Collaborative Knowledge Building Research Articles

Social, constructivist and informal learning processes: together on the Edge for designing digital game-based learning environments

The theoretical conceptions of game-based learning are different from those of traditional instruction. Indeed, the classical approaches of needs and task analysis seem to be not appropriate for designing digital serious games as computer-supported collaborative learning environments. This paper aimed at arguing that social, constructivist and informal learning processes provided accurate frameworks for analyzing needs, activities, and outcomes for designing digital serious games. After focusing on the epistemic assumptions of such theoretical frameworks, this paper described the digital serious game Cibopolis as case study, able to grasp different learning processes, involving players as learners in collaborative participation and knowledge building on nutrition and healthy lifestyle. Especially, the context, the training goal, the adopted learning solutions and the main features of the designed Cibopolis game were specified. Then, the results of the pilot test involving young learners (N=65; Range of Age=14-32 years old) was briefly reported. Specifically, it was pointed out how learners perceived the Cibopolis game in term of usability and engagement. To conclude, some relevant theoretical issues concerning digital game-based learning environments and practical implications that could support IT professionals – such as, instructional designers, developers, web designers, and so on – were highlighted.

THE CONCEPT OF TECHNOLOGY SUPPORTED FACE-TO-FACE COLLABORATIVE LEARNING VIA DIGITAL INTERACTIVE AUDIO CAPTURING TOOL

This paper shares the researcher’s experience in employing the technology supported face-to-face collaborative learning. In achieving this, a digital interactive audio capturing tool (DIACT) was used to digitally capture the interactive event of collaborative learning among English as second language (ESL) teacher trainees in a “Computer Integrated Classroom” (CiC) environment. Having merely online learning of computer support which ignores the elements of face-to-face (F2F), the impact of “collaboration” seems seriously lacking. With the emergence of DIACT in a CiC environment, the researcher attempts to see how those co-located ESL teacher trainees manage to effectively communicate face-to-face and collaborate among themselves to build knowledge. The interaction was captured and transferred to computer assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) to be analyzed for evidence of impactful knowledge building. Findings indicated that the use of DIACT in a F2F CiC environment has significantly helped students in collaborative knowledge building.

The role of e‐portfolios in supporting productive learning

Abstracte‐Portfolios are a form of authentic assessment with formative functions that include showcasing and sharing learning artifacts, documenting reflective learning processes, connecting learning across various stages and enabling frequent feedback for improvements. This paper examines how e‐portfolios take up these formative roles to support productive learning. Qualitative findings from interviews with selected first‐year undergraduate students at a higher education institution in Hong Kong are reported concerning students' experiences of constructing e‐portfolios as assessment tasks. As part of an institutional teaching and learning initiative, e‐portfolios were incorporated into three core courses for first‐year students. The findings reveal that several conditions necessary to foster productive learning were missing in students' experiences: strengthened formative role of e‐portfolios through coherent assessment design; encouragement for students' pursuit of authentic tasks to develop learning interests; engagement of students in reflective and self‐regulative learning as an essential learning process; provision of constructive feedback for sustained learning support; and support for students' autonomy through facilitation of collaborative knowledge building. By explicating how the lack of these conditions impeded students' active involvement in e‐portfolio tasks and suggesting relevant strategies for teachers at the institution in question, this paper offers implications for harnessing information and communication technology (ICT) to support students' productive learning.

College Students Constructing Collective Knowledge of Natural Science History in a Collaborative Knowledge Building Community

This study investigates whether engaging college students (n = 42) in a knowledge building environment would help them work as a community to construct their collective knowledge of history of science and, accordingly, develop a more informed scientific view. The study adopted mixed-method analyses and data mainly came from surveys and student online discourse recorded in a database. Findings indicate that students’ knowledge building activities were conducive to the development of their online collaboration as a learning process and the effective collective knowledge work concerning natural science history as a learning outcome. Moreover, students were able to attain a more constructivist-oriented epistemic view that sees scientific theories as invented, tentative, and improvable objects. Finally, based on course reflection, students also regarded their collective learning experiences in this course as meaningful and productive.

Rethinking the Impact of Activity Design on a Mobile Learning Trail: The Missing Dimension of the Physical Affordances

This paper investigates the relationship between activity design and discourse on a mobile learning trail, considering the physical affordances of the real world platform in designing contextual learning experiences. We adopted a context-oriented and process-oriented pedagogical approach in designing the mobile learning trail conducted at Singapore Sentosa Island. Activities were categorized into performative and knowledge-generative on a continuum from well-structured to ill-structured activities. To examine the impact of activity design on discourse types, all audio-recorded verbal data of the three groups of secondary students was analysed with respect to two key dimensions in the knowledge construction process, namely, the epistemic and the social. Analysis showed that activity types and physical affordances of the learning environment have a definitive bearing on group discursive moves. Importantly, the presence of a real world context could generate critical thinking and collaborative knowledge building even for mundane performative activities when they are embedded with unforeseen contextual variables. We argue that the design of activity and the degree of its structuredness, and the assumed desired learning outcomes, are very much subjected to the affordances of physical and social resources in the mobile learning environment-a missing dimension that could possibly be overlooked and understudied.

Mediamorphosis and Beyond: Mass Media on Social Networks between Use and Abuse: A SWOT Analysis

Changes in contemporary media landscape are going rapidly more than the ability of scholars to study and theorise. The growth of media presence on web generates many questions. These dramatic changes raise fundamental questions about where new media come from and what their impact will be on existing media. Mediamorphosis is a theory that tries to understand these kinds of changes in media. The core idea of this theory is that media are ‘complex, adaptive systems’ which respond to the changes in media landscape. But after years of this theory, it should be reevaluated and searched to discover what are implications beyond this theory. Depending on mass media practices especially on the sphere of social networks, this study will try to evaluate these practices and clarify the most prominent issues which are brought to the scene. The study depends on qualitative longitudinal (QLL) observation as a research tool; 36 mass media Facebook pages were tracked and observed for 24 months starting at 1st October 2011 till 30th September 2013. The sample was selected according to the most ranked Facebook pages in Egypt; some of them were included after the start of study according to their rapid popularity. The results show there is a good chance for mass media to build and develop Facebook pages on their brand names and gain popularity for their traditional media format. But on the other hand, these practices represent a great threat to the essence of SNS itself and always lead them to lose its role as collaborative knowledge building tool and as social place. Some theoretical models were highlighted and discussed; some other models were developed; cultural contexts were considered.

Four Stages of Research on the Educational Use of Ubiquitous Computing

In this paper, the Gartner Group's hype cycle is used as the basis for categorizing and analyzing research on the educational use of ubiquitous computing. There are five phases of the hype cycle: the technology trigger, the peak of inflated expectations, the trough of disillusionment, the slope of enlightenment, and the plateau of productivity. Research on the educational use of mobile technology is divided in this paper into four stages: (i) a period of mobility and personal digital assistants (PDAs); (ii) the era of wireless internet learning devices; (iii) the introduction of social mobile media; and (iv) a ubiquitous future. In addition, three empirical case studies are used as examples of these developmental stages. These case studies demonstrate the diversity of contexts, methods, and technologies used, ranging from the workplace to nature trails, from inquiry learning to collaborative knowledge building, and from PocketPCs to smartphones. The four stages of educational use in the context of the hype cycle and the case studies together emphasize that pedagogically grounded instructional design is needed to put emergent technologies to effective use to promote learning skills, namely self-regulated learning and collaboration, and to prepare people for the 21st century learning society.

Learning and Teaching Scholarship: Discovery across Disciplines

This article describes a community of practice in learning and teaching scholarship, spanning the social sciences, humanities and creative arts disciplines in an Australian university. Those in formal leadership roles for learning and teaching have adapted the integrated approach, which involves collaborative learning through practice, research, reflection and discovery. Using a comparative personal narrative methodology, we focus on stories of leading curriculum development and implementation. First, we explain the aims of the community of practice, in establishing a colloquial space to explore stories from practice in different disciplinary group contexts. Second, we present three stories from our practice, illustrating the influence of the disciplines on our leadership practice and language. Third, we compare the approaches, outcomes and reflections in the three contexts, with further reflection upon the implications of building relationships between disciplinary world views in the social sciences, humanities and creative arts. The article highlights that interdisciplinary thinking is integral to making creative connections for collaborative knowledge building, in exploring the scholarship of learning and teaching across disciplines.

Labelling contributions made in university forums: comparing the use of compulsory and optional scaffolds in specific forum environments

Virtual forums are commonly used in higher education, yet they do not always yield desirable results. This study analyses whether the students' contributions are more elaborate when the categorisation of their messages prior to making a contribution is compulsory rather than optional. Using a coding scheme based on Stahl's (2000) model of collaborative knowledge building, the content of messages from 30 forums in different subjects was analysed. The results show that processes of explanation are used the most. In contrast, negotiations and formalisation are used very little, if at all. Furthermore, the results highlight that compulsory - as opposed to optional - assignation of a scaffold prior to making a contribution does not make discourse any more elaborate. However, it is confirmed that students learn merely by having labels available for use. Consequently, we suggest that scaffolds and other cognitive and communicative tools be incorporated into general forums.

Design Research on Group Metacognition Tool in Computer- Supported Collaborative Learning

This paper proposes the design principles that can help instructional designers develop group metacognition tool in computer-supported collaborative learning environment. By the literature review, the design principles was made. Using the design research method, this study analyzed collaborative knowledge building models such as cognitive process theory of writing model, knowledge transforming model, paired writing model, inquired those design principles for supporting the group metacognition in computer-supported collaborative learning environment, and concluded as follows: planning cues in which plans-to-do and plans-to-say.

MOOCs e interazioni collaborative: l’esperienza in «Sapienza»

MOOCs and Collaborative Interactions: the Experience at «Sapienza» University Nowadays, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are a means to reach, inform and train a large number of users. In the last few years several universities around the world have begun to provide free online courses on very different topics. «Sapienza» University has started up a collaboration with «Coursera», by delivering two MOOCs in the «Coursera» platform last year. Early educational research on this field identified two different MOOC typologies, based on the pedagogical approach adopted: connectivist versus behavioral; courses delivered by the major MOOC companies were charged to adopt a behavioral approach, considering learning as mere knowledge transmission instead of knowledge building. In this paper we wish to present the two courses delivered by «Sapienza» University, analyzing both participation and results, with particular emphasis on forum interactions and tutoring styles among teachers. Courses supposedly designed to deliver content and assess knowledge acquisition proved to be able to encourage and support students’ active and collaborative knowledge building, simply by adding forums with or without teacher management. In this way, the courses could change from being mere knowledge providers to real collaborative learning environments.

Reflections on a process model for international research collaboration in social work

This article seeks to reflect on knowledge and experiences gained from an International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES). Challenges and opportunities inherent in the development and management of a large-scale international research project in social work are explored. Through a synthesis of conceptual frameworks a process model for international research collaboration is constructed based chiefly on the stages of group development, a conceptual framework for cross-national research, an interdisciplinary teamwork process and collaborative knowledge building. The five stages of the process model, namely forming, norming, storming, performing and adjourning and associated steps are connected by a practice of reflexivity.

Elementary Students’ View of Collaborative Knowledge Building in LearningVillages

LearningVillages (LV) is an online game-based virtual learning environment. It aims at facilitating elementary students to pursue social inquiry learning and hence attain collaborative knowledge building (CKB). LV operates in the form of massively multi-player online role-play gaming. Different villages in this “virtual world” represent different societal issues. To embark on the development of a village, students have to inquire collaboratively into the issue therein. Besides delineating the pedagogical design of LV, this paper also discusses our quantitative study on investigating the CKB affordance of this educational innovation from the student perspective (involving 229 elementary students in Hong Kong). Results showed that LV brought desirable CKB experience to the students in general. On top of that, we found the students with low academic achievement held a more positive perception (i.e. the affordance of LV in facilitating CKB) than the students with high and moderate achievement did.

중장년층의 디지털 커뮤니케이션 역량 강화를 위한 스마트러닝 모델 적용

중장년층이 온라인상에서 활발히 일어나고 있는 협력적 지식구축과 문제해결 과정에 참여하도록 하기 위해서는 커뮤니케이션의 역량 강화가 필요하다. 이를 위하여 'K 기관'의 학습자를 대상으로 변화실험실을 실시하여 중장년층의 디지털 커뮤니케이션 역량 강화를 위한 스마트러닝 모델을 적용하였다. 연구결과, 중장년층의 디지털 커뮤니케이션 역량 강화를 위한 스마트러닝 모델은 디지털커뮤니케이션의 세 가지 영역인 디지털미디어의 도구적 활용, 창의적 생산 활동, 사회적 상호작용을 구성요소로 개발되었다. 각각은 스마트 패드 사용법 익히기, 앱을 이용한 자기 진단, 앱을 이용한 포스터 제작, 역할극 동영상 제작, 의사소통 게임 및 SNS활용하기 등으로 적용되었다. 본 논문은 다양한 배경과 미디어 사용 경험을 가진 중장년층을 테스트베드로 활용함으로써 그들의 요구를 효율적으로 반영하는 스마트 러닝의 설계방법을 제시했다는 데 의의가 있다. The capability of the digital communication would need to be strengthened for leveraging collaborative knowledge building and problem solving skills of the middle aged people. It was developed and implemented a smart learning model by utilizing the formative intervention based on the logic of change laboratory to target learners of 'K organization', As a results, smart learning model was composited several activities and supporting systems such as learning instructions of Smart Pad, communication games and SNS, using self-diagnosis and making posters and role-playing video by the internet applications. This research is significant that it finds efficient method to fit design of smart learning and the needs of target learners by using them as testbed which is mixed with different background and digital communication experiences.

Accountability for Project-Based Collaborative Learning

One perspective model for the creation of the learning environment and engendering students’ thinking development is the Project-Based Collaborative Learning (PBCL) model. This model organizes learning by collaborative performance of various projects. In this paper we describe an approach to enhancing the PBCL model through the creation of result-based accountability. Enhancing the model results in organizing PBCL as a two-phase process creation of accountability for the students and their learning results, with specific formation of a knowledge heterogeneous collaborative group, and the design of a learning assessment system. The teacher is accountable for teaching the subject through a sample project realized during the first phase of the process. Collaborative performance through group projects is realized in the second phase of PBCL. Student accountability for performance of determined project tasks is created on the basis of self-assessment of knowledge. A collaborative group is formed as a result of the coordination of personal accountabilities of students, taking into account teacher requirements providing students’ shared accountability in performance of a group project. The learning assessment system includes: the initial formative assessments when studying a subject according to knowledge levels, inducing the building of higher-order knowledge; self-assessment that allows student accountability for learning outcomes; assessment knowledge built by students, owing to collaborative project performance; assessments when studying a subject; assessments of collaborative skills and accountability skills, and combined summative assessments. The approach promotes the collaborative building of knowledge, facilitation of knowledge sharing among students, and effective construction of higher-order thinking skills, collaborative skills, and accountability skills.

Engaging individual learning through collaborative knowledge building processes: a hybrid framework

The globalisation of engineering teams has increasingly demanded technologies that support collaboration and knowledge sharing while also respecting the cultural and cognitive differences of individual team members. Existing collaborative knowledge building systems apply a one-size-fits-all approach to knowledge building, allowing individuals to contribute to collective knowledge but overlooking individual knowledge backgrounds, learning styles, and information needs; a hybrid framework is needed to apply the activities and benefits of collaborative knowledge building to an individual’s acquisition of knowledge. A system based upon such a framework encourages team members to share knowledge, resources, insights and opinions collaboratively, thus providing a rich experience of discussion, co-discovery and innovation. At the same time, these shared resources and discussions can be filtered to a personal learning space in which each individual team member can further explore and reflect on the resources best suited to his current understanding, experience, cultural background and, most importantly, knowledge needs.

Pedagogy-driven design of digital learning ecosystems

In most cases, the traditional Web-based learning management systems (e.g. Moodle, Blackboard) have been designed without any built-in support for a preferred pedagogical model or approach. The proponents of such systems have claimed that this kind of inherent "pedagogical neutrality" is a desirable characteristic for a LMS, as it allows teachers to implement various pedagogical approaches. This study is based on an opposite approach, arguing for designing next-generation online learning platforms - so called digital learning ecosystems - with built-in affordances, which promote and enforce desirable pedagogical beliefs, strategies and learning activity patterns while suppressing others. We propose a conceptual and process model for pedagogy-driven design of online learning environments and illustrate it with a case study on development and implementation process of a digital learning ecosystem based on Dippler platform. We also describe the pedagogical foundation of Dippler that was guided by a combination of four contemporary pedagogical approaches: self-directed learning, competence-based learning, collaborative knowledge building and task-centered instructional design.

The role of scaffolding in CSCL in general and in specific environments

AbstractThis paper aims to analyse if virtual forums set up in an environment specifically designed to improve collaborative learning can effectively influence students' discourse quality and learning when compared with those forums set up in a general environment. Following a coding schema based upon the set of scaffolds offered in the Knowledge Forum environment, we have qualitatively analysed 60 forums and 1370 students from different subjects. The results show that there are very few elaborated and shared deep discussions: the central axis in those superior contributions focuses on bringing new information to already written contributions. There are more new and contrasting opinions in forums set up in a specific virtual environment, whereas there is more reasoning and elaboration in those that were set up in a general one. We propose some explanations for this dissonance and we conclude that collaborative virtual environments are secondary aspects in accounting for deep exchanges of information. Therefore, there are many aspects that need to be taken into account to improve collaborative learning and knowledge building.

Socially augmented argumentation tools: Rationale, design and evaluation of a debate dashboard

Collaborative Computer-Supported Argument Visualization (CCSAV) is a technical methodology that offers support for online collective deliberation over complex dilemmas. As compared with more traditional conversational technologies, like wikis and forums, CCSAV is designed to promote more critical thinking and evidence-based reasoning, by using representations that highlight conceptual relationships between contributions, and through computational analytics that assess the structural integrity of the network. However, to date, CCSAV tools have achieved adoption primarily in small-scale educational contexts, and only to a limited degree in real world applications. We hypothesise that by reifying conversations as logical maps to address the shortcomings of chronological streams, CCSAV tools underestimate the importance of participation and interaction in enhancing collaborative knowledge-building. We argue, therefore, that CCSAV platforms should be socially augmented in order to improve their mediation capability. Drawing on Clark and Brennan influential Common Ground theory, we designed a Debate Dashboard, which augmented a CCSAV tool with a set of widgets that deliver meta-information about participants and the interaction process. An empirical study simulating a moderately sized collective deliberation scenario provides evidence that this experimental version outperformed the control version on a range of indicators, including usability, mutual understanding, quality of perceived collaboration, and accuracy of individual decisions. No evidence was found that the addition of the Debate Dashboard impeded the quality of the argumentation or the richness of content.

Educational change in Oman: a design research study of personal, institutional, and societal reactions to collaborative knowledge building

While collaborative problem-solving has been suggested as a solution for linking classroom learning with workforce skills, it is still not entirely clear how personal, institutional, and national factors work together to influence student and teacher acceptance of this pedagogical strategy. Oman provides an appropriate case for exploring this intersection, as previously limited technology and an instructivist education tradition bump up against the demand for rapid educational improvement and economic development. This study focused on the cultural aspects that affect adoption of a Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environment, and how adaptations appeared in the students, the teacher, and the course. An education design research methodology was used to examine how students react to the CSCL framework and tools.