TOOL5100: CSCL Intro to CSCL, part 2

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TOOL5100 CSCL Intro to CSCL, part 2

• Presentation Theme
• Lipponen, L. (2002). Exploring foundations for
  computer-supported collaborative learning. In G.
  Stahl (Ed.), Computer Support for Collaborative
  Learning Foundations for a CSCL Community,
  Proceedings of CSCL 2002. Lawrence Erlbaum
  Associates, Hillsdale, New Jersey, pp. 72-80.
• Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., Suthers, D. (2006)
  Computer-supported collaborative learning. In R.
  K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of the
  learning sciences. Cambridge, UK Cambridge
  University Press.
• Presented by Elena Stamatova

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Outline

• Exploring foundations for computer-supported
  collaborative learning
• Abstract of the paper
• What is CSCL?
• Concepts and theories underlying CSCL research
• Empirical research on CSCL
• Challenges and advantages of CSCL
• Technology for collaboration
• Implementation of CSCL from technical
  infrastructure to social infrastructure
• Computer-supported collaborative learning
• Abstract of the paper
• Definition for CSCL
• CSCL within education
• The historical evolution of CSCL
• The interplay of learning and technology in CSCL
• The multi-disciplinarity of CSCL
• CSCL research in future
• Comparing the foundations and the complex nature
  of CSCL research

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Abstract of the paper by Lipponen

• In 1996 Koschmann (1996) suggested
  computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)
  as an emerging paradigm of educational
  technology. After six years, how has the field
  developed? What does research say about CSCL to
  date? What is the state of the art? The aim of
  the present paper is to explore the foundations
  for CSCL, and in doing so, to contribute to the
  theoretical as well as empirical understanding
  and development of CSCL research.

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What is CSCL?

• In 1996 Koschmann (1996) recognized
  computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)
  as an emerging paradigm of educational
  technology. According to Koschmann (1996), CSCL
  research is grounded on a very different concept
  of learning, pedagogy, research methodology, and
  research questions than its antecedents, CAI
  (Computer Assisted Instruction), ITS (Intelligent
  Tutoring Systems), and, Logo-as-Latin did.
• It is hard to say when CSCL emerged as a separate
  field of study, or as an emerging paradigm of
  educational technology. The first CSCL workshop
  took place in 1991 (Koschmann, 1994), and the
  first international CSCL conference was held 1995
  in Bloomington, Indiana. Partly, the inspiration
  for CSCL arose from the research on
  Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW).
• How should one define computer-supported
  collaborative learning? Put briefly, CSCL is
  focused on how collaborative learning supported
  by technology can enhance peer interaction and
  work in groups, and how collaboration and
  technology facilitate sharing and distributing of
  knowledge and expertise among community members.

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Concepts and theories underlying CSCL research

• Concepts of collaboration
• Collaboration can be considered as a
  special form of interaction. Engeström (1992) has
• elaborated a three-level notion of
  developmental forms of interaction coordination,
  
• cooperation, and reflective
  communication.
• According to another definition
  Collaboration can be defined as a process of
  participating in
• knowledge communities. As pointed out by
  Brufee (1993, p.3) collaboration is "a
• reculturative process that helps students
  become members of knowledge communities
• whose common property is different from
  the common property of the knowledge
• communities they already belong to".
• In sum, even this very short look to the
  definitions of collaboration has shown how
  difficult it
• is to find a total consensus in this
  issue, although both approaches, collaboration as
  a
• special form of interaction, and
  collaboration as a process of participation in
  collective
• activities ("working together"), include
  the idea of achieving shared goals. It appears
  that we
• can--that perhaps we must--analyze
  collaborative activities on both micro and macro
  levels.
• Theories of collaboration
• Whether one considers collaboration as a
  special form of interaction or as a process of
  participation, traces back to the conversation of
  two metaphors of learning, acquisition and
  participation, or on the depate between the
  cognitive perspective and the situative
  perspective of learning. Whether relying on the
  acquisition or participation metaphor of
  learning, there exist two main theoretical
  perspectives for a mechanism promoting learning
  in a CSCL setting. These perspectives, which seem
  to be agreed among researchers, trace back to the
  thinking of Piaget and Vygotsky. The first
  mechanism that is seen to promote learning in the
  context of CSCL is Piagetian socio-cognitive
  conflict. The second well-known mechanism for
  promoting learning in context of social
  interaction is formulated on the basis of
  Vygotskys ideas. In many cases the theories of
  Piaget and Vygotsky are seen to represent
  opposite explanations of human development and
  learning. In the future, a fruitful approach
  might be to attempt to reconcile these two
  perspectives

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Empirical research on CSCL

• Typical methods for analysis are ethnographical
  methods and discourse analysis with descriptive,
  observational, and non-experimental data. Stress
  is put on the ecological validity of the
  research. In contrast to its predecessors that
  studied human cognition with experimental design
  and in laboratories, CSCL research is conducted
  also in "real world contexts", for instance, at
  schools.
• What then should researchers study in the context
  of CSCL? One should in collaborative interactions
  zoom in more intensively on the micro level.
• If one studies only interactions of mutual
  engagement one can then ask, what is the
  relevance of CSCL research at schools, or in
  workplaces in general. As pointed out earlier,
  collaboration can also considered as a process of
  participating in practices of a community.
• How then, should one speak about and analyze
  collaboration at the collective (macro) level?
  One idea would be to think about communities as
  interaction networks, and interactions
  representing strong and weak links among
  participants.
• It is a challenging task to compare empirical
  studies conducted under the label CSCL, because
  they differ from each other in several
  significant aspects. First of all, there is no
  agreement whether one should study effects of or
  effects with CSCL. In 1991, Salomon, Perkins, and
  Globerson made educators aware of two ways of
  thinking about learning and technology. According
  to them, one should look at effects of
  technology, this is, what one has learned and can
  transfer from those situation working with
  computer. Yet one should also look at the effects
  with technology what one could achieve in
  synergy with a computer. In the same sense one
  can speak about effects of CSCL that is, as a
  result of interacting with others and computers,
  persons individually practice new competencies
  and gain knowledge that can be transfer to new
  situations. Or, by contrast, one may speak of
  effects with CSCL, referring to processes people
  and computers achieve in synergy.
• As a consequence of the ambiguity (or richness if
  you will) of the empirical studies in the CSCL
  research, it is difficult to integrate the
  empirical studies and findings or to make any
  solid conclusions that some particular approach,
  instructional method, or application would give
  better results than some others. One does not
  know exactly the circumstances in which one set
  of results can be extended to another context.

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Challenges and advantages of CSCL

• Collaboration can be supported with very
  different instructional ideas and computer
  applications. Crook (1994), for instance, has
  proposed four kinds of interaction in which
  computers play a part 1) interactions at the
  computers, 2) interactions around computers, 3)
  interactions related to computer applications,
  and 4) interactions through computers.
• There are other challenges of CSCL knowledge
  management problems with large databases,
  fact-oriented knowledge construction, short
  discussion threads with divergence topics, and
  unequal participation patterns
• Why has CSCL been so slowly adopted? As proposed
  by Kling (1991) in the context of CSCW, it might
  be that the meanings attached to collaboration
  are too positively loaded, or the collaborative
  settings are interpreted too narrowly referring
  only to positive phenomenon. This may restrict
  one from seeing that collaborative situations are
  also full of contradictions, competition, and
  conflicts.
• On the other hand, technology offers the kind of
  potentials for learning which are very different
  from those available in other contexts. One
  self-evident benefit is, that computer networks
  break down the physical and temporal barriers of
  schooling by removing time and space constraints.
  The delay of asynchronous communication allows
  time for reflection in interaction. Making
  thinking visible by writing should help students
  to reflect on their own and others' ideas and
  share their expertise.

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Technology for collaboration

• It might be meaningful to make a distinction
  between collaborative use of technology and
  collaborative technology. Imagine a pair of
  students working at the computer running a
  simulation program in physics. The simulations on
  the screen can help the students to collaborate,
  by creating a referential anchor, a point of
  shared reference (Crook, 1994). This referential
  anchor can function as a "concrete" shared
  representation, can support the negotiation of
  meanings, and mediate students communication
  activities in their development of reciprocal
  understanding (Hakkarainen, et al., 1998
  Järvelä, et. al., 1999). In this case, the
  technology, the software developed for the
  individual user, is utilized in creating and
  establishing collaborative activities.
• Technology itself does not solve the challenges
  of learning and collaboration. For collaborative
  technology can, of course, be used for other
  purposes than for supporting collaboration it
  can easily be applied in transmitting and
  delivering knowledge.

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Implementation of CSCL from technical
infrastructure to social infrastructure

• One of the major challenges of CSCL, or
  educational technology in general, is scaling-up
  how to expand and implement the good practices
  that researcher and teachers have found and
  developed.
• Bielaczyc (2001) has presented a parallel idea.
  According to her, one of the key factors in
  successful implementation of CSCL is to build an
  appropriate social infrastructure around the
  technical infrastructure.
• The author of the paper thinks that Bielaczyc is
  right on the mark, but only partly.
• What Lipponen proposes, is that the idea of
  co-evolution should be the starting point for
  thinking about implementing technology and new
  forms of learning activities. This approach is
  very much pedagogy and activity driven. It
  implies that technology should be very flexible
  and tailorable. Learners are not the same as the
  everyday people or experts, but need software
  designed especially for the learners.
• There is one more thing to consider concerning
  infrastructures. Perhaps, as stated by Crook
  (1994), classrooms are still too neatly resourced
  for successful collaboration, and the material
  world is too often underestimated in building
  collaboration material objects offer points of
  shared reference for developing genuine
  collaborative interactions.

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Abstract of the paper by Stahl et al

• Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL)
  is an emerging branch of the learning sciences.
  It is concerned with studying how people can
  learn together with the help of computers. As we
  will see in this chapter, such a simple statement
  conceals considerable complexity. The interplay
  of learning with technology turns out to be quite
  intricate. The inclusion of collaboration,
  computer mediation and distance education has
  problematized the very notion of learning and
  called into question prevailing assumptions about
  how to study it. Like many active fields of
  scientific research, CSCL has a complex
  relationship to established disciplines, evolves
  in ways that are hard to pinpoint and includes
  important contributions that seem incompatible.
  The field of CSCL has a long history of
  controversy about its theory, methods and
  definition. Furthermore, it is important to view
  CSCL as a vision of what may be possible with
  computers and of what kinds of research should be
  conducted, rather than as an established body of
  broadly accepted laboratory and classroom
  practices. We will start from some popular
  understandings of the issues of CSCL and
  gradually reveal its more complex nature.

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CSCL within education

• CSCL is intimately concerned with education. It
  considers all levels of formal education from
  kindergarten through graduate study as well as
  informal education, such as museums.
• However, the ability to combine the two ideas
  (computer support and collaborative learning, or
  technology and education) to effectively enhance
  learning remains a challengea challenge that
  CSCL is designed to address.
• COMPUTERS AND EDUCATION
• CSCL is based on the Vision it
  proposes the development of new software and
  applications that bring learners together and
  that can offer creative activities of
  intellectual exploration and social interaction.
  As CSCL developed, a transformation of the whole
  concept of learning was required, including
  significant changes in schooling, teaching and
  being a student. Many of the necessary changes
  are reflected in the educational approaches, for
  instance adopting educational frameworks of
  constructivism, knowledge building,
  apprenticeship, project-based inquiry and
  situative learning in action.
• E-LEARNING AT A DISTANCE
• CSCL is often conflated with
  e-learning, the organization of instruction
  across computer
• networks. E-learning is too often
  motivated by a naïve belief that classroom
  content can be digitized and disseminated to
  large numbers of students with little continuing
  involvement of teachers or other costs, such as
  buildings and transportation. There are a number
  of problems with this view.
• COOPERATIVE LEARNING IN GROUPS
• The study of group learning began long
  before CSCL. Since at least the 1960s, before the
  advent
• of networked personal computers, there
  was considerable investigation of cooperative
  learning
• by education researchers. Research on
  small groups has an even longer history within
  social psychology. To distinguish CSCL from this
  earlier investigation of group learning, it is
  useful to draw a
• distinction between cooperative and
  collaborative learning. In a detailed discussion
  of this
• distinction, Dillenbourg (1999) defined
  the distinction roughly as follows
• In cooperation, partners split the
  work, solve sub-tasks individually and then
  assemble the
• partial results into the final output.
  In collaboration, partners do the work
  together. (p. 8)

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The historical evolution of CSCL

• THE BEGINNINGS
• All of the projectsENFI, CSILE and 5thDshared a
  goal of making
• instruction more oriented toward meaning making.
  All three turned to
• computer and information technologies as
  resources for achieving this
• goal, and all three introduced novel forms of
  organized social activity
• within instruction. In this way, they laid the
  groundwork for the
• subsequent emergence of CSCL.
• FROM CONFERENCES TO A GLOBAL COMMUNITY
• In 1983, a workshop on the topic of joint
  problem solving and microcomputers was held in
• San Diego. Six years later, a NATO-sponsored
  workshop was held in Maratea, Italy. The 1989
• Maratea workshop is considered by many to mark
  the birth of the field, as it was the first
  public
• and international gathering to use the term
  computer-supported collaborative learning in
  its
• title. The first full-fledged CSCL conference was
  organized at Indiana University in the fall of
• 1995. A book series on CSCL published by Kluwer
  (now Springer) includes five volumes to
• date. The CSCL conference proceedings have been
  the primary vehicle for publications in the
• field. A number of journals have also played a
  role, particularly the Journal of the Learning
• Sciences. An International Journal of
  Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning will
  start
• publishing in 2006. Although the community was
  centered in Western Europe and Northern
• America in its early years, it has evolved into a
  rather well-balanced international presence

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The historical evolution of CSCL(cont)

• FROM ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TO COLLABORATION
  SUPPORT
• The field of CSCL can be contrasted with earlier
  approaches to using computers in education.
• Koschmann (1996) identified the following
  historical sequence of approaches (a)
  computerHandbook
• Chapter 21 6 Stahl, Koschmann, Suthers assisted
  instruction, (b) intelligent tutoring systems,
  (c) Logo as
• Latin, (d) CSCL.
• The shift from mental models of individual
  cognition to support for collaborating groups had
• enormous implications for both the focus and the
  method of research on learning. The gradual
• acceptance and unfolding of these implications
  has defined the evolution of the field of CSCL.
• FROM INDIVIDUALS TO INTERACTING GROUPS
• The focus was no longer on what might be taking
  place in the heads
• of individual learners, but what was taking place
  between and among them in their interactions.
• FROM MENTAL REPRESENTATIONS TO INTERACTIONAL
  MEANING MAKING
• Collaboration is primarily conceptualized as a
  process of shared meaning construction. The
• meaning making is not assumed to be an expression
  of mental representations of the individual
• participants, but is an interactional
  achievement.
• FROM QUANTITIVE COMPARISIONS TO MICRO CASE
  STUDIES
• Methodologies like conversation analysis (Sacks,
  1992 ten Have, 1999) or video analysis
• (Koschmann, Stahl, Zemel, 2005) based on
  ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967) produce
• detailed case studies of collaborative meaning
  making (Sawyer, this volume). These case studies

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The interplay of learning and technology in CSCL

• THE TRADITIONAL CONCEPTION OF LEARNING
• Edwin Thorndike (quoted in Jonçich, 1968), a
  founder of the traditional
• educational approach, once wrote
• If, by a miracle of mechanical ingenuity, a book
  could be so arranged
• that only to him who had done what was directed
  on page one would
• two become visible, and so on, much that now
  requires personal
• instruction could be managed by print . Children
  could be
• taught, moreover to use materials in a manner
  that will be most useful
• in the long run.
• DESIGNING TECHNOLOGY TO SUPPORT LEARNER MEANING
  MAKING
• CSCL must continue with its work of
  self-invention. New sources of theory are
  introduced,
• analyses of learner practice are presented, and
  artifacts are produced accompanied by
• theories of how they might enhance
  meaning-making. The design of CSCL technology,
• which opens new possibilities for collaborative
  learning, must be founded on an analysis of
• the nature of collaborative learning.
• THE ANALYSIS OF COLLABORATIVE LEARNING
• The study of the interactional accomplishment of
  intersubjective learning or group cognition
• gives rise to interesting questions that are
  among the most challenging facing any
  socialbehavioral
• science, and even touch upon our nature as
  conscious beings. Do cognitive

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The multi-disciplinarity of CSCL

• CSCL can presently be characterized as consisting
  of three methodological traditions experimental,
  descriptive and iterative design.
• Many empirical studies follow the dominant
  experimental paradigm that compares an
  intervention to a control condition in terms of
  one or more variables.
• The ethnomethodological tradition (exemplified in
  CSCL by Koschmann et al., 2003 Koschmann et al.,
  2005 Roschelle, 1996 Stahl, 2006) is more
  suited for descriptive case analyses.
• The iterative design tradition is exemplified by
  Fischer Ostwald (2005), Lingnau, et al. (2003)
  and Guzdial et al. (1997) (also see Confrey, this
  volume).

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CSCL research in future

• CSCL researchers form a community of inquiry that
  is actively constructing new ways to collaborate
  in the design, analysis and implementation of
  computer support for collaborative learning. A
  broad range of research methods from the learning
  sciences may be useful in analyzing
  computer-supported coll aborative learning.
  Having appropriated ideas, methods and
  functionality from cognate fields, CSCL may in
  its next phase collaboratively construct new
  theories, methodologies and technologies specific
  to the task of analyzing the social practices of
  intersubjective meaning making in order to
  support collaborative learning.

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Comparing the foundations and the complex nature
of CSCL research

• Lipponen shares the idea that appears on the
  homepage of the CSCL 2002 conference
  (http//www.cscl2002.org/intro.html) " further
  progress is needed to provide a solid foundation
  for CSCL as a robust, effective research field.
  We CSCL researchers need to start to coalesce
  and strengthen a set of coherent foundations
  --without imposing a narrow approach or stifling
  the healthy interchange of conflicting
  interdisciplinary perspectives". This task is
  absolutely worthwhile of striving for. But as my
  exploration showed, it will also be a very
  demanding task, it might be even a mission
  impossible.
• Stahl et al argued that CSCL requires a focus on
  the meaning-making practices of collaborating
  groups and on the design of technological
  artifacts to mediate interaction, rather than a
  focus on individual learning. Whether this focus
  can, will or should lead to a coherent
  theoretical framework and research methodology
  for CSCL remains to be seen.