paper’s authors engaged in extensive data analysis to confirm the experimental result of productive failure. However, as they point out, they did not conduct the kind of interaction analysis that might support their speculation about the micro-genetic processes that mediated between the “failed” group knowledge-building practices and the subsequent superior individual learning.
Do u wanna go 2 the moon?

The process of learning is no more confined to individuals and small groups than politics is confined by national boundaries. The study of CSCL has to include research into how knowledge is diffused through communities of practice. The paper by Deborah Fields & Yasmin Kafai reports on a connective ethnography of how pre-teenage newcomers to a virtual community learn about a desirable virtual meeting place called “the moon” and then find out how to get there. To document how community members are socialized into community practices like meeting on the moon, the researchers had to “connect” data from diverse ethnographic sources: server log data, video recordings, field notes and interviews. One implication of the study is that learning is an important part of participation in virtual communities; another is that such learning ranges across many settings, requiring data analysis at multiple units of analysis. Accordingly, the paper contributes to the argument that popular virtual environments for gaming and socializing are relevant sites for CSCL research. To support such research, the paper extends and demonstrates the use of connective ethnography in an online setting.
Scripting, modeling and elaborating

In this final contribution to the original set of papers on the ijCSCL flash theme of scripting, Nikol Rummel, Hans Spada & Sabine Hauser compare scripting to other approaches for training students in effective collaboration skills. Working with dyads each consisting of a medical student and a psychology student, they teach the dyads how to share their complementary expertise in various ways and then they test to see which way produced the best collaboration practices. In the scripting condition, dyads are given a series of precise instructions to follow and the dyads step through this. Alternatively, dyads in the modeling condition are presented with a video-recorded model dialog of a medical student and a psychology student effectively coordinating their work, managing their time and using their complementary knowledge for problem solving. Additional conditions were created where dyads using scripting or modeling were systematically prompted to engage in collaborative self-explanation. Along with a control condition without scripting, modeling or elaborating, this created five conditions to compare. The results raised doubts about scripting, and the paper discusses why this might be. One important consideration is that this experiment looked at the results after the scripted learning process, when the script supports were withdrawn; at that point it seemed that students had more lasting learning outcomes about how to collaborate by watching the video model—especially with prompted reflecting on it—than by being marched through a scripted process. Once more we see that collaborative learning is a complicated interplay between individual and group learning processes, which may not follow common-sense assumptions and folk theories.
The agency of the CSCL system

In an insightful case study, Annika Lantz-Andersson shows how students working in a CSCL environment may attribute their problems to the technology rather than to their own work. The example nicely demonstrates the complexity of assigning agency when interacting with an educational software system. People have an understanding of the way that computers respond, requiring inputs in specific rigid formats. So if a computer rejects a student response, it may be because the answer is not in the precise format required. On the other hand, the computer programming is quite opaque, so that a user cannot tell what requirements have been set up. Furthermore, teachers design problems differently when computers will be mediating the problem solving. Consequently, the students’ task of framing the problem context is quite complex. In a face-to-face situation with a teacher, a student simply has to guess what answer the teacher is looking for. If the student gives a partially correct response, the teacher is likely to indicate how the answer needs to be revised. In a computer-supported situation, the student not only has to guess at the teacher’s expectation, but also has to take into account that the teacher’s expectation is modified by the computer-supported context and that the computer response to a partially correct answer is likely to be inscrutable. In this case study, students collaborated—which allowed the researchers to observe their quandaries—but the software was not collaboration-support software. In a true CSCL context, the software would support the communication and collaboration, but would leave the assessment of the correctness of answers to people, avoiding the rigidity of simplistic testing, drilling or tutoring software. 

Citation: Stahl, G. (2009) Yes we can!. ijcscl 4 (1), pp. 1-4

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-008-9055-3
Authors: Gerry Stahl, Friedrich Hesse

A Journal of the Community

The launch of the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL) is a propitious step forward for the CSCL community: It heralds a transition of the field to a new level of academic maturity. It provides an appropriate communication medium and a selective knowledge archive for an increasingly global research network.

ijCSCL was proposed by the CSCL community and is sponsored by the International Society of the Learning Sciences (ISLS). The Board of Editors includes many leading CSCL researchers from around the world, and others participate as reviewers. Many of the articles in ijCSCL originate in papers at CSCL conferences and regional workshops.

This journal is committed to serving as an important communication vehicle of the growing CSCL community and cognate fields. As such, ijCSCL will contribute to our collaborative learning as a knowledge-building community of practice.
The First Ten Years of CSCL

The term computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) was first publicly coined at an international workshop in Maratea, Italy, in 1989. Since 1995, a biannual series of international CSCL conferences has been held in North America, Western Europe and most recently Asia. The 2005 CSCL conference held in Taiwan celebrated the tenth anniversary of the conference series with the theme, “CSCL: The Next Ten Years.” Most of the articles in this issue of ijCSCL are based on conference papers from there.

As the CSCL conference series evolved over the past ten years, an international community of researchers formed around it. Participants had professional roots in diverse fields, such as artificial intelligence, educational and cognitive psychology, software development, instructional design. While the conference proceedings served as boundary objects to tie this interdisciplinary community loosely together, more was felt to be needed. In recent years, a CSCL book series was launched through Springer and already offers five edited volumes. ijCSCL was proposed as an additional medium to support this fast-growing discipline.

Meanwhile, ISLS was founded to provide an institutional support for CSCL and other learning science conferences and journals. Along with the Journal of the Learning Sciences, ijCSCL is an official journal of ISLS. Another important factor in the development of the CSCL community has been the establishment of regional networks of CSCL researchers and local centers; the oldest of these is the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education in Canada and the largest is the CSCL SIG of Kaleidoscope in Europe. Such collaborative networks have been essential to progress in this field, and stand in the background of much of the work presented in this issue.
The Next Ten Years of CSCL

Establishing this journal, like holding the latest conference in Taiwan, reflects a strategy that aims to make the CSCL community fully international. We live in a global world and we learn together. The issues that confront the field of CSCL today are far too complex to be solved by individuals or small labs working independently. We must pool our resources, our insights and our findings. The journal’s mission is to share seminal innovations and proposals from around the world, so they can be taken up and collaboratively developed. This issue features contributions from Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Germany, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Over the next decade, ijCSCL will contribute to the development of the CSCL field by providing a peer-reviewed venue for the exchange of high-quality analyses and ideas. Although it is now well established as an academic specialty and as a leading-edge research domain, like all vigorous research fields CSCL faces many challenges in specifying its subject matter and approaches. The journal will help to define and project the field’s identity.

As a heritage of its interdisciplinary origins, CSCL research includes a mixture of theories, technologies and methodologies. Most of these were developed in different academic contexts and are tuned to conflicting sets of criteria. While it may have been feasible to make progress on CSCL problems during the first decade of the field’s existence from exclusively within an educational psychology perspective or using an artificial intelligence approach, it is less likely now. We have learned meanwhile that the issues are complex and intertwined. One must address system-building, instructional-design, experimental-analysis and other aspects simultaneously. The guiding theories, technologies, methodologies, curricula and classroom practices must co-evolve in orchestrated efforts.

This not only means that CSCL research must be practiced by collaborative research teams with diverse training, but also that we need to develop theory, technology, research methods and educational practices that are specific to CSCL, and not simply inherited. We need theories of collaborative interaction that are not necessarily based on individual learning models. We need technologies with specific supports for collaborative learning, not just generic communication media. We need methodologies that capture both micro-level interactions in small groups and community-level developments as mediated by social practices and by technical infrastructures. The articles in this issue start to move in such directions.
A Journal of the Future

The technology of knowledge dissemination is changing rapidly. An international journal of CSCL should be at the forefront of such change. Today, more academic research is conducted by Internet searches than by browsing a library’s back-room stacks. Research not readily available online is doomed to obscurity. Without losing sight of the importance of archival preservation, Open Access must be a priority. Through a unique arrangement with the prestigious academic press Springer, ijCSCL is able to make the full text of its articles freely available on the Web, indefinitely, while still publishing them electronically and in traditional hardcopy journal form.

All articles published in ijCSCL are subject to a rigorous peer review process, typically going through several rounds of revision at the direction of at least three Board members in order to bring out their most important contributions. Once a paper is officially accepted it is typeset, assigned a unique Digital Object Identifier (DOI) and posted on ijCSCL.org where it is permanently available for free. Subsequently, the final and official version is published on SpringerLink.com. Quarterly issues of the journal are printed and mailed to subscribers.

Springer is a leader in the field of academic publishing. They bring to this endeavor a wealth of experience and prestige, and they will continue to do so as the publishing industry evolves. Working together, ijCSCL, ISLS and Springer have developed a number of ways to make the journal accessible to the widest possible audience. ijCSCL is already included in Springer’s catalog of education journals, which is distributed to thousands of universities worldwide. Additionally, members of ISLS receive free electronic access and can choose to subscribe to ijCSCL as part of their membership fee at ISLS.org. Springer has an alert service at www.springerlink.com/alerting and various free access offers to selected electronic articles. These broad access efforts ensure that ijCSCL will be indexed and ranked highly by ISI and other relevant abstracting and indexing services.
Introducing the Inaugural Issue

In keeping with the Taiwan conference theme, “CSCL: The Next Ten Years,” volume 1, issue 1 of ijCSCL includes articles that propose new directions for the CSCL field. Topics range from reflections on the evolution of the CSCL community itself to innovative theoretical perspectives, pedagogical practices, research methodologies and technological developments.

These articles illustrate the variety of methods, theories and approaches active in contemporary CSCL work. They draw on research traditions, theoretical frameworks, quantitative measures, qualitative analyses, case studies and iterative trials to support their claims and proposals. In future issues, the scope will be broadened further by including more empirical studies based on classic experimental methodology. Rigorous scientific analyses from any approach that contribute to progress in CSCL are welcome. This issue features the following:
1. The CSCL Community in its First Decade

The journal opens with an analysis of the history and development of the CSCL research community. First, a variety of quantitative measures are applied to test prevailing notions about the nature and composition of the community. A key question has to do with continuity of membership: to what extent do attendees at one conference increase their level of participation in subsequent conferences and what is the effect of the high turnover of newcomers? Is the conference series really international; what factors influence its geographic mix? While certain trends emerge from the data, it is necessary to also incorporate qualitative analyses to gain a better understanding of the significance of these trends. The study provides an initial scientific look at CSCL as a research community and establishes a baseline for further investigation, but it also raises enduring methodological questions about how to assess such a fluid and multi-faceted community. It is suggestive of how to continue to deepen the international character of the community.
2. A Relational, Indirect, Meso-level Approach

Much CSCL research focuses on the individual learner or on local interactions in dyads and small groups. The role of technology is conceptualized as mediation by affordances of artifacts, which exist within socio-cultural contexts, influenced by relatively stable large-scale factors. This paper confronts these current views with theoretical challenges emerging from two European Union projects. It suggests that technologies like the Internet cannot be treated as simple artifacts, but form infrastructures at a meso level that mediate between people and social structures. Infrastructures are not objects with attributes, but are enacted in use in ways that help to evolve social edifices. Their relational character implies that design of CSCL technologies and interventions can only be indirect, establishing preconditions for educational opportunities, but not causally determining learning outcomes. This result has not only methodological implications, but ethical ones as well.
3. Student Assessment of Collaborative Inquiry

Perhaps the most vexing issue today in transforming instruction into collaborative knowledge building is how to assess student benefits. If learning takes place through the group, classroom or community, then how can outcomes be measured or credit assigned? In a clever twist, this research has students in Hong Kong schools analyze and assess the knowledge building that takes place in their own classrooms, with a certain emphasis on their own individual involvement. Assessment thereby merges with meta-cognition and promotes deeper learning for both group and individual. This research earned the best paper award at the Taiwan conference; it is part of a long-term research agenda related to the work of Scardamalia and Bereiter, who were there given the lifetime achievement award for their seminal contributions to CSCL. The paper uses quantitative quasi-experimental statistical results to support its claims, as well as qualitative analysis and case study examples to convey a more detailed understanding of these results.
4. A Scholarship of Application

The conventional assumption is that scientific research must result in a generalizable discovery of new knowledge. However, in a new and interdisciplinary scientific community it is also important to integrate existing knowledge from other fields, with appropriate adaptation. This paper proposes yet another form of valuable work in the learning sciences: Exploring how a technology can be applied in a spectrum of situations. The applicability of specific technologies to the support of collaborative learning is not a binary question. Interestingly, this paper demonstrates both the potential and the limitations of wiki technology for CSCL. Within the same university with the same tech support, the use of wikis succeeded easily in certain subject matters and classroom cultures but failed in others. The authors explore in detail the reasons for this and the potential for overcoming the barriers in certain cases.
5. Evolving a Chat Tool to Increase Understanding

Instant messaging, SMS and chat are widely popular among students for socializing one-on-one. In principle, chat technology has the potential to support many-to-many communication for collaborative learning activities, overcoming the requirements of face-to-face interaction for turn-taking and physical presence. However, active chat sessions involving more than three or four participants become confusing and straining. The design-based research reported here undertook many iterations of re-design to respond to the problem of chat confusion. Each attempt led to new insights into the problem and ideas for technical responses. The research agenda spanning several years follows a systematic path of iterative inquiry and CSCL technology design evolution, tested in a Brazilian classroom setting. Thereby, the chat tool is successively modified to overcome the major barriers of this medium and to free chat to become an important technology for collaborative learning.
6. A Dialogical Understanding of Teaching Thinking Skills

It is now popularly accepted that success in the contemporary world requires creative, sophisticated thinking skills, and not just the mastery of accepted facts and proven rules. Theoretical analysis of the nature of higher-order thinking skills ties them fundamentally to dialogic understanding as described in this final article. Thereby, it argues for the centrality of collaborative learning. A series of case studies illustrates the point that many core thinking skills of individuals are actually derived from dialogic skills of small groups of people interacting and collaborating. The skills include dealing effectively with multiple, potentially incompatible perspectives and complex problems that have no clear solution paths or final answers. The notion of teaching thinking skills rather than facts is re-conceptualized in terms of a dialogic model, bringing theoretic coherence to an important but hitherto ad hoc area of study. Perhaps these are the kinds of thinking skills needed in CSCL research itself, developed at the niveau of scientific methodology.

Citation: Stahl, G. & Hesse, F. (2006) ijCSCL — a Journal for Research in CSCL. ijcscl 1 (1)

DOI: 10.1007/s11412-006-7867-6
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	overwriteWarning: "'%0' 已存在,[確定]覆寫之",
	unsavedChangesWarning: "注意! 尚未儲存變更\n\n[確定]存檔,或[取消]放棄存檔?",
	confirmExit: "--------------------------------\n\nTiddlyWiki 以更改內容尚未儲存,繼續的話將遺失這些更動\n\n--------------------------------",
	saveInstructions: "SaveChanges",
	unsupportedTWFormat: "未支援此 TiddlyWiki 格式:'%0'",
	tiddlerSaveError: "儲存文章 '%0' 時,發生錯誤。",
	tiddlerLoadError: "載入文章 '%0' 時,發生錯誤。",
	wrongSaveFormat: "無法使用格式 '%0' 儲存,請使用標准格式存放",
	invalidFieldName: "無效的欄位名稱:%0",
	fieldCannotBeChanged: "無法變更欄位:'%0'",
	loadingMissingTiddler: "正從伺服器 '%1' 的:\n\n工作區 '%3' 中的 '%2' 擷取文章 '%0'",
	upgradeDone: "已更新至 %0 版\n\n點擊 '確定' 重新載入更新後的 TiddlyWiki"});

merge(config.messages.messageClose,{
	text: "關閉",
	tooltip: "關閉此訊息"});

merge(config.messages,{
	backstage: {
		open: {text: "控制台", tooltip: "開啟控制台執行編寫工作"},
		close: {text: "關閉", tooltip: "關閉控制台"},
		prompt: "控制台:",
		decal: {
			edit: {text: "編輯", tooltip: "編輯 '%0'"}
		}}});

merge(config.messages,{
	listView: {
		tiddlerTooltip: "檢視全文",
		previewUnavailable: "(無法預覽)"}});

merge(config.messages,{
	dates: {
	months: ["一月", "二月", "三月", "四月", "五月", "六月", "七月", "八月", "九月", "十月", "十一月", "十二月"],
	days: ["星期日", "星期一","星期二", "星期三", "星期四", "星期五", "星期六"],
	shortMonths: ["一", "二", "三", "四", "五", "六", "七", "八", "九", "十", "十一", "十二"],
	shortDays: ["日", "一","二", "三", "四", "五", "六"],
	daySuffixes: ["st","nd","rd","th","th","th","th","th","th","th",
		"th","th","th","th","th","th","th","th","th","th",
		"st","nd","rd","th","th","th","th","th","th","th",
		"st"],
	am: "上午",
	pm: "下午"}});

merge(config.messages.tiddlerPopup,{ 
	});

merge(config.views.wikified.tag,{
	labelNoTags: "未設標籤",
	labelTags: "標籤: ",
	openTag: "開啟標籤 '%0'",
	tooltip: "顯示標籤為 '%0' 的文章",
	openAllText: "開啟以下所有文章",
	openAllTooltip: "開啟以下所有文章",
	popupNone: "僅此文標籤為 '%0'"});

merge(config.views.wikified,{
	defaultText: "",
	defaultModifier: "(未完成)",
	shadowModifier: "(預設)",
	dateFormat: "YYYY年0MM月0DD日",
	createdPrompt: "建立於"});

merge(config.views.editor,{
	tagPrompt: "設定標籤之間以空白區隔,[[標籤含空白時請使用雙中括弧]],或點選現有之標籤加入",
	defaultText: ""});

merge(config.views.editor.tagChooser,{
	text: "標籤",
	tooltip: "點選現有之標籤加至本文章",
	popupNone: "未設定標籤",
	tagTooltip: "加入標籤 '%0'"});

merge(config.messages,{
	sizeTemplates:
		[
		{unit: 1024*1024*1024, template: "%0\u00a0GB"},
		{unit: 1024*1024, template: "%0\u00a0MB"},
		{unit: 1024, template: "%0\u00a0KB"},
		{unit: 1, template: "%0\u00a0B"}
		]});

merge(config.macros.search,{
	label: " 尋找",
	prompt: "搜尋本 Wiki",
	accessKey: "F",
	successMsg: " %0 篇符合條件: %1",
	failureMsg: " 無符合條件: %0"});

merge(config.macros.tagging,{
	label: "引用標籤:",
	labelNotTag: "無引用標籤",
	tooltip: "列出標籤為 '%0' 的文章"});

merge(config.macros.timeline,{
	dateFormat: "YYYY年0MM月0DD日"});

merge(config.macros.allTags,{
	tooltip: "顯示文章- 標籤為'%0'",
	noTags: "沒有標籤"});

config.macros.list.all.prompt = "依字母排序";
config.macros.list.missing.prompt = "被引用且內容空白的文章";
config.macros.list.orphans.prompt = "未被引用的文章";
config.macros.list.shadowed.prompt = "這些隱藏的文章已預設內容";
config.macros.list.touched.prompt = "自下載或新增後被修改過的文章"; 

merge(config.macros.closeAll,{
	label: "全部關閉",
	prompt: "關閉所有開啟中的 tiddler (編輯中除外)"});

merge(config.macros.permaview,{
	label: "引用連結",
	prompt: "可存取現有開啟之文章的連結位址"});

merge(config.macros.saveChanges,{
	label: "儲存變更",
	prompt: "儲存所有文章,產生新的版本",
	accessKey: "S"});

merge(config.macros.newTiddler,{
	label: "新增文章",
	prompt: "新增 tiddler",
	title: "新增文章",
	accessKey: "N"});

merge(config.macros.newJournal,{
	label: "新增日誌",
	prompt: "新增 jounal",
	accessKey: "J"});

merge(config.macros.options,{
	wizardTitle: "增訂的進階選項",
	step1Title: "增訂的選項儲存於瀏覽器的 cookies",
	step1Html: "<input type='hidden' name='markList'></input><br><input type='checkbox' checked='false' name='chkUnknown'>顯示未知選項</input>",
	unknownDescription: "//(未知)//",
	listViewTemplate: {
		columns: [
			{name: 'Option', field: 'option', title: "選項", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Description', field: 'description', title: "說明", type: 'WikiText'},
			{name: 'Name', field: 'name', title: "名稱", type: 'String'}
			],
		rowClasses: [
			{className: 'lowlight', field: 'lowlight'}
			]}
	});

merge(config.macros.plugins,{
	wizardTitle: "擴充套件管理",
	step1Title: "- 已載入之套件",
	step1Html: "<input type='hidden' name='markList'></input>", // DO NOT TRANSLATE
	skippedText: "(此套件因剛加入,故尚未執行)",
	noPluginText: "未安裝套件",
	confirmDeleteText: "確認是否刪除所選套件:\n\n%0",
	removeLabel: "移除 systemConfig 標籤",
	removePrompt: "移除 systemConfig 標籤",
	deleteLabel: "刪除",
	deletePrompt: "永遠刪除所選套件",

	listViewTemplate : {
		columns: [
			{name: 'Selected', field: 'Selected', rowName: 'title', type: 'Selector'},
			{name: 'Tiddler', field: 'tiddler', title: "套件", type: 'Tiddler'},
			{name: 'Description', field: 'desc', title: "說明", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Version', field: 'Version', title: "版本", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Size', field: 'size', tiddlerLink: 'size', title: "大小", type: 'Size'},
			{name: 'Forced', field: 'forced', title: "強制執行", tag: 'systemConfigForce', type: 'TagCheckbox'},
			{name: 'Disabled', field: 'disabled', title: "停用", tag: 'systemConfigDisable', type: 'TagCheckbox'},
			{name: 'Executed', field: 'executed', title: "已載入", type: "Boolean", trueText: "是", falseText: "否"},
			{name: 'Startup Time', field: 'startupTime', title: "載入時間", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Error', field: 'error', title: "載入狀態", type: 'Boolean', trueText: "錯誤", falseText: "正常"},
			{name: 'Log', field: 'log', title: "紀錄", type: 'StringList'}
			],
		rowClasses: [
			{className: 'error', field: 'error'},
			{className: 'warning', field: 'warning'}
			]}
	});

merge(config.macros.toolbar,{
	moreLabel: "+",
	morePrompt: "顯示更多工具列命令",
	lessLabel: "-",
	lessPrompt: "隱藏部份工具列命令",
	separator: "|"
	});
	
merge(config.macros.refreshDisplay,{
	label: "刷新",
	prompt: "刷新此 TiddlyWiki 顯示"
	});
	
merge(config.macros.importTiddlers,{
	readOnlyWarning: "TiddlyWiki 於唯讀模式下,不支援導入文章。請由本機(file://)開啟 TiddlyWiki 文件",
	wizardTitle: "自其他檔案或伺服器導入文章",
	step1Title: "步驟一:指定伺服器或來源文件",
	step1Html: "指定伺服器類型:<select name='selTypes'><option value=''>選取...</option></select><br>請輸入網址或路徑:<input type='text' size=50 name='txtPath'><br>...或選擇來源文件:<input type='file' size=50 name='txtBrowse'><br><hr>...或選擇指定的饋入來源:<select name='selFeeds'><option value=''>選取...</option></select>",
	openLabel: "開啟",
	openPrompt: "開啟檔案或",
	openError: "讀取來源文件時發生錯誤",
	statusOpenHost: "正與伺服器建立連線",
	statusGetWorkspaceList: "正在取得可用之文章清單",
	errorGettingTiddlerList: "取得文章清單時發生錯誤,請點選「取消」後重試。",
	step2Title: "步驟二:選擇工作區",
	step2Html: "輸入工作區名稱:<input type='text' size=50 name='txtWorkspace'><br>...或選擇工作區:<select name='selWorkspace'><option value=''>選取...</option></select>",
	cancelLabel: "取消",
	cancelPrompt: "取消本次導入動作",
	statusOpenWorkspace: "正在開啟工作區",
	statusGetTiddlerList: "正在取得可用之文章清單",
	step3Title: "步驟三:選擇欲導入之文章",
	step3Html: "<input type='hidden' name='markList'></input><br><input type='checkbox' checked='true' name='chkSync'>保持這些文章與伺服器的連結,便於同步後續的變更。</input><br><input type='checkbox' name='chkSave'>儲存此伺服器的詳細資訊於標籤為 'systemServer' 的文章名為:</input> <input type='text' size=25 name='txtSaveTiddler'>", 
	importLabel: "導入",
	importPrompt: "導入所選文章",
	confirmOverwriteText: "確定要覆寫這些文章:\n\n%0",
	step4Title: "步驟四:正在導入%0 篇文章",
	step4Html: "<input type='hidden' name='markReport'></input>", // DO NOT TRANSLATE
	doneLabel: "完成",
	donePrompt: "關閉",
	statusDoingImport: "正在導入文章 ...",
	statusDoneImport: "所選文章已導入",
	systemServerNamePattern: "%2 位於 %1",
	systemServerNamePatternNoWorkspace: "%1",
	confirmOverwriteSaveTiddler: "此 tiddler '%0' 已經存在。點擊「確定」以伺服器上料覆寫之,或「取消」不變更後離開",
	serverSaveTemplate: "|''Type:''|%0|\n|''網址:''|%1|\n|''工作區:''|%2|\n\n此文為自動產生紀錄伺服器之相關資訊。",
	serverSaveModifier: "(系統)",

	listViewTemplate: {
		columns: [
			{name: 'Selected', field: 'Selected', rowName: 'title', type: 'Selector'},
			{name: 'Tiddler', field: 'tiddler', title: "文章", type: 'Tiddler'},
			{name: 'Size', field: 'size', tiddlerLink: 'size', title: "大小", type: 'Size'},
			{name: 'Tags', field: 'tags', title: "標籤", type: 'Tags'}
			],
		rowClasses: [
			]}
	});

merge(config.macros.upgrade,{
	wizardTitle: "更新 TiddlyWiki 核心程式",
	step1Title: "更新或修補此 TiddlyWiki 至最新版本",
	step1Html: "您將更新至最新版本的 TiddlyWiki 核心程式 (自 <a href='%0' class='externalLink' target='_blank'>%1</a>)。 在更新過程中,您的資料將被保留。<br><br>請注意:更新核心可能不相容於其他套件。若對更新的檔案有問題,詳見 <a href='http://www.tiddlywiki.org/wiki/CoreUpgrades' class='externalLink' target='_blank'>http://www.tiddlywiki.org/wiki/CoreUpgrades</a>",
	errorCantUpgrade: "j無法更新此 TiddlyWiki. 您只能自本機端的 TiddlyWiki 檔案執行更新程序",
	errorNotSaved: "執行更新之前,請先儲存變更",
	step2Title: "確認更新步驟",
	step2Html_downgrade: "您的 TiddlyWiki 將自 %1 版降級至 %0版。<br><br>不建議降級至較舊的版本。",
	step2Html_restore: "此 TiddlyWiki 核心已是最新版 (%0)。<br><br>您可以繼續更新作業以確認核心程式未曾毀損。",
	step2Html_upgrade: "您的 TiddlyWiki 将自 %1 版更新至 %0 版",
	upgradeLabel: "更新",
	upgradePrompt: "準備更新作業",
	statusPreparingBackup: "準備備份中",
	statusSavingBackup: "備份檔案",
	errorSavingBackup: "備份檔案時發生問題",
	statusLoadingCore: "核心程式載入中",
	errorLoadingCore: "載入核心程式時,發生錯誤",
	errorCoreFormat: "新版核心程式發生錯誤",
	statusSavingCore: "正在儲存新版核心程式",
	statusReloadingCore: "新版核心程式載入中",
	startLabel: "開始",
	startPrompt: "開始更新作業",
	cancelLabel: "取消",
	cancelPrompt: "取消更新作業",
	step3Title: "已取消更新作業",
	step3Html: "您已取消更新作業"
	});

merge(config.macros.sync,{
	listViewTemplate: {
		columns: [
			{name: 'Selected', field: 'selected', rowName: 'title', type: 'Selector'},
			{name: 'Tiddler', field: 'tiddler', title: "文章", type: 'Tiddler'},
			{name: 'Server Type', field: 'serverType', title: "伺服器類型", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Server Host', field: 'serverHost', title: "伺服器主機", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Server Workspace', field: 'serverWorkspace', title: "伺服器工作區", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Status', field: 'status', title: "同步情形", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Server URL', field: 'serverUrl', title: "伺服器網址", text: "檢視", type: 'Link'}
			],
		rowClasses: [
			],
		buttons: [
			{caption: "同步更新這些文章", name: 'sync'}
			]},
	wizardTitle: "將你的資料內容與外部伺服器與檔案同步",
	step1Title: "選擇欲同步的文章",
	step1Html: '<input type="hidden" name="markList"></input>', // DO NOT TRANSLATE
	syncLabel: "同步",
	syncPrompt: "同步更新這些文章",
	hasChanged: "已更動",
	hasNotChanged: "未更動",
	syncStatusList: {
		none: {text: "...", display:null, className:'notChanged'},
		changedServer: {text: "伺服器資料已更動", display:null, className:'changedServer'},
		changedLocally: {text: "本機資料已更動", display:null, className:'changedLocally'},
		changedBoth: {text: "已同時更新本機與伺服器上的資料", display:null, className:'changedBoth'},
		notFound: {text: "伺服器無此資料", display:null, className:'notFound'},
		putToServer: {text: "已儲存更新資料至伺服器", display:null, className:'putToServer'},
		gotFromServer: {text: "已從伺服器擷取更新資料", display:null, className:'gotFromServer'}
		}
	});

merge(config.macros.annotations,{
	});

merge(config.commands.closeTiddler,{
	text: "關閉",
	tooltip: "關閉本文"});

merge(config.commands.closeOthers,{
	text: "關閉其他",
	tooltip: "關閉其他文章"});

merge(config.commands.editTiddler,{
	text: "編輯",
	tooltip: "編輯本文",
	readOnlyText: "檢視",
	readOnlyTooltip: "檢視本文之原始內容"});

merge(config.commands.saveTiddler,{
	text: "完成",
	tooltip: "確定修改"});

merge(config.commands.cancelTiddler,{
	text: "取消",
	tooltip: "取消修改",
	warning: "確定取消對 '%0' 的修改嗎?",
	readOnlyText: "完成",
	readOnlyTooltip: "返回正常顯示模式"});

merge(config.commands.deleteTiddler,{
	text: "刪除",
	tooltip: "刪除文章",
	warning: "確定刪除 '%0'?"});

merge(config.commands.permalink,{
	text: "引用連結",
	tooltip: "本文引用連結"});

merge(config.commands.references,{
	text: "引用",
	tooltip: "引用本文的文章",
	popupNone: "本文未被引用"});

merge(config.commands.jump,{
	text: "捲頁",
	tooltip: "捲頁至其他已開啟的文章"});

merge(config.commands.syncing,{
	text: "同步",
	tooltip: "本文章與伺服器或其他外部檔案的同步資訊",
	currentlySyncing: "<div>同步類型:<span class='popupHighlight'>'%0'</span></"+"div><div>與伺服器:<span class='popupHighlight'>%1 同步</span></"+"div><div>工作區:<span class='popupHighlight'>%2</span></"+"div>", // Note escaping of closing <div> tag
	notCurrentlySyncing: "無進行中的同步動作",
	captionUnSync: "停止同步此文章",
	chooseServer: "與其他伺服器同步此文章:",
	currServerMarker: "\u25cf ",
	notCurrServerMarker: "  "});

merge(config.commands.fields,{
	text: "欄位",
	tooltip: "顯示此文章的擴充資訊",
	emptyText: "此文章沒有擴充欄位",
	listViewTemplate: {
		columns: [
			{name: 'Field', field: 'field', title: "擴充欄位", type: 'String'},
			{name: 'Value', field: 'value', title: "內容", type: 'String'}
			],
		rowClasses: [
			],
		buttons: [
			]}});

merge(config.shadowTiddlers,{
	DefaultTiddlers: "[[GettingStarted]]",
	GettingStarted: "使用此 TiddlyWiki 的空白範本之前,請先修改以下預設文章:\n* SiteTitle 及 SiteSubtitle:網站的標題和副標題,顯示於頁面上方<br />(在儲存變更後,將顯示於瀏覽器視窗的標題列)。\n* MainMenu:主選單(通常在頁面左側)。\n* DefaultTiddlers:內含一些文章的標題,可於載入TiddlyWiki 後的預設開啟。\n請輸入您的大名,作為所建立/ 編輯的文章署名:<<option txtUserName>>",
	MainMenu: "[[使用說明|GettingStarted]]\n\n\n版本:<<version>>",
	OptionsPanel: "這些設定將暫存於瀏覽器\n請簽名<<option txtUserName>>\n (範例:WikiWord)\n\n <<option chkSaveBackups>> 儲存備份\n <<option chkAutoSave>> 自動儲存\n <<option chkRegExpSearch>> 正規式搜尋\n <<option chkCaseSensitiveSearch>> 區分大小寫搜尋\n <<option chkAnimate>> 使用動畫顯示\n----\n [[進階選項|AdvancedOptions]]",
	SiteTitle: "我的 TiddlyWiki",
	SiteSubtitle: "一個可重複使用的個人網頁式筆記本",
	SiteUrl: '',
	SideBarOptions: '<<search>><<closeAll>><<permaview>><<newTiddler>><<newJournal " YYYY年0MM月0DD日" "日誌">><<saveChanges>><<slider chkSliderOptionsPanel OptionsPanel "偏好設定 \u00bb" "變更 TiddlyWiki 選項">>',
	SideBarTabs: '<<tabs txtMainTab "最近更新" "依更新日期排序" TabTimeline "全部" "所有文章" TabAll "分類" "所有標籤" TabTags "更多" "其他" TabMore>>',
	StyleSheet: '[[StyleSheetLocale]]',
	TabMore: '<<tabs txtMoreTab "未完成" "內容空白的文章" TabMoreMissing "未引用" "未被引用的文章" TabMoreOrphans "預設文章" "已預設內容的隱藏文章" TabMoreShadowed>>'
});

merge(config.annotations,{
	AdvancedOptions: "此預設文章可以存取一些進階選項。",
	ColorPalette: "此預設文章裡的設定值,將決定 ~TiddlyWiki 使用者介面的配色。",
	DefaultTiddlers: "當 ~TiddlyWiki 在瀏覽器中開啟時,此預設文章裡列出的文章,將被自動顯示。",
	EditTemplate: "此預設文章裡的 HTML template 將決定文章進入編輯模式時的顯示版面。",
	GettingStarted: "此預設文章提供基本的使用說明。",
	ImportTiddlers: "此預設文章提供存取導入中的文章。",
	MainMenu: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕左側主選單的內容",
	MarkupPreHead: "此文章的內容將加至 TiddlyWiki 文件的 <head> 段落的起始",
	MarkupPostHead: "此文章的內容將加至 TiddlyWiki 文件的 <head> 段落的最後",
	MarkupPreBody: "此文章的內容將加至 TiddlyWiki 文件的 <body> 段落的起始",
	MarkupPostBody: "此文章的內容將加至 TiddlyWiki 文件的 <body> 段落的最後,於 script 區塊之後",
	OptionsPanel: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的選項面板裡的內容",
	PageTemplate: "此預設文章裡的 HTML template 決定的 ~TiddlyWiki 主要的版面配置",
	PluginManager: "此預設文章提供存取套件管理員",
	SideBarOptions: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中選項面板裡的內容",
	SideBarTabs: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的頁籤面板裡的內容",
	SiteSubtitle: "此預設文章的內容為頁面的副標題",
	SiteTitle: "此預設文章的內容為頁面的主標題",
	SiteUrl: "此預設文章的內容須設定為文件發佈時的完整網址",
	StyleSheetColors: "此預設文章內含的 CSS 規則,為相關的頁面元素的配色。''勿修改此文'',請於 StyleSheet 中作增修",
	StyleSheet: "此預設文章內容可包含 CSS 規則",
	StyleSheetLayout: "此預設文章內含的 CSS 規則,為相關的頁面元素的版面配置。''勿修改此文'',請於 StyleSheet 中作增修",
	StyleSheetLocale: "此預設文章內含的 CSS 規則,可依翻譯語系做適當調整",
	StyleSheetPrint: "此預設文章內含的 CSS 規則,用於列印時的樣式",
	TabAll: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的「全部」頁籤的內容",
	TabMore: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的「更多」頁籤的內容",
	TabMoreMissing: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的「未完成」頁籤的內容",
	TabMoreOrphans: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的「未引用」頁籤的內容",
	TabMoreShadowed: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的「預設文章」頁籤的內容",
	TabTags: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的「分類」頁籤的內容",
	TabTimeline: "此預設文章的內容,為於螢幕右側副選單中的「最近更新」頁籤的內容",
	ToolbarCommands: "此預設文章的內容,為顯示於文章工具列之命令",
	ViewTemplate: "此預設文章裡的 HTML template 決定文章顯示的樣子"
	});
//}}}