Wasson, B. (2007). Design and Use of Collaborative Network Learning Scenarios: The DoCTA Experience. Educational Technology & Society, 10 (4), 3-16.
Design and Use of Collaborative Network Learning Scenarios: The DoCTA Experience Barbara Wasson InterMedia & Department of Information Science and Media Studies, University of Bergen, Norway // Tel: +47 55584120 // Fax: +47 55584188 //
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ABSTRACT In the Norwegian DoCTA and DoCTA NSS projects we aimed to bring a theoretical perspective to the design of ICT-mediated learning environments that support the sociocultural aspects of human interaction and to evaluate their use. By taking a sociocultural perspective on learning activity focussing on the interpersonal social interaction in collaborative learning settings we contribute to knowledge about the pedagogical design of network based learning scenarios, the technological design of the learning environment to support these learning scenarios, and the organisational design for management of such learning environments. Through various empirical studies we improved our understanding of the pedagogy and technology of networked learners, and increased our understanding of learner activity. This paper reports on the VisArt artefact design scenario and the gen-etikk collaborative knowledge building scenario focusing on their design and use. Both scenarios comprised co-located and distributed students collaborating over the Internet during a 3-4 week period.
Keywords Collaborative Network Learning; Design and use; Distributed Collaboration; Technology Enhanced Learning
Introduction According to Scandinavian tradition there is a tight relationship between design and use where one is always designing for future use situations (Bannon & Bødker, 1991; Wasson, 1998). Human-computer interaction researchers, Liam Bannon and Susanne Bødker argue for studying artefacts in use, for studying how they mediate use, how they are incorporated into social praxis as the basis for designing future use situations. Design in this human activity framework is “a process in which we determine and create the conditions which turn an object into an artifact of use. The future use situation is the origin for design, and we design with this in mind … To design with the future use activity in mind also means to start out from the present praxis of the future users ((Bannon & Bødker, 1991, p. 242)”. This raises implications for the design, implementation, use and evaluation of network based learning environments. In this paper I show how these implications were manifested in the Norwegian DoCTA (Design and use of Collaborative Telelearning Artefacts) project (http://www.intermedia.uib.no/docta/hoved2.html) through the application of theory to both the pedagogical and technological design, the composition of the design teams and to how continuous evaluation, by both participants and researchers feeds into redesign. In DoCTA the focus was on the design and use of technological artefacts to support collaborative learning in distributed settings (Wasson, Guribye, & Mørch, 2000; Wasson & Ludvigsen, 2003). The objectives of DoCTA included: • taking a sociocultural perspective on learning activity focusing on the interpersonal social interaction in a networked collaborative learning setting • contributing to knowledge about the pedagogical design of learning scenarios, the technological design of the learning environment to support these learning scenarios, and the organisational design for management of such learning environments, including a reflection on teacher and learner roles for collaborative learning in distributed settings, and • to study and evaluate the social and cultural aspects of collaborative learning in distributed settings Through these objectives we aimed to improve our understanding of the pedagogy and technology of networked learners, and increase our understanding of learner activity, in order to lead to better design, management and ISSN 1436-4522 (online) and 1176-3647 (print). © International Forum of Educational Technology & Society (IFETS). The authors and the forum jointly retain the copyright of the articles. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than IFETS must be honoured. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from the editors at
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affordances of networked learning spaces. DoCTA 1 (1998-1999) and DoCTA NSS (2000-2004) were interdisciplinary research projects funded by the Network for IT-Research and Competence in Education (ITU) which is a measure taken by the Ministry of Education to support ICT and learning in the Norwegian Educational system. In DoCTA 1 (Wasson, Guribye & Mørch, 2000) we focused on the design and use of technological artefacts to support collaborative networked learning aimed at teacher training. The research was not limited to only studying these artefacts per se, but included social, cultural, pedagogical and psychological aspects of the entire process in which these artefacts are an integral part. This means that we both provided and studied virtual learning environments that were deployed to students organised in geographically distributed teams. Various scenarios utilising the Internet were used to engage the students in collaborative learning activities. Through participation, the students gained experience with not only collaborative learning, but with networked learning through the collaborative design of a textual (Scenarios IDEELS and Demeter) or visual artefact (Scenario VisArt). Details of these studies can be found in the ITU DoCTA report (Wasson, Guribye & Mørch, 2000). In this paper, the VisArt scenario is in focus. In DoCTA NSS (Wasson & Ludvigsen, 2003) we investigated, through a design experiment, how the pedagogical design of an ICT-mediated collaborative learning environment enables students to learn complex concepts and how they can go about discussing these concepts in the broader learning community. Design experiments (Brown, 1992) can be seen as intervention in educational practice since the researchers, in collaboration with teachers, try to change the way student’s work (Ludvigsen & Mørch, 2003). In our design experiment we intervened in grade 10 natural science education by introducing an ICT-mediated collaborative learning scenario in gene technology, gen-etikk, where students collaborated both in co-located and distributed settings. The aim was to investigate how the pedagogical design of an ICT-mediated collaborative learning environment enables students to talk science and how this mediates learning. Augmenting our methodological toolbox with Interaction Analysis (Jordan & Henderson, 1995) we added studies (Arnseth 2004; Arnseth et al. 2002, 2004; Rysjedal & Wasson, 2005) about the interaction between collaborating students and uncovered how the students make their evolving understanding visible to each other (Stahl, 2002) and how the artifacts that they use are an integral part of this process. In this paper I focus on how the underlying theoretical model of learning had implications for the pedagogical and technological design and for our evaluations. This paper is organized as follows. The next section looks that the design and use of technology enhanced learning environments and presents a conceptual model that illustrates the complexity of this relationship. Then the two scenarios, VisArt and gen-etikk are presented, respectively, with a focus on their design and use. The paper concludes with a general discussion.
Design and Use of Technology Enhanced Learning Environments From a socio-cultural perspective on learning the notion of activity is seen as the basic concept for design and analysis (Ludvigsen & Mørch, 2003). This view, together with the Bannon & Bødker view of designing for future use situations, implies that when we look at a technology rich learning environment we need to look at activity from both a design and use perspective. Figure 1 illustrates this tight relationship. The TEL design addresses institutional (or organisational), pedagogical and technological aspects of the learning environment and the activity that emerges from implementing the design, that is the TEL environment in use, can been evaluated from an institutional, pedagogical or technological perspective. This means that when designing a learning scenario, the pedagogical and technological design is important and it is tightly entwined in an institutional context. It also implies that understanding the use is a complex relationship between institutional, pedagogical and technological perspectives. The institutional aspects often set the constraints for a learning scenario and are the aspect on which the designer has the least impact. The tight interaction between design and use, as illustrated in figure 1, shows that the design of a technology enhanced learning scenario requires the design of the institutional (or organizational), the pedagogical and the technological aspects. A theoretical perspective can influence the design (as illustrated in the section on the gen-etikk scenario). Implementation of the design can entail aspects such as tailoring or developing technology, intervention in existing practice (e.g., in a classroom), or pedagogical redesign of existing learning activities. Understanding the use 4
of the technology enhanced learning environment can be taken from an institutional, a pedagogical or a technological perspective (example of this will be shown later in the description of the VisArt scenario). In order to understand the use, the evaluation, influenced by ones theoretical perspective, can take the form of experiments, field trials, ethnographies, etc., or some combination of these. The results of the evaluation inform the (re)design process.
Figure 1. Design and Use of Technology Enhanced Learning Environments
VisArt In DoCTA 1, the design and use of the VisArt scenario involved a networked learning environment situated in a higher education setting where the students participated in the collaborative design of a visual artefact for use in teaching. There are a number of research areas that have influenced DoCTA 1 (see Wasson, Guribye & Mørch (2000) for details). The two most significant are the conceptual framework offered by sociocultural perspectives (Wertsch, del Río & Alvarez, 1995) and the fields of computer support for collaborative learning (CSCL), in particular Salomon’s (1992) work on genuine interdependence. We also take inspiration and guidance from CSCW theory, in particular ideas on awareness (Dourish & Bellotti, 1992; Gutwin et al., 1995) and coordination science (Malone & Crowston, 1994). These theoretical perspectives have influenced our choice of groupware tool, the design of the VisArt scenario and its collaborative activity, and the design of our evaluation studies. Design of VisArt The design of the VisArt activity took place over four months. The design team comprised the DoCTA researchers and the instructors for the participating courses. We developed the student´s design activity, specified the technological environment, coordinated dates for the activity, designed the training, help and assistance for the deployment, and designed our evaluations. Figure 2 identifies the institutional, technological and pedagogical aspects of the VisArt scenario. The institutional aspects encompass students taking different courses at three geographically dispersed Norwegian higher educational institutions, the University of Bergen, Nord-Trøndelag College, and Stord/Haugesund College. The learner’s participating in the scenario had different backgrounds, ranged in age from 23 to 68 years and many had family responsibilities and full time jobs. The University of Bergen students were taking a graduate course in pedagogical information science and were learning about computer support for collaborative learning. They were a blend of pedagogical information science graduate students (with a teacher’s background) and information science graduate students (with a social science background). The students at Stord/Haugesund College were senior undergraduate students training to be teachers who were taking a distance learning course on pedagogical information science that 5
included a unit on collaborative learning. The Nord-Trøndelag students were taking an undergraduate introduction course on the uses of technology in learning and had a choice to participate in the scenario to learn about networked learning.
Figure 2. Design of VisArt There were a number of research areas that influenced the pedagogical design. The two most significant are the conceptual framework offered by sociocultural perspectives and the field of computer support for collaborative learning, in particular Salomon’s (1992) work on genuine interdependence. Thus we designed a collaborative learning activity where the students not only participated in teams collaborating to design a learning activity, but they had to reflect on their participation. The students were informed that in the VisArt activity they would be part of a team of 3 students comprised of 1 student from each institution. Thus each participant had complementary backgrounds; this is in alignment with Salomon´s (1992) idea that collaboration is only successful when there is a genuine interdependence between the collaborators. There were no opportunities for the team members to meet faceto-face. The team was to: • Organise a collaborative team effort thinking of Salomon’s definition genuine interdependence: 1) sharing information 2) division of labour 3) joint thinking • Carry out the Design Activity in TeamWave Workplace (TW) • the room you chose to design should enable the students to know more about a concept, a procedure, a theory, a process, etc. • with the aid of help pages, assistance (from a course assistant), Help room in TW • Produce 2 items: • A document of your pedagogical decisions (e.g., who is the room intended for, the content, etc….) • A TW room for teaching/learning In addition to participating in the VisArt activity, the UiB students were to produce an individual report on their experience with VisArt that contained: • an introduction to CSCL and networked learning • a description of the design activity, including the tools provided and used • a presentation of their team’s room and the pedagogical decisions made • a discussion of how the team met Salomon's requirements for genuine interdependence and whether or not TeamWave Workplace supported activities resulting from attempts at meeting Salomon’s requirements • a discussion of Gutwin et al.’s awareness concept and what it means in conjunction with your distributed collaboration through TW • their general reaction to collaborative telelearning (as you experienced it) including: a reflection on the team’s work, the process of carrying out the assignment, general comments about the entire assignment, your reaction to TW 6
The technological aspects of the VisArt scenario comprised three tools, TeamWave Workplace, their own email system and a web browser. TeamWave Workplace (TW), a groupware tool developed at the GroupLab at the University of Calgary, was used as the main information and communication technology. One important distinction between TW and other real-time groupware systems is that TW is based on the metaphor of a place (i.e., a room), while most others are based on the metaphor of a meeting. A major strength of TW is that it provided a wellintegrated set of varied collaboration tools with a good blend of real-time (synchronous) and asynchronous communication tools that enable anytime team collaboration. Furthermore, TW augments both existing user interaction tools such as email, newsgroups and conferencing, and existing conventional applications such as word processors and spreadsheets. Another strength of TW’s integrated approach is that spontaneous as well as preplanned intra-team interactions are supported. From a CSCL theoretical perspective, TW enables collaboration and supports genuine interdependence between team members. Team members are able to share information, meanings, thoughts, conceptions and conclusions through their choice of operational tool objects. From a sociocultural perspective it can be said that these thinking tools (signs) in turn facilitate both team-mate knowledge construction and collective growth. Furthermore, the thinking tools provide a means for thoughts to be examined changed and elaborated upon by fellow team members. TeamWave was used for the IDEELS scenario in DoCTA 1 so we had already determined how to use the tool with teams and attempted to design a new tool to include in TW. This prove impossible for reasons beyond our control, thus we changed the design activity to utilise the exiting tools, highlighting the relationship between the technological and pedagogical aspects. Figure 3 shows the Classroom room that was the starting room for the students. The tools Calendar, To Do List, Doors (to other rooms), Address Book, URL links, Chat, Awareness Lists and a File (Visart oppgaver) can be seen. Implementation of VisArt The VisArt activity was deployed for 1 month beginning on February 25th and ending on March 26th. The students were given 5 days to download TW, test their accounts and team email addresses. A training-phase (in TW) lasted for ten days, and the main goal for this activity was for the students to get to know TW, to get to know the other members of their team, and to also give them some ideas on how to work and collaborate in TW. A three-week design activity followed. The students collaborated to create a learning room in TW. There were 11 teams and the topics they chose to design learning rooms for included: endanger species, gothic art, publishing on the internet, triangles, the big bang, travelling in Denmark, renewable energy sources, between the world wars, polar bears, and astronomy. Figure 4 shows the 2 rooms that were designed for learning about polar bears. Evaluation of use of VisArt The evaluation of the VisArt scenario was carried out on several levels and from several perspectives. The theoretical, or conceptual approach, to the evaluation of VisArt was rooted in a sociocultural perspective that emphasises an understanding of language, culture and other aspects of social setting and focus on the use situation. Ethnographic studies, favouring naturalistic and qualitative research methods were employed. In addition to the student’s own theoretical reflections (which are important in a sociocultural perspective), VisArt was evaluated as part of eight Master’s theses, including two activity theory studies of how students (Andreassen, 2000), instructors and facilitators (Wake, 2002) organise their work. In addition, these ethnographic flavoured studies were augmented with a usability study of TW (Rysjedal, 2000), looking at the efficiency of TW from a qualitative perspective using the data logs generated by TW (Meistad 2000, Meistad & Wasson, 2000), performing a formative evaluation of how to support collaborative design activities, seeing how TW supports coordination, how to design training and assistance in a collaborative telelearning setting (Underhaug, 2001). Some of the results of these studies are presented below. In general, the students were very satisfied with TW. As one student writes in his reflection over TW “An important side with TeamWave is that one can work both asynchronously and synchronously. … For example one can use the shared whiteboard synchronously when the users are online at the same time and write on it together, but it is also possible to use the whiteboard asynchronously when the different users log 7
on at different times and work individually on tasks on the whiteboard. …That it supports both forms of work makes the program package flexible and accessible at all times.”
Figure 3. Screenshot of the Classroom in TeamWave Workplace
Figure 4. Screenshots of rooms for learning about Polar Bears Several students wrote that the successful use of TW was not just tied to the ease of use, rather, that it is used in an activity that meets Salomon’s requirements. As one student succinctly put it “I think that a requirement for successful use of it [TW] is that the participants are motivated and have mindful engagement and that the tool [TW] is used for something meaningful.” The majority of the groups had a heterogeneous makeup with the group members having different backgrounds. As one group said, this meant that they had different preconceptions and different experiences with collaboration. They said, that 8
“according to Salomon it is exactly these differences that makes collaboration work…to use each others competence and pull something useful of these competencies through collaboration.” From a sociocultural research perspective the student’s own reflections are a very important part of evaluation and as illustrated in the previous excerpts they demonstrated an ability to reflect theoretically on practice. The research reports they submitted in the course held comments and reflections that were both thoughtful and insightful and will lead to improvements in future versions of the scenario. From an ethnographic flavoured study looking at how students organized their work in VisArt, Andreassen (2001) used different qualitative data gathering techniques from a variety of data sources, ranging from electronically collected TW chat logs to transcribed informal interviews. The data analysis dealt with aspects like co-ordination, communication mode, division of labour, and feedback. During the entire scenario the students met regularly in TW, and co-ordinated their actions by using TW or email. Sometimes both TW and email were used as a means of coordination, providing a form of double communication. This form of communication disappeared as the scenario went on, maybe as a result of the establishment of regular meetings and patterns for collaboration. The task decision marked a noticeable line of demarcation in the communication mode. Before deciding on the task the rate of synchronous meetings and communication were higher than after the decision had been made. The asynchronous nature of the post decision work, may have its root both in the fact that the need for synchronous meetings were diminished, and that each student was assigned her/his own area of responsibility, contributing to a co-operative, rather than a collaborative form of work. In spite of a mutual agreement on providing feedback on each other’s work, this hardly ever occurred. Time pressure and a feeling that one had to concentrate on what oneself was doing, are probably the main reasons for the lack of feedback. Collaboration patterns define sequences of interaction among members of a team (such as students). In the VisArt scenario we have searched for collaboration patterns by analysing interaction data from data logs, videotapes, observations, and interviews both between students and between students and facilitators (instructors and assistants). We have identified several instances that we believe can be characterised as collaboration patterns (Wasson & Mørch, 2000): Adaptation: This pattern describes how students gradually adapted to each other’s practices when working together to solve a common problem. Coordinated desynchronisation: This pattern describes how coordination of activities between team members changes after they have identified a common goal. Constructive commenting: This pattern describes commenting behaviour. Comments that are neutral (e.g., just to the point) are perceived to be less useful than comments that are also constructive (e.g., suggesting what to do next) or supportive (e.g., encouraging). Informal language: This pattern describes how interaction often starts in a formalistic style and gradually becomes more informal as team members get to know each other. Frequent use of slang words or dialects local to the community working together is common in instances of this pattern. Collaboration patterns are useful for the re(design) of the learning scenario. For example, in the initial phases of a collaboration effort, a sort of double communication might occur; more than one tool is used to inform other team members about a changed meeting time. This type of adaptation pattern was observed in VisArt and lead to inefficiencies. This sort of communication may be reduced or disappear with improved technical understanding or changed work coordination over time, but might be avoided with sufficient training and examples on how different tools can be used for coordination purposes. Our general findings in DoCTA 1 include: • the ease of use of the many collaborative tools tells us that the technological problems are no longer the prime issue in CSCL design • the main issues are related to the broader institutional contexts in which the tools are designed and used • coordination issues remain a challenge for collaboration with distributed learners 9
• •
the numerous evaluation studies that we have carried out not only contribute to our understanding of the social and cultural aspects of collaborative networked learning environments, but equally important, they have also addressed methodological issues related to studying online environments the reflections of the students played an important part in our understanding of the learning activity and feed into future designs
Gen-etikk In DoCTA NSS we intervened in grade 10 natural science education by introducing an ICT-mediated collaborative learning scenario in gene technology, gen-etikk. In gen-etikk a cross curriculum scenario of natural science, religion & ethics (KRL) and Norwegian was developed collaboratively between the researchers and teachers and the learning goals related to the biological, ethical and societal aspects of gene technology. The pedagogical approach was progressive inquiry learning (Muukkonen, Hakkarainen, & Lakkala, 1999) and a web-based groupware system, FLE3, that supports this model was used as the main learning technology. Figure 5 illustrates that the progressive inquiry learning theoretical model was operationalised in both the pedagogical and technological design of gen-etikk. Students in two classes collaborated in both co-located (within groups in a class) and distributed (between groups in two different Norwegian cities) settings to share and discuss ideas and arguments around scientific and ethical questions related to gene technology. In this section we elaborate on the design rationale behind the scenario by detailing the pedagogical approach and the didactic design and then introduce the technological environment and describe the deployment of the scenario. Design of Gen-etikk In the design processes a key aspects in this kind of design experiment is both to adapt to the schools everyday practice, and on the other side, challenge and extend these practices. Progressive inquiry learning is an approach to collaborative knowledge building where students engage in a research-like process to gain understanding of a knowledge domain by generating their own problems, proposing tentative hypotheses and searching for deepening knowledge collaboratively. As a starting point for progressive inquiry learning, a context and the goal for a study project needs to be established in order for the students to understand why the topic is worthwhile investigating. Then the instructor or the students present their research problems/questions that define the directions where the inquiry goes. As the inquiry cycle proceeds, more refined questions will emerge. Focusing on the research problems, the students construct their working theories, hypotheses, and interpretations based on their background knowledge and their research. Then the students assess strengths and weaknesses of different explanations and identify contradictions and gaps of knowledge. To refine the explanation, fill in the knowledge gaps and provide deeper explanation, the students have to do research and acquire new information on the related topics, which may result in new working theories. In so doing, the students move step by step toward building up knowledge to answer the initial question. The role of the teachers is to be a facilitator for the students. The teachers can stimulate self-regulation by the students by giving comments and advice, both within the classroom and in the online environment.
Figure 5. Operationalisation of Progessive Inquiry Learning 10
The pedagogical design was inspired by the progressive inquiry approach to knowledge building. Animated by a trigger video (we edited a Norwegian National Broadcasting Corporation (NRK) documentary on gene technology to 4 5-minute segments, each presenting a different theme within genetic technology) to set the context and supported by the structure and resources in the learning environment, the students themselves will identify problems on which to work, decide where they wanted to search for information, participate in inquiry learning cycles and create newspaper articles. We developed a set of activities with instructions that included assignments related to the inquiry learning cycle (e.g., generate scientific and ethical questions about gene technology; engage in inquiry about selected questions, compose scientific explanations, etc.) and products related to expressions of what they have learned (scientific and ethical questions, science questions for use on a test, write individual and collaborate texts on opinions about an argument or a discussion about a scientific or ethical question to be published in the national school newspaper). For the technological design, support for gen-etikk was given through a web portal that was designed in order to provide the students with a shared online space (see figure 6). From this portal the students had access to various learning resources, collaboration tools, and a tool for Internet publishing called Skoleavisa (an online newspaper generator available for all schools in Norway). Among the learning resources they could find an online text book (previously written by 2 of the DoCTA researchers), a Norwegian encyclopaedia, animations, a special search engine Atekst (searches Norwegian newspaper archives) and some selected links to external resources on the Internet. The main tool for collaboration was Future Learning Environment 3, FLE3 (http://fle3.uiah.fi). FLE3 is designed to support collaborative knowledge building and progressive inquiry learning (Muukkonen et al., 1999) and comprises several modules. The Web Top provides each group with a place where they can store and share digital material with other groups. An automatically generated message that tells what has happened since the last time they visited FLE3 also appears here. The Knowledge Building module is considered to be the scaffolding module for progressive inquiry and it can be seen as a semi-structured communication interface (Dillenbourg, 2002). It is a shared database where the students can publish problem statements or research questions, and engage in knowledge building dialogues around these problems by posting their messages to the common workspace according to predefined categories which structure the dialogue. These categories are defined to reflect the different phases in the progressive inquiry process, thus they operationalise the theory in the tool. These included: Question, Our explanation, Scientific explanation, Summary, Comment and Process Comment. We added a digital assistant to FLE3 (Chen & Wasson, 2003) to support both the students and teachers in monitoring what happened inside FLE3 (Dragsnes, Chen, & Baggetun, 2002). In addition to FLE3, a combined chat and mind mapping tool (Dragsnes, 2003) was developed and made available for the students to add support for synchronous communication. Implementation of Gen-etikk Gen-etikk took place over 31 hours during the three last weeks of September 2002, and involved two grade 10 classes, one from Bergen (24 students) and one from Oslo (27 students). Five of the 31 hours were concurrent (i.e., both classes worked on gene-tikk at the same time) and synchronous communication was possible. The scenario began with each class viewing the trigger video on genetic technology. Then the students brainstormed about questions related to genetic technology. This brainstorming session generated a long list of questions from the two classes, and the teachers used these questions in order to make one single list of questions with 12 scientific questions and 12 ethical questions about genetics. This list of questions was published on the web portal. The two classes were then divided into local groups with 3 or 4 members, and each of the local groups in Bergen was connected to a local group in Oslo to form a composed group. The scenario had two phases, and in the first phase the composed groups discussed the list of questions and decided on three scientific questions to work on. These questions were posted as problem-statements in FLE3 before they started to search for and discuss information around their questions. Whenever they found something relevant, they could post it as a note in the knowledge building module in FLE3. After having explored the questions for about a week the students should use the information they had gathered in order to write at least two different articles about genetics. These articles were published in Skoleavisa, the online newspaper generator. In the second phase of the scenario the focus was turned to the ethical aspects of gene technology. The list of questions was revisited, and this time the composed groups should decide on 3 ethical questions on which they 11
wanted to work. The same inquiry process was repeated in this phase, with about one week of inquiry of questions before publishing articles in Skoleavisa. It was believed that focusing on scientific aspects before they turned to the ethical aspects would increase the students’ abilities to argue on their ethical viewpoints. By the end of the project every group had contributed and 60 articles were published in the online newspaper.
Figure 6. The Web Portal for gen-etikk Evaluation of the use of gen-etikk There have been a number of empirical studies carried out on the DoCTA NSS data. The design of a learning environment needs to account for institutional, technological and pedagogical aspects at different levels. Three of the evaluations that take an institutional perspective on learning are summarised in this section. An institutional perspective takes student actions and activities as a staring point, not the goals in the curriculum or some scientific template. Diversity, multiple voices, the actors’ different goal and intensions, and the institutional history are some of the aspects that constitute a specific practice. These aspects create a basis for understanding how students act in specific situations. Rysjedal and Baggetun (2003) discuss issues related to infrastructure and design of learning environments. The established infrastructure in an institution creates both constraints and affordances for how new technology can be integrated. In the design of a learning environment that should work across institutional boundaries it is important to take the local infrastructures into consideration. Rysjedal and Baggetun take a broad perspective on infrastructure, and thereby make an important bridge between technological and social perspectives on how new technology can be introduced into social systems. They discuss how the design of a learning environment needs to take technological, organisational and pedagogical aspects into consideration. In Arnseth, Ludvigsen, Guribye and Wasson (2002) and Arnseth (2004) describe how rhetorical aspects of human talk and discourse become important if we want to understand how students co-construct knowledge in schools. Their empirical analyses show very clearly that students make specific interpretation of the task to which they are exposed and to how the institution actually works. The authors argue that knowledge building as a metaphor as used in some of the literature seems too be too rationalistic. In a similar vein, Ludvigsen and Mørch (2003) criticize the progressive inquiry model proposed by Mukkonenen et al. (1999) because it has a too distinct focus on the 12
conceptual artefacts developed by the students, and that the progressive inquiry model is privileged as the analytic staring point. A selection of the lessons learned from DoCTA NSS as reported in Wasson & Ludvigsen (2003) include: • Our major finding is that too few students use higher order skills as part of their learning activities. This confirms the findings reported in many international studies. Students and teachers have a tendency to place more importance on solving the task than on the domain concepts to be learned. Students need to employ higher order skills when dealing with knowledge building in complex and conceptually-oriented environments in order to go beyond fact finding. • The teacher is extremely important in supporting, stimulating and motivating the students to integrate previous knowledge with the new knowledge they are learning through the gen-etikk tasks. • We find the same tendency as shown in the PISA study (Lie et al. ) that students do not have good enough learning strategies. When meeting new ICT-supported learning situations, students need time and training in their integrated use before their learning strategies become effective. • Prompting categories triggered some of the students to a more critical and analytic stance towards the learning resources and how they reason about ethical issues in the domain of gene technology. • The students that engage themselves in the task at a deep level show evidence of the necessary skills needed to critically examine the relationship between information and the argumentation that is part of the problem solving process. • The design, which includes small group collaboration, creates increased motivation and curiosity. • When schools work together to create a distributed environment where students solve tasks together, the management of the time schedules of the two schools needs to adjusted – or the school needs to have a flexible time schedule. Practical arrangements create tensions and problems with the coordination between the schools. • Students have little problem in the practical use of ICT-tools as long as the tools and network function as they should. • Several types of digital resources were created to support the development of the ability to integrate information from different resources as part of knowledge construction. This is one important aspect in designing for the cultivation of higher order skills.
Discussion and Conclusions This paper has attempted to illustrate the relationship between the design and use of technology enhanced learning environments and to illustrate how this is tightly intertwined in the institutional, pedagogical and technological aspects of a learning environment. Furthermore, the view of design and use is heavily influenced by a sociocultural perspective on learning that views activity as central to both design and analysis. The DoCTA 1 and DoCTA NSS scenarios have been described in a way that highlights the pedagogical, technological and institutional design aspects and how the evaluation studies have looked at the use, or activity as it emerges. Several general observations have been presented for each of the projects. Having the opportunity to work with networked learning over a number of years has had its advantages. Early on we learned that it rarely was a problem with introducing a new technology to our students, and this was true for both 15 year olds and university students. What we encountered, in both groups, however, was their desire to use the technological tools that they already used in their daily lives in our scenarios and we tried to accommodate this when possible. For example, in VisArt, we incorporated their own email into the scenario and adjusted our data collection to collect this email as well. In gen-etikk we found that the teenagers wanted to use IRC for having contact between the distributed groups, so we incorporated this as well. In later projects we found that they used their mobile phones for coordination and collaboration. We also learned a lot about evaluation of networked learning, the main one is that there is no recipe for how to evaluate and carry out analysis of networked learning. In DoCTA 1 we learned that there are many ways from which a technology enhanced learning scenario can be viewed and that only one view will not tell the story. For example, a technology that in incorporated into a pedagogical design may prove to be the wrong tool, or may have problems due to the institutions infrastructure. It is not as simple as saying “the technology did not support learning”. Maybe the usability of the tool is poor, or it did not fit the task for which it was chosen. Thus human computer interaction 13
usability studies have a place in the evaluation repertoire, but are only part. In DoCTA NSS we paid attention to the unit of analysis. For example, we tried to build on state-of-the-art knowledge in order to design gen-etikk. The pedagogical and technological designs form conditions for how and what students could learn. The designed environment, however, is only one important aspect of what we need to understand. As Wasson & Ludvigsen (2003) have argued, learning and knowledge building are always part of an institutional arrangement, and we need to take this as a starting point. The socio-cultural perspective gives us possibilities to understand how higher order skills can be developed. By having insight into student’s learning trajectories, the kind of talk in which they are engaged, and in how the division of labor is distributed between the students and teachers, we begin to understand how the cultivation of higher order skills becomes part of institutionalized activities; otherwise it will be serendipitous. Only by looking at the chosen technology in relation to these other aspects can we say anything about how it supports learning. Thus we can arguer that institutional, technological and pedagogical aspects need to be treated as a unit of analysis in the design processes. Furthermore, the theoretical underpinnings, technological artefacts and the evaluation of use need to mutually inform each other. As illustrated in both scenarios, the designer´s theoretical perspective on learning influences the design of the pedagogy and can also, as in VisArt, be embedded in the technological tools. The theoretical perspective also has implications for the methodology and methods of analysis. When looking to the future the challenges for networked learning are many, but many of them exciting. Given increased mobility in work situations and in society in general, mobile and wireless technologies are becoming vital artefacts in all aspects of our lives. New technological advancements make collaboration across devices (e.g., mobile phones, PCs, PDAs, PocketPCs, etc.) and networks (e.g., GSM, GPRS, 3G, LANs, WLANs, WMANs) possible and opens for learning areans. For example third generation (3G) handsets allow users of 3G services to view and record video content and television in addition to WAP-functionalities such as reading e-mail or surfing on the Web. Furthermore, software is becoming available or accessible from a variety of devices (on e.g. PDAs, Pocket PCs, mobile phones). These new technological advancements place high demands new digital and mobile literacies among learners. Consequently, in-depth and structured knowledge on how wireless and mobile technologies impact human actions in learning is limited and raises a plethora of specific questions about how these technologies change collaborating institutions and their pedagogy. Recent studies are beginning to make headway into understanding these new conditions for learning (the collection in Arnedillo-Sánchez, Sharples & Vavoula, 2007; Baggetun & Wasson, 2006; Kukulska-Hulme , 2007; Milrad & Jackskon, 2007; Thackara, 2005). Finally, I believe that we are dealing with a new type of student. Technology savvy students, who are used to configuring their own virtual world, organise their own interactions with peers, instructors and the world beyond. Games such as World of Warcraft and Social tools such as flikr, del.icious, YouTube, Facebook, blogging, WireHog, Groove are in the everyday repertoire of our current and future students and I ask, how are we to design learning environments for youth who have the world at their fingertips and how are we to capture their attention in order to learn something that we think is important.
Acknowledgments DoCTA was funded by The Norwegian Ministry of Education under their Information Technology in Education (ITU) programme. I thank the teachers/instructors and students from the participating schools/colleges. Finally, I commend all the project participants for creating such an exciting and stimulating project environment.
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