Relating CSCW to CSCL

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Relating CSCW to CSCL

• Anders Mørch
• TOOL 5100, 09.02.06

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Outline

• What is CSCL
• Historical development
• Collaborative learning
• Computer as a mediating artifact
• Commonalities in CSCW and CSCL
• Disagreements between the two fields, where and
  how they diverge

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What is CSCL

• CSCL Computer Supported Collaborative Learning
• A field concerned with collaborative learning and
  how it can be supported by computers
• The role of technology as mediating artifact,
  i.e. mediation becomes a key concern
• It has been compared to the role of language in
  conventional education (citing Vygotsky)

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Bannons deconstruction of CSCL

• L What do people mean by Learning?
• CL What do people mean by Collaborative
  Learning?
• SCL What do people mean by Support for
  Collaborative Learning?
• CSCL What do people mean by Computer Support
  for Collaborative Learning?

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Collaborative Learning

• Involves 2 or more participants
• Usually 2 or more students, but can also be one
  teacher and one student
• An goal of CL is to reach a learning objective or
  take part in in a knowledge creation process that
  exceeds the sum of what the individuals can
  achieve on their own
• In a good collaborative learning process the
  learner takes advantage of the asymmetry
  between own and others skill level

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Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

• ZPD is a concept introduced by the Soviet scholar
  and psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978)
• It states that learning should occur in the
  zone between ones actual development and
  potential developed when guided by more capable
  peers
• How to scaffold this with computer support in the
  context of a collaborative learning session is a
  shared concern in CSCL research

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Pitfalls of collaborative learning

• Collaborative learning have been criticized as
  having similar problems to those identified in
  problem-based learning and cased-based
  instruction (where learners work in groups)
• The problem of lurkers (free passengers)
• The complexity of modeling real situations
• Reaching closure and scaling up
• Process becomes more important than outcome
• Many of these issues have been addressed by
  improvements to CSCL and integration or alignment
  with related fields (CSCW, Instructional design,
  etc.)

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Factors important to CL

• The nature of the collaborative task e.g.
  physics problem solving vs. editing a school
  newspaper
• The nature of collaborators (peer,
  teacher-student, student-computer, etc.)
• The unit of analysis (individual, activity,
  group, classroom)
• The number of collaborators
• The previous relationship between collaborators
• The motivation of collaborators
• The setting of collaboration classroom,
  workplace, home
• The time period of collaboration from minutes to
  years

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The role of the computer

• Artifact mediation is the primary role of the
  computer in CSCL according to Bannon
• This is different from the role the computer has
  had in previous approaches to educational
  technology
• Intelligent tutoring systems (acquisition)
• Micro-worlds (simulation)
• Computer-mediated communication (social
  interaction)
• As a mediating artifact the computer may be used
  as an ordinary tool or even language (a resource
  for CL) it can therefore also be used in the
  above roles
• In other ways the computer is not the limiting
  component of a CSCL environment

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Role of the computer, contd

• Among the technologies Bannon mentions many of
  them are today taken for granted, such as email
  and local area networks
• The most interesting technology platform for CSCL
  today is arguable the world-wide web (referred to
  as hypermedia in Bannons article)
• Related to this is knowledge management (referred
  to as community memory by Bannon)
• A technology not mentioned by Bannon, for obvious
  reasons, is mobile CSCL (handheld devices in
  education)

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Commonalities of CSCW and CSCL

• Schmidt makes a comparison between CSCW and CSCL
• He uses the term Cooperative learning instead
  of Collaborative learning when referring to
  CSCL
• However, cooperative learning is different from
  CSCL, originally not connected with computer
  support at all, and older than CSCL (we come back
  to this later in the course)

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Learning in cooperative work

• Learning and working must goes hand in hand when
  work is complex (problems and goals may need to
  be questioned and solution approaches may need
  discussing, and evolving practices requires
  updating)
• Learning and working when work requires learning
  on demand (i.e. learning takes place when the
  knowledge needed to solve a problem or accomplish
  a task exceeds what is currently known)
• Many of the conceptual frameworks for studying
  workplace learning takes this for granted, but
  without going into the details of how it is
  actually carried out

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Cooperative work in learning

• Problem-based learning and project-oriented group
  work (associated with CSCL settings) requires, at
  least rudimentary, skills in working with others
• Both CSCW and CSCL are concerned with the
  identifying the positive effects of group work,
  i.e. what are the factors to be stimulated in
  order to make a group be more than the sum of its
  individuals
• Classrooms and workplaces tend to be organized
  along similar models defined by the society they
  are part of, whether it be the large hall (i.e.
  the old classroom) or the (theme-based) office
  of the future (like many current classrooms)

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Diverging concerns

• CSCW is computer support for experts working in
  teams rather than for novices learning together
• This is related to memberships in communities
  of practice (e.g. central or peripheral members)
• CSCW is more about business and common goals,
  whereas CSCL is more about process of reaching a
  goal (and reflecting on it along the way) and
  identifying learning experiences

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Diverging concerns, contd

• In CSCW mutual help is taken for granted and as
  result cooperating teams have members with a
  great deal of shared knowledge of the application
  domain and the task to complete
• Domain specific applications dominate in CSCW,
  whereas in CSCL generic ones dominate (this can
  be seen analogous to speech in ordinary language
  vs. profession-oriented languages)
• The need for coordination support is often more
  articulated in CSCW and can therefore be more
  tightly integrated into the computer system
• This can explain the keen interest in awareness
  mechanisms in CSCW and pedagogical agents and
  scripts for CSCL
• Soft rule (loose coupling) vs. hard rules (tight
  coupling)

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Where the distinction breaks down

• Many aspects of CSCL are better modeled by
  specialized practices rather than generic ones
  (e.g. scientific discourse, argumentation)
• In heterogeneous work teams there is an asymmetry
  of knowledge between participants, meaning an
  expert in one domain may be a novice in another,
• The same blurred distinction in education a
  novice in the learning environment may be an
  expert in a related area (e.g. using computers,
  his/her hobbies)

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An open issue

• Schmidt identifies socialization as a bottleneck
  to Internet-based (distance) education , he
  believes it is not reachable by the current
  generation of virtual universities
• Do you agree that this is the factor impeding
  distance education institutions to further
  progress, or are there other factors that needs
  to be taken into account as well?
• Hint Think of ways for socialization to be
  redefined for the network society so that it
  better aligns with the needs of distance
  learners, the technological possibilities they
  may have at their disposal, and the practices
  that can be expected to be adopted in the near
  future