Overview

1. Integration of Communication and Learning Material – a Guide for the Design of Collaborative Learning EnvironmentsThomas Herrmann Andrea KienleUniversity of Dortmund

2. Overview • Theory: A context-oriented communication model • Functionality and process of the Collaborative Learning Environment KOLUMBUS • Empirical results

3. role changing Planning and uttering an expression Transforming the perceived expression into an impression deve- loping ideas concept how to communicate knowledge about B knowledge about A outer context context of B Context of A mutual context Communication model A B receiving activity conveying activity deve- loping ideas expression inner context of A inner context of B

4. A B role changing receiving activity conveying activity Planning and uttering an expression deve- loping ideas expression Transforming the perceived expression to an impression deve- loping ideas concept how to communicate inner context of A inner context of B physical situation cultural/geografic constellation expressions already uttered extra-communicative behaviour Content of mass media, ... knowledge about B knowledge about B outer context context of B Context of A mutual context Communication model

5. Communication and Context • Context supports the development of the communication concept • Context helps to find out what is meant • Context helps to detect misunderstandings • Context supplements the expression • Context provide anchors to others activities and experience • Context influences the extent of explicitness  Maximal explicitness leads to minimal understanding

6. Requirements for Collaborative Learning Environments • Provide the information space to work on a mutual, problem-oriented task • Seamless integration of • Individual AND joint learning (incl. agreement) • Research and learning • The context-oriented model implies • Integration of context (the represented material) and current communicative contributions • Individual and flexible presentation and extendibility of the content (e.g. links, hide & show) • Awareness features

7. Requirements for Collaborative Learning Environments • The task has to initiate a process of investigation and research • The system has to support and to intertwine different phases of this process: • Individual learning • Work with others material • Collaboration and identification of consensus and disagreement to stimulate the exchange between students and their delivering of a mutual result

8. describing a task Doing research being aware of others elaborating and editing text Copying, linking, filtering, rating providing material adding other recipients Annotating of small items insufficient acceptance Questions, answers, discussions voting being aware of others Changing rights proposing Building subgroups teacher group of students student Collaborative LearningProcess working with the material of others working with own material preparing collaborating negotiating collaborative learning environment Information sources

9. insufficient acceptance Questions, answers, discussions voting Changing rights proposing teacher group of students student Collaborative LearningProcess working with the material of others working with own material preparing collaborating Research together with Gerry Stahl negotiating collaborative learning environment Information sources

10. The Concept of KOLUMBUS • The process of collaborative learning is supported • Web-based, only webbrowser necessary • Easy upload of material (as context information) • Distinction between individualwork and the resultsof a teamworkby differentiated access rights • Annotations to the basic itemsof the available material (as communicative contributions) • Joint results through negotiations working with the material of others working with own material collaborating

11. Navi-gation:path General features: chat, glossary, search, help Navigation: top item Awareness: new item Navigation: expand or minimize whole tree Hierarchical structure of items • menu, available for every item: • Edit • Changing of access righs • Annotate • Change of the presentation mode • Rating • ... Awareness: information about the item 3 KOLUMBUS: Functionality

12. 3 Annotations in KOLUMBUS Treeview Paperview

13. Different roles in KOLUMBUS • Items in the system are assigned to • Co-Authors • Take responsibility for their content • Specify the group of recipients • Are allowed to modify their items • Recipients • Get hints (new-icon) • Should read the content, use it, make annotations • Can become authors – if proposed

14. Negotiation – why? • To learn from each other by reflecting on others results and relating them to the own work in terms of agreeing or disagreeing or seeking for understanding • Therefore students should be encouraged • to take over responsibility for a mutual result (as co- authors) • agree on a set of recipients • Problem: How to determine the authors or the recipients of a document in a larger group? • Solution: support of voting and commenting as part of a negotiation process

15. Potential Co-authors propose further Co-authors vote KOLUMBUS statement negotiation evaluate Set rights x Co-Authoring Negotiation – Agreeing on mutual results authors Bob Alice Chris

16. Experience with KOLUMBUS: Seminar case study • Mandatory course IuG-FIT (4/01-9/01) • Involved: 16 students and 2 organizers • Task: individual preparation of a detailled outline for a presentation; commenting the outlines of others to improve consistence and to avoid overlapping presentations • Type of evaluation: • Logfiles • 18 semi-structured interviews after the usage of the system • Research questions were focused on material and annotations • Which functions were used? • How did the exchange of knowledge suceed?

17. Experience with KOLUMBUS: workgroup case study • Experiments on Workgroups (12/01) • Participants: 4 workgroups, each 3-5 persons • Task: reflecting the state of work in the research center and finding of topics which should be discussed on a meeting of all the groups • Type of evaluation: • Observation of the usage • 4 group interviews • Main Question concerning negotiation: • How far is it possible to find a consensus with the help of Kolumbus?

18. Experience with KOLUMBUS: Communication with annotations Benefits: + Less explanation by selecting a contextualizing position + Discussion threads were developed Problems: - Missing functionality for links between discussion threads (if annotations were related to each other but located in different branches of the tree) • Insufficient perceptibility of – new – communication contributions (author and date should always be immediately perceptible) - Discussion threads were not sufficiently comprehensible (alternatives for the ordering of annotations were demanded)

19. 4 Dealing with the integration of communication and material •  at first, the integration was perceived as unusual  The more it was used the more functionality was expected Benefits: • The archive of former seminars was used • Tree- and paper-view • To see the work of others Problems: • Creation of an appropriate content structure • Discussion let to uncontrollable growth of the content areas

20. Negotiation • Benefits: • Proposals were made and partially accepted • Problems – the simplicity was not appreciated: • voters should not be anonymous • It should be comprehensible how others have voted • Overview over the ongoing negotiations and their state • votes should be changeable in the course of negotiation • Comments should be directly connectable to the votes (e.g. to explain a vote, to argue against it)

21. Co-Authoring Negotiation – Agreeing on mutual results Potential Co-authors authors Bob Alice Chris propose Co-authors vote KOLUMBUS statement negotiation evaluate Set rights x Discussion of the statement comments

22. ? Co-Authoring Negotiation – Agreeing on mutual results Potential Co-authors authors Bob Alice Chris propose Co-authors vote KOLUMBUS statement negotiation evaluate Set rights x Discussion of the statement comments

23. Administration of the access rights • Benefits: • The group of the recipients of a contribution can be reduced/extended • The group of authors of an contribution is extendable • If #-of-authors > 1, the additional recipients have to be negotiated Problems: • Flexible building of groups was not used •  The assigning of access rights must be more seamlessly integrated into the process of creating an item

24. Relevance of communicative facilitation and transparence of the collaborative process I • the intended process has to be continuously explained • Providing an appropriate structure into which the content can be sorted in • giving hints: what can happen next, on which contributions should someone react, when should s.th. be proposed, should the voting start • Role models are needed (in the seminar case: the organizers) • The interaction between students has to be stimulated • Summarizing the state of the discussion

25. Relevance of communicative facilitation and transparence of the collaborative process II • All participants – also the students should have the possibility to play the role of a facilitator • Differentiation between communicative contributions should be possible: organizational hints vs. content related contributions

26. Summary • Design rationale of KOLUMBUS • Task- and process-oriented • Integration of individual and joint learning; material and communication • Negotiation for mutual results • Further development and research • Taylorable functionality for negotiation • Support for facilitation • Distinction between content- and facilitation-oriented communication • Improved structuring of content and annotations