Collaborative Learning Tool Research Articles

Exploring the Levels of eLearning Interactivity: A Review of Research Literature

eLearning has become a widespread and integral part of modern education and training. A key aspect of effective eLearning is interactivity, which can enhance engagement, learning, and knowledge retention. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the research literature on the levels of interactivity in eLearning environments. The review examines different taxonomies and frameworks proposed to categorize and assess the various levels of interactivity, from low-level interactions such as clicking and scrolling, to more advanced interactive features like simulations, virtual reality, and collaborative learning tools. The paper also discusses the pedagogical benefits of increasing interactivity, as well as the design and implementation considerations for achieving optimal levels of interactivity in eLearning. Finally, the review identifies gaps in the current research and suggests future directions for studying the impact of interactivity on eLearning outcomes.

Utilizing peer evaluation as a collaborative learning tool: fostering autonomy satisfaction in English presentation classes

Abstract The present two-phased sequential explanatory mixed-methods research investigates first and second-year Japanese university students’ perceptions of peer evaluation through self-reflection and its relation to learner autonomy satisfaction in English presentation activities. First, the qualitative data were collected through an open-ended survey questionnaire (n = 17). The findings revealed that students held a positive view of the peer evaluation process, which was facilitated by structured evaluation criteria developed collaboratively with the students using the Leaderful Classroom Practices framework. Furthermore, students’ ownership of the evaluation process enhanced their motivation and commitment to their own presentations. To explore the relationship between the peer evaluation process and students’ autonomy satisfaction, we conducted a survey with advanced-level first-year English major students (n = 87). Despite the small sample size, our multiple regression analysis also supported the qualitative findings, indicating a significant correlation between peer evaluation and learner autonomy satisfaction in English presentation activities. While peer-based activities have been thoroughly studied in the context of academic writing courses, we recommend that the influence of peer evaluation activities on learner autonomy satisfaction be further explored in oral communication activities within the Japanese university EFL settings.

Development of LSLC-Based Collaborative Learning Model Learning Tools And Their Effects on Critical Thinking Skills

The purpose of this study is to develop collaborative learning-based learning resources and their impact on students' capacity for critical thought. This study used a combination of methods, namely development research (R&D) with Thiagarajan 4D model and experimental research. Data was collected through observations, questionnaires, tests, and interviews. The validity coefficients for the Teaching Module, worksheet, and test were 3.80, 3.80, and 3.70, respectively. Observations showed that 96% of the learning tools met practical criteria. The tools were effective, with 93% of student activities rated very good, 96% of students giving positive responses, and 85% achieving learning completion. A t-test (sig = 0.007) confirmed the collaborative learning tool based on LSLC significantly enhanced students' critical thinking skills.

Evaluation of the use of educational podcasts as a collaborative learning tool taking into consideration participation in its creation

This paper analyses the result of applying podcasts as a teaching-learning tool for university students. Using a quantitative methodology, with a descriptive and correlational design, Levene's inferential t-test for equality of variances was used to compare two groups of students to assess if there are differences regarding the academic, design, usability and learning variables, in order to verify the differences between students creating the contents and those only listening to the end result. A sample of 461 students was used in this research, distributed in two groups. In the first group, the teaching staff oversaw preparing and carrying out the dynamics of the podcast. In the second group, the students collaboratively created the podcast. To analyse the differences between the two groups, the Educational Innovation Questionnaire (CINNE) was applied, based on the Podcast Evaluation Questionnaire, QAEP (Alarcón and Blanca, 2020), and the SUS Scale (Brooke, 2013). The results indicate significant differences (99.95% CI 99.95%) between the groups in the usability and design dimensions. No gender differences were found. In conclusion, this research paper has confirmed the effectiveness of using podcasts as a didactic strategy, in particular regarding its accessibility, use, and design by students.

Enhancing Collaborative Learning in Mobile Environments through Interactive Virtual Reality Simulations

This study investigates the potential of enhancing collaborative learning in mobile environments through the integration of interactive virtual reality (VR) simulations. With the ubiquity of mobile devices and advancements in VR technology, there is a growing interest in using immersive experiences to promote collaborative learning among students. The study explores the design and implementation of interactive VR simulations customized for mobile platforms. The goal is to create engaging and immersive learning experiences that foster collaboration and knowledge sharing. By immersing students in virtual environments where they can interact with digital objects and manipulate scenarios, the study aims to facilitate active participation and teamwork, thereby enhancing learning outcomes. Furthermore, the study examines the impact of interactive VR simulations on student engagement, motivation, and knowledge retention in collaborative learning settings. Through empirical studies and user evaluations, the effectiveness of interactive VR simulations as a tool for collaborative learning in mobile environments is assessed. The findings provide valuable insights into the design and pedagogical integration of VR technologies in mobile learning contexts. They offer guidance for educators and instructional designers who aim to leverage the potential of immersive experiences to improve collaborative learning outcomes.

Participatory co-learning for human-wildlife coexistence: Reflections on a novel program applying systems thinking, nonviolent communication, and learning-based approaches.

As wildlife habitats become increasingly fragmented, sharing landscapes with wildlife is becoming difficult and complex. Because stakeholders with diverging interests struggle to collaborate to manage human-wildlife interactions, new approaches are needed. Here we reflect on a novel participatory learning program we implemented with farmers in communal conservancies in the Zambezi region of Namibia. The 9week program aimed to understand why human-wildlife conflict remained a challenge. We combined three theoretical framings in the program design-systems thinking, nonviolent communication, and learning based approaches. We summarize key outcomes of each session and reflect on the overall program. We found a synergistic effect of the three framings and concluded that our integrated program had been a useful collaborative learning tool to understand the human-wildlife governance system, identify interventions, empower communities, and build capacity for collaboration to improve human wellbeing and human-wildlife interactions. Drawing on our experience, we make suggestions for how the program could be adapted for similar or other environmental problems elsewhere.

Students’ satisfaction with utilizing padlet as a collaborative learning tool

Students’ satisfaction with utilizing padlet as a collaborative learning tool

Artificial Intelligence in Indian Education: Navigating Challenges and Embracing Opportunities

This research paper explores the varied role of Artificial Intelligence in the teaching-learning process in the Indian context, focusing on its potential as an empowering tool in the hands of both teachers as well as students. AI can alleviate administrative and repetitive burden for teachers, allowing them to focus on face-to-face interactions with students. It can be used by a teacher in a variety of ways including personalised learning pathways, curriculum delivery, managing classroom dynamics and assessment design. Policymakers can gain data-driven decision-making capabilities. Students can also benefit from this new technology by experiencing a more individualised and interactive learning. Besides, there is a need for a comprehensive approach to address social and ethical aspects associated with AI. Controversies surrounding AI are discussed and optimum ways for the integration of AI into education are suggested. Instead of viewing it as a threat, the paper advocates for its responsible use and recognises it as a collaborative teaching and learning tool. AI can thus be used as a transformative catalyst to facilitate pedagogy and learning in India.

WhatsApp Messenger as a Collaborative Learning Tool during COVID-19 in Iraq

In Iraq like in the rest of the world, Coronavirus has produced a downward slope within the economy of the world and produced an enormous effect on the upper education system. The unexpected closing of universities as a social distancing procedure has transferred traditional learning to e-learning. This has thrown the concentration on utilizing online learning tools which may have boundaries of attainability and affordability for many learners. Thus makes teaching faculty should be creative enough to find an appropriate tool to rescue the situation. One of these tools is WhatsApp due to its advantages, especially the advantage of the collaborative feature (which is achieved within a group). This study aims at 1) reviewing the literature and research that talks about the advantages of WhatsApp as a learning tool, especially the advantage of creating a group and its collaborative feature. 2) Focusing on the importance of the WhatsApp group chat as a collaborative learning tool among Iraqi universities students during the pandemic. The study found that Iraqi university students, during the pandemic, preferred WhatsApp group chat because of its advantages, especially collaborative feature. The WhatsApp group helped them in overcoming difficulties of e-

Undergraduate students’ views about peer mentoring as a tool to enhance computer-supported collaborative learning

Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) pedagogies, platforms, and tools are prevalent in higher education due to their pervasive capabilities to enhance students’ engagement, communication, and learning. However, it is reported that CSCL tools, media, and platforms may not yield the desired results if not planned, utilized, and managed strategically. Facilitating students’ learning through CSCL may require a non-hierarchical approach, such as peer mentoring, for sustainably valuable outcomes. Using this approach successfully will also require contextual diagnostic analysis and exploration. This study was, therefore, conducted to explore the means to effectively deploy peer mentoring to enhance CSCL involving 227 undergraduate students in an Emirati university. Data were collected using a questionnaire with quantitative and qualitative elements. Data analyses were done using descriptive statistics and thematic coding. Findings show that students are well-disposed to peer mentoring as a measure for enhancing CSCL regardless of their demographic characteristics, as they could learn from each other and develop transferrable skills. However, students indicated that the process could be challenging with language barriers, technological issues, and distractions. Even so, the findings show that peer mentoring in CSCL could be enhanced with students’ participation in the exercise made voluntary and the availability of different CSCL platforms, among others.

Using zoom as a computer-supported collaborative learning tool: modeling of relations between technology acceptance, knowledge-sharing behaviours, community of inquiry, and social interaction space

ABSTRACT This research, students’ technology acceptance, KSB, community of inquiry (CoI), and social interaction space situations were examined in collaborative learning where Zoom was used as a CSCL tool in computer programming courses, and the structural relationships between these variables were revealed. The research was carried out on 162 university students studying in the field of computer science education and taking computer programming courses through flipped learning. Within the scope of the research, the students were divided into CSCL groups of three and carried out collaborative learning. The study was carried out according to the correlational research method, and path analysis was performed. Research findings for the CSCL activities carried out in the Zoom environment has been determined that technology acceptance, KSB, CoI, and social interaction space are at a high level. According to the results of the research, it has been seen that the technology acceptance status of the students in the CSCL environment has a direct and high impact on the KSB, CoI, and social interaction space. In addition, it was found that the increase in students’ social interaction space perceptions in the CSCL process has a direct effect on CoI.

Assessment of WhatsApp as a Collaborative Learning Tool in the post COVID-19 Era in Higher Learning Institutions: A Case of Tanzania

Information Technology has changed our societies in a variety of ways, before COVID-19 and after COVID-19. A mobile phone being one of the devices under technological generation is needed in teaching and learning. In higher learning institutions, a great number of students make mobile phones part of useful tools for learning. This study aimed to assess WhatsApp as a collaborative learning tool in Higher Learning Institutions a case in Tanzania. The study used a multi-case method where students from three different Higher Learning Institutions were used as units of inquiry. These students came from different levels and programmes, the institutions were from one private institution and two public institutions. The tool used to collect data was an online form created by google. Data collected was then analysed and processed through the google form and the responses were shown with charts and graphs from google. The study included students from non-degree (certificate and diploma) and undergraduate students from bachelor’s degree. The results indicated that WhatsApp is one of the most favored mobile based applications, especially in HLIs; students use the WhatsApp application in exchanging learning materials with their fellow students and their instructors. Not only that, but the application is also used for opening new collaboration and links with other students from different colleges and universities. Nevertheless, the results showed that some students in higher learning institutions in Tanzania use WhatsApp as a platform to learn new business ideas hence some open businesses while still students at College or University through this platform. The current study recommends that Higher learning institution should have conducive environment for learners to get free internet services throughout in the University compound at the same time having a policy that show rules and regulations to be followed on ways to use the WhatsApp tool

User anonymity versus identification in computer-supported collaborative learning: Comparing learners' preferences and behaviors

Previous research on the effect of anonymity on computer-supported collaborative learning has reported mostly positive results, as well as some negative results. Scholars have indicated that anonymity can promote more participation among members; however, it can also promote off-task behavior and spam. Although the concept has been investigated in different contexts (peer assessment, writing, debating, etc.) and from different perspectives (for example, social psychology, computer mediated communication), students' preferences and whether these preferences align with students' actual behavior during collaborative learning remain uncertain. In this study, we compared students' opinions with their technology-mediated conversations when they collaborated while anonymized versus while identified. Our results were derived from a survey and content analysis of conversation logs that included 186 university students. These findings suggest that anonymity promotes a less productive atmosphere, though students seem to prefer it. We present our findings about how anonymity affects the quantity and quality of collaboration, a group's work balance, and spam messages' role, among other factors. Moreover, we contribute new knowledge about the social component of the social identity model of deindividuation effects (SIDE). Finally, we propose new features for computer-supported collaborative learning tools that could help optimize anonymity to maximize its potential benefits.

DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A TEACHING SCENARIO FOR PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS ON CREATING A SCHOOL GARDEN USING INQUIRY METHOD

This paper analyses the design and implementation of a teaching scenario for the creation of a school garden using the inquiry method. It was implemented by students aged 6 to 12 years old at the 9th Primary School of Intercultural Education in Ioannina (Greece) during the teaching period: from September 2018 to June 2019. The main purpose of the implementation of the teaching scenario is the creation of the school garden - through a field of practical daily teaching and learning activities and through the inquiry approach - to form a culture among the students about sustainability and sustainable development. All students in the school - native, foreign, Roma, students with special educational needs - in the context of inclusive education are involved in the learning process with specific strategies such as group work, research work projects (project method), learning by experiment, learning with digital and collaborative learning tools, field research. Finally, through the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and in combination with playful activities, cooperation on the topic under study is sought between groups, classes, schools, and institutions within and outside the Region of Epirus (Greece).<p> </p><p><strong> Article visualizations:</strong></p><p><img src="/-counters-/soc/0007/a.php" alt="Hit counter" /></p>

Beat The Clock! Implementation and Evaluation of an Escape Room

Nurse practitioner students may complete clinical rotations without exposure to many high-acuity, low-frequency disease states. Students must readily recognize and apply their diagnostic and critical thinking skills to these low-frequency clinical conditions. This report describes the impact of an escape room activity on the knowledge acquisition and perceptions of adult-gerontology acute care nurse practitioner students. Postactivity assessment surveys were overwhelmingly positive, confirming student perceptions of the escape room as a collaborative learning tool that identified their knowledge gaps. All student teams successfully escaped the room, and a postactivity knowledge assessment confirmed the student's knowledge of the escape room content.

Applying the UTAUT2 model to determine factors impacting the adoption of Microsoft Team as an Online Collaborative Learning Tool

Applying the UTAUT2 model to determine factors impacting the adoption of Microsoft Team as an Online Collaborative Learning Tool

Applying the UTAUT2 model to determine factors impacting the adoption of Microsoft Teams as an online collaborative learning tool

Applying the UTAUT2 model to determine factors impacting the adoption of Microsoft Teams as an online collaborative learning tool

Social Computing for Collaborative Learning in Higher Education

This study aims to investigate the use of the specific social computing tool (Wiki) for collaborative learning, and study students’ perceptions in higher education. The participants of the study were a higher education student cohort in Bahrain. The data was collected through questionnaire and interviews. To demonstrate the intricacy of the investigation topic, a mixed methods data collection method was employed. Wiki as a social computing tool significantly enhances student collaboration, according to the preliminary questionnaire results and interviews with selected respondents. As a social computing tool, a Wiki has the potential to play a significant role in the future of learning settings, according to the study's findings.

Memory-aware curriculum federated learning for breast cancer classification

Background and Objective: For early breast cancer detection, regular screening with mammography imaging is recommended. Routine examinations result in datasets with a predominant amount of negative samples. The limited representativeness of positive cases can be problematic for learning Computer-Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems. Collecting data from multiple institutions is a potential solution to mitigate this problem. Recently, federated learning has emerged as an effective tool for collaborative learning. In this setting, local models perform computation on their private data to update the global model. The order and the frequency of local updates influence the final global model. In the context of federated adversarial learning to improve multi-site breast cancer classification, we investigate the role of the order in which samples are locally presented to the optimizers.Methods: We define a novel memory-aware curriculum learning method for the federated setting. We aim to improve the consistency of the local models penalizing inconsistent predictions, i.e., forgotten samples. Our curriculum controls the order of the training samples prioritizing those that are forgotten after the deployment of the global model. Our approach is combined with unsupervised domain adaptation to deal with domain shift while preserving data privacy.Results: Two classification metrics: area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC-AUC) and area under the curve for the precision-recall curve (PR-AUC) are used to evaluate the performance of the proposed method. Our method is evaluated with three clinical datasets from different vendors. An ablation study showed the improvement of each component of our method. The AUC and PR-AUC are improved on average by 5% and 6%, respectively, compared to the conventional federated setting.Conclusions: We demonstrated the benefits of curriculum learning for the first time in a federated setting. Our results verified the effectiveness of the memory-aware curriculum federated learning for the multi-site breast cancer classification. Our code is publicly available at: https://github.com/ameliajimenez/curriculum-federated-learning.

The visual online tools for collaborative learning and icebreaker activities

Problem statement. The study is aimed to explore how have transformed the traditional approaches of collaborative learning under the influence of new digital environment? And what are the ways of introducing online group activities, precisely icebreakers? Methodology . Authors choose Miro and Mural as the visual platforms for group work activities that enable users to collaborate and customize workspace to better suit their needs. They compared and tested both platforms across six categories: pricing, interface, templates, integrations, customization, collaboration. Results . Authors reach the conclusion that Miro has a significantly larger selection of templates, integrations and apps to choose from. The user interface has a design consistency that ties UI elements together with distinguishable and predictable actions and creates a great user experience overall. Mural offers more facilitation features, which undoubtedly also makes it a powerful tool. But if the price of the tool is also of great importance, Mural might be the right choice. Moreover, there have been considered the approaches of how to organize icebreaker games during the virtual meeting or workshop in Miro and Mural. Authors suggest several exercises: create own character, questions from a bucket, puzzle, world map, five common things, two lies - one truth, take a photo of the desk. Conclusion. Online-whiteboards like Miro and Mural effectively support warm-ups and collaborative visualization in the online environment and allow to achieve higher level of participation than in face-to-face communication.