Real, virtual, and other personas in an online collaborative environment

This presentation reports on a study of an unusual online course, which incorporates collaboration across campuses in teaching about evaluation of information technologies. Issues raised by new information technologies are major foci within the course, and also entry points for our study of its implementation.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

CSC*: Computer Supported Collaborative Work, Learning, and Play

The authors combine their experiences in three independent studies of informal learning in the contexts of the workplace, school and leisure. They uncover aspects of collaborative work, learning and play involving the use of different learning and teaching techniques, and supported by appropriations of the regular use of the applications. The importance of play, both for application learning and innovative use in different settings, including the workplace, is examined. The implications of explicitly supporting ad hoc collaborative approaches to learning how to use a computer application are explored.published or submitted for publicationis peer reviewe

CSC*: Computer supported collaborative work, learning, and play

Abstract. The authors combine their experiences in three independent studies of informal learning in the contexts of the workplace, school and leisure. They uncover aspects of collaborative work, learning and play involving the use of different learning and teaching techniques, and supported by appropriations of the regular use of the applications. The importance of play, both for application learning and innovative use in different settings, including the workplace, is examined. The implications of explicitly supporting ad hoc collaborative approaches to learning how to use a computer application are explored

Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning: Learning the Work of Play

The similarities among three independent studies, conducted by the authors, of informal learning in humanhuman-computer interaction (HHCI) in three different contexts are presented: (1) university undergraduates playing multiplayer videogames; (2) adult computer users offering informal help-giving in a variety of workplace scenarios; and (3) elementary school children playing “edutainment games ” on a classroom computer during free choice time. These studies have been the basis for a collaboratory founded at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign called Project CSC *-- the “CSC” referring to “computer-supported collaborative ” and the asterisk referring to the unix search convention chosen to reflect that instances of learning, play, and work appeared throughout each of our independent research studies