Learning scientists and the CSCL community have argued that knowledge construction is a process of collective thinking; a process that is simultaneously personal and social that requires group cognition. However, while CSCL researchers have investigated situated knowledge in the process of collective thinking, little work has been done to fully…

CSCL systems which follow the dual-interaction spaces paradigm support the synchronous construction and discussion of shared artifacts by distributed or colocated small groups of learners. The most recent generic dual-interaction space environments, either model based or component based, can be deeply customized by teachers for supporting…

Macro scripts structure collaborative learning and foster the emergence of knowledge-productive interactions such as argumentation, explanations and mutual regulation. We propose a pedagogical model for the designing of scripts and illustrate this model using three scripts. In brief, a script disturbs the natural convergence of a team and in doing…

The study reported here sought to obtain the clear articulation of asynchronous computer-mediated discourse needed for Carl Bereiter and Marlene Scardamalia's knowledge-creation model. Distinctions were set up between three modes of discourse: knowledge sharing, knowledge construction, and knowledge creation. These were applied to the asynchronous…

The use and effects of a CSCL-tool are not always predictable from the properties of the tool alone, but depend on how that tool is appropriated. This paper presents the findings from a case study about the appropriation of a graphical shared workspace. When students are presented with a new tool they may encounter competing constraints and…

This study focuses on how to support students who have to work together in small groups, and who do not know each other, in performing grounding discussion. It compares two different implementations of a script, one using a structured interface, one using a textual instruction, on students' discussion behavior. The experiment involved two…

Per definition, CSCL research deals with the data of individuals nested in groups, and the influence of a specific learning setting on the collaborative process of learning. Most well-established statistical methods are not able to analyze such nested data adequately. This article describes the problems which arise when standard methods are…

This paper describes the development of augmented group awareness tools that take mutual user ratings of their online discussion contributions as input, aggregate these data, and visually feed these data back to the members in real time, thereby informing participants about how the group as a whole perceives their contributions. A specific group…

Although protocol analysis can be an important tool for researchers to investigate the process of collaboration and communication, the use of this method of analysis can be time consuming. Hence, an automatic coding procedure for coding dialogue acts was developed. This procedure helps to determine the communicative function of messages in online…