An Object Model for Collaborative Systems and a Toolkit to Support Collaborative Activities

The goal of a collaborative system is to provide a platform for group discussion so that the ideas of the majority can be captured and categorized. Such a platform would incorporate functionality to allow a group of experts to thoroughly explore and analyze a problem domain by following a discourse structure they could design, maintain and evolve as the knowledge structure for that particular domain. However, there are very few practical tools in current systems to support coordination strategy such as voting and scaling, and collaborative model building for learning. Any practical tool is better than an excellent theory. Our recent work is to design and implement a toolkit for collaboration. This toolkit supports the general tools for collaborative activities, and is easily accessed on the Web. In this paper, we first illustrate the object model for collaborative systems; then, we discuss the basic requirements for collaborative systems that should be supported in the toolkit. The key problems of collaborative systems are also analyzed. Our proposal solution is to provide a collaborative toolkit. At last, we give the descriptions of this toolkit

Working collaboratively on the digital global frontier

An international online collaborative learning experience was designed and implemented in preservice teacher education classes at the University of Calgary, Canada and the University of Southern Queensland, Australia. The project was designed to give preservice teachers an opportunity to live the experience of being online collaborators investigating real world teaching issues of diversity and inclusivity. Qualitative research was conducted to examine the complexity of the online collaborative experiences of participants. Redmond and Lock’s (2006) flexible online collaborative learning framework was used to explain the design and the implementation of the project. Henri’s (1992) content analysis model for computer-mediated communication was used for the online asynchronous postings and a constant comparative method of data analysis was used in the construction of themes. From the findings, the authors propose recommendations for designing and facilitating collaborative learning on the digital global frontier

Collaborative trails in e-learning environments

This deliverable focuses on collaboration within groups of learners, and hence collaborative trails. We begin by reviewing the theoretical background to collaborative learning and looking at the kinds of support that computers can give to groups of learners working collaboratively, and then look more deeply at some of the issues in designing environments to support collaborative learning trails and at tools and techniques, including collaborative filtering, that can be used for analysing collaborative trails. We then review the state-of-the-art in supporting collaborative learning in three different areas – experimental academic systems, systems using mobile technology (which are also generally academic), and commercially available systems. The final part of the deliverable presents three scenarios that show where technology that supports groups working collaboratively and producing collaborative trails may be heading in the near future

Sensemaking on the Pragmatic Web: A Hypermedia Discourse Perspective

The complexity of the dilemmas we face on an organizational, societal and global scale forces us into sensemaking activity. We need tools for expressing and contesting perspectives flexible enough for real time use in meetings, structured enough to help manage longer term memory, and powerful enough to filter the complexity of extended deliberation and debate on an organizational or global scale. This has been the motivation for a programme of basic and applied action research into Hypermedia Discourse, which draws on research in hypertext, information visualization, argumentation, modelling, and meeting facilitation. This paper proposes that this strand of work shares a key principle behind the Pragmatic Web concept, namely, the need to take seriously diverse perspectives and the processes of meaning negotiation. Moreover, it is argued that the hypermedia discourse tools described instantiate this principle in practical tools which permit end-user control over modelling approaches in the absence of consensus

Developing a Critical Discourse About Teaching and Learning: The Case of a Secondary Science Video Club

Video is used widely to support teachers’ learning and enactment of responsive instruction. Informed by principles of video club design, we designed a video club to support secondary science teachers developing a vision of responsive teaching, attention to student thinking, and a critical discourse to analyze their own and others’ efforts to enact responsive practices. In this study, we investigate if and how teachers developed a critical discourse in this context. Analysis reveals that the group developed a more collaborative, interpretive, and evidence-based discourse about teaching and learning. These findings contribute to research on video clubs as a professional development model to support teacher learning, as well as make visible how teachers shifted to develop a more critical lens for discussing teaching and learning. This study has implications for designing professional learning that will result in sustained, generative development in the context of instructional reform