This article reports a theory-driven experimental study that evaluates the effects of an annotation functionality on online social interaction and individual learning outcomes. The central hypothesis of this study is that directly addressing a part of a text by annotating it and then connecting each annotation with its related discussion can…

This paper argues for a need to develop methods for examining temporal patterns in computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) groups. It advances one such quantitative method--Lag-sequential Analysis (LsA)--and instantiates it in a study of problem-solving interactions of collaborative groups in an online, synchronous environment. LsA…

This paper explores a labelling feature designed to support higher-level online dialogue. It investigates whether students use labels less often during a structured online dialogue than during an unstructured one, and looks at students' reactions to labelling and to both types of tasks. Participants are from three successive course offerings of a…

With the advent of computer technology, researchers and instructors are attempting to devise computer support for effective collaborative technical writing. In this study, a computer-supported environment for collaborative technical writing was developed. This system (Process-Writing Wizard) provides process-oriented scaffolds and a synchronous…

In upper tertiary educational programmes around the world, the new Web-mediated communication practices termed Web 2.0 are introduced as learning activities with the goal of facilitating learning through collaborative knowledge construction. The aim of this paper is to point to discrepancies in the views of learning, knowledge, and the goals of…

Prior research has highlighted the value of using wikis to support learning. This paper makes the case that the wiki has several properties that are particularly amenable for constructing applications that support the "collaborative" part of a variety and range of different time/different place student collaborations. In support of the argument,…

Genre analysis, the investigation of typified communicative actions arising in recurrent situations, has been developed to study information use and interchange online, in businesses and in other organizations. As such, it holds out promise for the investigation of similarly typified communicative actions and situations in CSCL contexts. This…

We conducted research within a program serving future mathematics and science teachers. Groups of teachers worked primarily online in an asynchronous discussion environment on a 6-week task in which they applied learning-science ideas acquired from an educational psychology course to design interdisciplinary instructional units. We employed an…

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…

In order to collaborate effectively in group discourse on a topic like mathematical patterns, group participants must organize their activities in ways that share the significance of their utterances, inscriptions, and behaviors. Here, we report the results of a ethnomethodological case study of collaborative math problem-solving activities…

There has long been a call for schools to prepare students for the twenty-first century where skills and dispositions differ significantly from much of what has historically characterized formal education. The knowledge based economy calls for policy and pedagogical efforts that would transform schools. Schools are to foster communities of…

Online discussions provide opportunities for learners to engage in argumentative debate, but learners rarely formulate well-grounded arguments or benefit individually from participating in online discussions. Learners often do not explicitly warrant their arguments and fail to construct counterarguments (incomplete formal argumentation structure),…

This article describes the impact of learning in asynchronous discussion groups on students' levels of knowledge construction. A design-based approach enabled the comparison of two successive cohorts of students (N = 223 and N = 286) participating in discussion groups for one semester. Multilevel analyses were applied to uncover the influence of…

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…

Very often, when using a chat tool where more than one participant is talking simultaneously, it is difficult to follow the conversation, read all the different messages and work out who is talking to whom about what. This problem has been dubbed "Chat Confusion." This article investigates this problem in debate sessions in an online university…