Abstract: CSCL is based on the idea that computer applications can scaffold and implement advanced socio-cognitive processes for knowledge sharing and knowledge building. But do we really understand these processes that are supposed to be implemented? This paper will focus on the "epistemological infrastructure" of CSCL. We will analyze three models of innovative knowledge communities in order to better understand basic epistemological processes of knowledge advancement: i.e., Nonaka and Takeuchi's model of knowledge-creation, Yrjo Engestrom's expansive learning model, and Carl Bereiter's theory of knowledge building. It is argued that these models provide a way of overcoming the dichotomy of the acquisition and participation metaphors of learning by providing a third metaphor of learning as a process of knowledge creation. In order to facilitate educational change through CSCL also certain kind of larger social infrastructure is needed that supports these epistemological processes.

Abstract: This study is designed to clarify important features of social network analysis for analyzing community-based activities in a CSCL setting. The theoretical and methodological background is social/communication network analysis, which is employed to identify and understand students' communication and interaction patterns when collaborating through wireless computer networking tools. Thirty-two students were given high-end laptops with access to the wireless Internet, and their use of and communicative patterns via these systems were gathered through a proxy server. Findings show that social influences, in the form of network prestige effects, strongly affected the likelihood and the extent to which information posted in the CSCL environment was shared by peers in this learning community.

Abstract: The provision of shared visual representations is considered to be an important facilitator for creative processes in group working and learning scenarios. Although reusability is an inherent feature of computerised representations in general, a comparative analysis of existing tools shows clear deficits in this respect. We are convinced that reusability and thus sustainability of the results of co-constructive group work can be much enhanced by integrating visual environments with functions for indexing, archiving and retrieval to support the construction of group memories. This is exemplified with a new tool which supports creative working groups in the area of "trend monitoring" and technology transfer. This is an example of organisational learning, but also more standard learning scenarios may benefit from this technology.

Abstract: Students bring to a collaborative learning situation a great deal of specialized knowledge and experiences that undoubtedly shape the collaboration and learning processes. How effectively this unique knowledge is shared and assimilated by the group affects both the process and the product of the collaboration. In this paper, we describe a machine learning approach, Hidden Markov Modeling, to analyzing and assessing on-line knowledge sharing conversations. We show that this approach can determine the effectiveness of knowledge sharing episodes with 93% accuracy, performing 43% over the baseline. Understanding how members of collaborative learning groups share, assimilate, and build knowledge together may help us identify situations in which facilitation may increase the effectiveness of the group interaction.

Abstract: CoWeb is a collaborative learning environment used in many classes at Georgia Institute of Technology; it is an extremely simple domain-independent collaboration tool. Our aim is to show that such a simple system can sustain useful peer-to-peer and instructor-to-student interaction that fosters better performance and learning, without incurring a high cost. In this paper, we present evidence of the success of this tool in supporting learning at low cost in one environment---freshman-level English classes.

Abstract: The study investigates collaborative learning of small groups via text-based computer-mediated communication. We analyzed how two approaches to pre-structure communication influence participation, individual knowledge transfer, the convergence of participation and the convergence of knowledge among peers. We varied the factor scripted cooperation and the factor scaffolding in a 2x2-design. 105 university students of Educational Psychology participated. Results show that scripted cooperation was most and scaffolding least beneficial to individual transfer, knowledge convergence and participation in comparison to open discourse.

Abstract: In this paper, we describe a constraint-based discussion board that we have developed. A number of discourse systems have sought to constrain the ways that learners converse by requiring them to classify the nature of the comments and replies to others' comments. Those systems imposed a single constraint system on learners. In our system, we enable users to adjust the structure and content of the system in order to support a variety of discourses, including argumentation, problem-solution, literary analysis, and any other kind of activity. We describe the rationale for the system and will demonstrate the results of two discussions during the conference.

Abstract: In this paper, we present Sam, an embodied conversational storyteller who tells stories interactively with children. Sam was designed to appear as a peer to preschool children, but to tell stories in a developmentally advanced way in order to model narrative skills important for literacy. Literacy learning - learning how to read and write, begins long before children enter school. One of the key skills to reading and writing is the ability to represent thoughts symbolically and share them in language with an audience who does not share the same background. Children learn and practice such important language skills in the informal setting of everyday storytelling with their peers and adults available around them. In particular, storytelling in a context of peer collaboration provides a perfect place where children not only learn language skills important for literacy, but also learn to be critical listeners of others' stories. Preliminary evaluation showed that by interacting with Sam, 5-year-old children's stories more closely resembled Sam's linguistically advanced stories with more quoted speech and temporal and spatial expressions. In addition, the children listened to Sam's stories carefully, assisting her and giving suggestions on how to improve them. With Sam, children not only learned new linguistic behaviors that are important for literacy, but also to become critical listeners of other's stories.

Abstract: This paper presents the theory, design and evaluation of a new type of computer-supported collaborative interface intended to help young children practice certain oral language skills critical for later written literacy acquisition. Based on a theory of "emergent literacy", this paper describes a toy -- TellTale -- designed to let young children create, share and edit oral language in a way similar to how they will eventually create written language. Two user studies were conducted. The first suggests that paired children of different SES use different social and linguistic strategies to establish cohesion and that purely syntactic measures of narrative coherence are not sensitive enough to describe children's collaborative language play. A second pilot study investigated how groups of children used TellTale. Although results are not conclusive, TellTale also seems to be an engaging interface for group authorship.

Abstract: Research in collaborative learning has supported the hypothesis that dialogue between peers and between peers and teachers facilitates learning by the participants in the dialogue. Examples of these dialogues show dozens of turns (individual utterances by participants) in a single learning session. In contrast, measurements of interaction from computer-supported collaborative learning environments show that on-line dialogue looks much different, with an average of approximately one posting or less per student per week. Measurements of learning in these environments do suggest learning is occurring, but presumably, not based on the same kind of dialogue described in research on face-to-face collaboration. We explore explanations for how the learning is arising in CSCL environments based on the Vicarious Learning Project (Lee, Dineen, McKendree, & Mayes, 1999; McKendree, Stenning, Mayes, Lee, & Cox, 1998), but in the course of this explanation, two additional hypotheses emerge. We believe that some of the learning in CSCL environments occurs from the observation of the dialogue, the reflection induced by the potential of submitting, and in the interaction between the face-to-face and on-line environments.

Abstract: In this study, we analyzed 3.4 GB of log file data from the participation of 475 children in a CSCL environment over a period of five years. Using scripts to divide the children's commands typed into categories, we found that girls spend significantly more time than boys communicating with others in the CSCL environment. Analyzing the children's level of programming achievement, we found that gender does not affect programming performance. Regression analysis shows that performance is correlated with prior programming experience and time on task. Boys are more likely than girls to have prior programming experience, and spend more time programming on average. We contrast these quantitative findings with our qualitative observations, and conclude that quantitative analysis has an important role to play in CSCL research. These results suggest that educators wishing to increase gender equity in technical skill should focus on strategies for fostering interest among girls.

Abstract: Traditional computer technology offers limited support for face-to-face, synchronous collaboration. As a result, children who wish to collaborate using computers must adapt their interactions to the single-user paradigm most personal computers are based on. More recently, co-located groupware systems offering support for concurrent, multi-user interactions around a shared display have become technologically feasible. Unlike traditional groupware systems that provide multi-user interaction through the use of separate computers, these systems share the physical workspace, as well as the virtual workspace. These systems provide a unique mechanism through which children can interact with each other. However, ways to best utilize the technology in this manner has not been fully evaluated. This paper investigates how technological support for children's synchronous interactions facilitates their collaborative activities. In particular, we examined whether a shared workspace facilitates the development of a shared understanding during a computer-based collaborative activity. We present a field study that observed pairs of children playing an educational game in several display configurations. The findings from this research suggest strengths and weaknesses of various types of support for synchronous interactions and discusses issues related to the design and development of more effective computer systems to support children's face-to-face interactions.

Abstract: As Internet bandwidth improves and connections become more reliable, on-line course designers will be encouraged to make more structured use of synchronous communications. Little work has so far been reported on how to make the best use of synchronous communications to support a problem solving approach. The OTIS pilot course made extensive use of synchronous communication to support learning through case studies in occupational therapy. The transcripts of communication sessions have been analysed using the SOLO taxonomy, to study the development of deep learning week by week. Results show that synchronous peer-to-peer working meetings have an important role to play in the development of deep learning.

Abstract: In order to better understand how software design choices may influence students' collaborative learning, we conducted a study of the influence of tools for constructing representations of evidential models on collaborative learning processes and outcomes. Pairs of participants worked with one of three representations (matrix, graph, text) while investigating a complex public health problem. Focusing on students' collaborative investigative processes and post-hoc essays, we present several analyses that assess the impact of representation type on students' elaborations of their emerging knowledge. Our analyses indicate significant impacts on the extent to which students revisit knowledge and the likelihood that they will use that knowledge later.

Abstract: We present a shared workspace application for co-constructive tasks with functions for tracking, analyzing and feeding back parameters of collaboration to group members. The interdisciplinary approach is based on an integrative methodology for analyzing collaboration behavior and explicit surveyed data of group members' attitudes. In an exploratory study, we examined the influence of the feedback function, with the long term perspective of enriching collaboration processes in real communities of learners.

Abstract: In this paper, we describe an animated pedagogical agent which assists the interaction among students in a virtual class within a collaborative communication tool, either on-line or not, motivating them, correcting wrong concepts and providing new knowledge This guiding agent we call Collaboration Agent will consider not only cognitive capabilities of students, but also social and affective characteristics, which becomes a more qualitative mechanism for collaboration among students and learning The considered agent is being modelled as part of the multi-agent architecture of the project "A Computational Model of Distance Learning Based on Socio-Cultural Pedagogical Approaches"

Abstract: Studying and evaluating real experiences that promote active and collaborative learning is a crucial field in CSCL. Major issues that remain unsolved deal with the merging of qualitative and quantitative methods and data, especially in educational settings that involve direct as well as computer-supported collaboration. In this paper we present an evaluation methodology and its application to a university course that took place during the last two academic years. We have developed EL2AM, a tool that allows an automatic processing of computer logs using social network analysis. It has been used jointly with a commercial qualitative research tool in order to support the evaluation process. Experimental results allow us to reflect and draw conclusions on the changes of attitudes towards collaboration experimented by the students along the course.

Abstract: In this paper, we attempt to draw comparisons between our research experiences of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning in the workplace, in schools and in universities. We present an outline description of our activities in each setting. As a possible contribution to foundational theory in CSCL, we focus on the crucial but complex issue of learner motivation. We argue that the dominant issues of motivation may vary from setting to setting but that CSCL can play an important role in engaging learner motivation in all settings. In particular, we consider the inauthenticity of most university education and consider how this might be addressed by CSCL.

Abstract: We evaluated a pedagogical agent that coaches collaborative problem solving by tracking student participation and comparing students' individual and group solutions. The software coach encourages negotiation when differences are detected between solutions, and encourages participation in other ways. Evaluations based on expert judgment and on students' behavior shows that the quality of the advice was good and that the coach helped guide the collaborative session, although specific areas for improvement were identified.

Abstract: Scaffolding students in a collaborative networked learning environment requires different instructional methods than in a traditional home or classroom setting. The goal of this research is to understand computer-mediated collaboration in an instructional setting in order to create an effective computer-mediated collaboration tool. We identify ways to support collaboration by examining the interaction and strategies employed by a peer tutor and teacher and between peers working in our collaborative learning environment. We found that supporting collaboration in an electronic setting requires diagnosing impasses, facilitating problem-solving interaction, and suggesting ways to divide the problem into sub-tasks.

Abstract: We report research and development work with STEP (Secondary Teacher Education Project) Web, an innovative and complex web site designed to support learning through facilitated video case discussions in secondary teacher education programs. The goal of instruction with STEP is to help pre-service teachers acquire useful scientific knowledge about cognitive psychology and other learning sciences. STEP Web is currently being used and evaluated in connection with psychological foundations courses taught for teacher education majors at UW-Madison and Rutgers University. We report user preference data on web site design and related instructional formats, and provide evidence that the STEP approach can produce transfer and flexible use of course concepts.

Abstract: This paper is based on the central idea that networked teaching may best be improved by those engaged in it. Systematic enquiry into educational interactions can yield understandings and insights about one of the fundamental relationships of all educational endeavours: between teaching and learning. The paper explores this relationship through analyses of teaching and learning in a networked collaborative learning environment using two new content analysis schemas. The first of these probes the social co-construction of knowledge in a collaborative online event by analysing the social, cognitive and metacognitive contributions to an online learning event. In the second schema the presence of teacher processes is investigated. Computer assisted qualitative data analysis is used for this. In conclusion, consideration is given to the prospects for this type of approach as a means of enriching understandings of the complexity of the relationship between teaching and learning in networked collaborative learning environments.

Abstract: Video-conferencing is expected to become increasingly important for tele-learning environments. In contrast to asynchronous, text-based computer-mediated communication, video-conferencing facilitates cooperation tasks that require highly frequent and continuous coordination. Typical kinds of such cooperation tasks are found in peer teaching settings. Despite the growing application of video-conferencing, only little is known about possibilities of enhancing collaboration in video-conferencing settings. This study investigates the effects of different types of support for cooperation on the learning outcomes of peer dyads in a video-conferencing scenario. The main research question is how cooperation scripts and content schemes enhance the students' cognitive activities and foster the outcomes of cooperative learning. Two factors were varied experimentally: The content scheme (with/without) and the cooperation script (with/without). 86 university students of educational psychology participated in the study. Each student of a dyad received a text dealing with a psychological theory in the field of the nature-nurture-debate. The students' tasks were (1) to teach their partners the relevant contents of their text and (2) to reflect ideas that went beyond the scope of the text. Results indicate that in particular the cooperation script enhances learning outcomes of collaborative knowledge construction.

Abstract: Although considerable attention in the CSCL community has been on distributed-, Web-, or distance-learning applications, there is evidence suggesting that much of learning, particularly in open-ended problem-solving activities based on tacit information, does not occur in isolation but in face-to-face settings. This has led our research to explore ways to develop technologies and media that enhance participation, collaboration, and learning in face-to-face, copresent settings. This paper explores the history of our research on developing such technologies in the context of our Envisionment and Discovery Collaboratory at the Center for LifeLong Learning & Design at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and discusses my research on interface design to support learning and participation in collaborative settings.

Abstract: In collaborative problem solving, metacognition not only covers strategic reasoning related to the task but also reasoning related to the interaction itself. The hypothesis underlying this work states that regulation of the interaction and regulation of the task are closely related mechanisms and that their co-occurrence facilitates coordination. These assumptions are tested experimentally with a traffic simulator. The results show that co-occurrence of task and interaction regulation allows quicker solving of the problem, thus better performance. The experimental treatment aims at observing the effects of interaction meters on the accuracy of subjects' estimation of their participation. Interaction meters are visualization tools that represent the number of contributions related to the discussion and to the implementation of the solution.

Abstract: This paper introduces a new learning technology for in-classroom and remote learning. The system and practice is called "Livenotes" and is motivated by the empirical success of peer learning methods, and by theoretical considerations of distributed dialogue among student peers as a facilitator of learning. The technical part of Livenotes is a collaborative whiteboard running on wireless handheld computers. We describe the system and the affordances we have developed for it to support the distributed dialogue model. We then examine the interactive dialogue that resulted from two classroom trials, using transcript captures, and analyze how users developed ways to navigate between pages, organize space on screens, determine whether the system was operational, and create social rapport. Finally, we suggest several issues that researchers can consider in designing collaborative software.

Abstract: Successful elementary and secondary educational reform requires analogous reform in teacher education; however, the standard undergraduate setting in schools of education poses considerable obstacles. In this paper, we describe the STEP environment for distributed problem-based learning (www.eSTEPweb.org), which represents one of many efforts to create a viable model for teacher education reform. Here, we describe our approach to creating a socio-technical infrastructure designed to help foster a knowledge-building community among preservice teachers, practicing teachers, and instructional staff. We highlight the online environment that supports student and staff coursework in the learning sciences component of a secondary teacher education curriculum.

Abstract: Computer-supported collaborative problem solving requires new methodological approaches of interaction and problem solving analysis. Usually analysis of collaborative problem solving situations is done through discourse analysis or interaction analysis, where in the center of attention are the actors involved (students, tutors etc.). An alternative framework, called "Object-oriented Collaboration Analysis Framework (OCAF)" is presented here, according to which the objects of the collaboratively developed solution become the center of attention and are studied as entities that carry their own history. This approach produces a view of the process, according to which the solution is made of structural components that are 'owned' by actors who have contributed in various degrees to their development. OCAF is based on both actions and dialogues of actors, providing qualitative as well as quantitative indicators of collaboration and solution quality. The paper presents first the framework notation. Examples of its use in analysis of distance groups and face-to-face collaborative activities are provided next, followed by the dimensions of the framework supported analysis for teachers and researchers. Web-based tools supporting the OCAF approach are also presented.

Abstract: In this paper we explore issues to do with intersubjectivity and shared knowledge in human activity. We discuss these issues by contrasting two different views of language and communication, one being a model developed by Clark and Brennan, the other being a situated action approach. Clark and Brennan's model has gained substantial popularity in CSCL research. We develop our argument by presenting illustrative analyses of two data extracts concerned with the development of shared knowledge, the negotiation of goals and the conditional relevance of technological tools. We conclude that Clark and Brennan's model retains a communication-as-transfer view of language and communication, and that a situated action approach is more suitable for grasping the complex dynamics of joint activity.