Research on Software Scaffolding and Community Support Jörg M. Haake

Overview Affordable virtual spaces for cooperative learning Computer-supported collaboration scripts Synchronous cooperative exercises Community support and scaffolding in CURE

Computer-supported collaboration scripts Prescribe possible behaviour through –States, –Roles constraining actions, and –Transitions (changing state and role assignment) Experimental study comparing different features –Collaboration script –Explicit referencing => positive impact of referencing for complex knowledge Planned: –Comparing different UI designs for integrating awareness –Development environment for collaboration scripts

Synchronous cooperative exercises (1) Special tool for a specific form of exercise –Brainstorming –Organizing concepts into a semantic net

Synchronous cooperative exercises (2) Used in 2 courses; log data and group results analyzed –Voluntary participation –Groups (3-4 students) formed and mostly stayed together –Interaction changed over 3 sessions social relationships formed Less coordination –Groups did learn, discourse facilitated deeper insight

Community support and scaffolding in CURE (1) CURE (Collaborative Universal Remote Education) –Rooms: shared workspaces for groups –Rooms provide: Pages: learning material & tools Communication channels Awareness –Adjacent rooms form learning environment –Templates control presentation and structure of pages

Community support and scaffolding in CURE (2) Community Support –Managing collaborative spaces Create/manipulate rooms Access management Communication: chat, discussions Cooperation: shared pages Coordination –Change notifications –Shared plans (pages) –Calendar, meeting scheduler –Group formation –Tailoring

Community support and scaffolding in CURE (3) Scaffolding –Organizing learning activities in rooms and pages –Explicit instructions, milestones –Organization Predefined (teacher) Self-organized Tailoring –Planned: Integration of collaboration scripts

Research on Software Scaffolding and Community Support Jörg M. Haake

Personal background at GMD-IPSI –Cooperative, open hypermedia systems –CSCW: authoring, meeting support, problem- solving –CSCL: collaboration scripts Since 2001: FernUniversität in Hagen –Teaching: Distributed cooperative systems –Research: CSCL, support for cooperative learning among distributed students (and teachers)