TITLE OF PAPER: Designing of CSCL Environments
PRESENTED BY: Patrick Jermann

CONFERENCE:
DATE: October, 8th, 2004
LOCATION: EPFL, CRAFT

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REAL-TIME NOTES / ANNOTATIONS OF THE PAPER:
-K. Makitalo, Institute of Educational Research Finalnd- [1]
Epistemic cooperation scripts in online learning environments: fostering learning by reducing uncertazinty in discourse.

People in online learning courses do not know each other and are unsure how to act in these new learning environment.

An high degree of uncertainty might hinder the participation to communicate.
Specific form of discourse are considered important for learning.
Cooperative scripts provide learners with cooperation scripts that specify and sequence collaborative learning activities (dillenbourg, 2002).

Research questions: what effect doesn an epistemic spript have on the amount of discourse in collaborative learning compared to unscripted collaborative learning?
Hypothesis: The epistemic script increases the amount of discourse.

To test this hypotesis a certain number of people where asked to solve a certain problem with and without following a certain script.

-> Information seeking was reduced by the script.
How people uncertainty influences the task uncertanty?

-I. Kollar, University of Tubingen-
How Internal and External script guide knowledge construction.
Argumentative knowledge construction often appears to be deficient. Inquiry learning as an approach to facilitare argumentative knowledge.

Incomplete arguments: data – claim – warrant 9Toulmin, 1958, McNeil, 2004)
Collaboration scripts (O’Donnell & Dansereau, 2000) as a cognitive approach to facilitate collaborative argumentative construction.

The empirical evidence showed that scripts can be designed to facilitate x, but that also there are very specific cognitive process that have to be taken into account.

Assumption: individuals are holding “internal scripts” (Schank&Abelson, 1977, Shank, 2000)

It is not clear what is the interplay between the internal and the external script. Parrticularly how this interplay affect the acquisition of argumentative knowledge.

Hypothesis: high structured external collaboration script enhances knowledge acquisition.

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REFERENCES: {as documents / sites are referenced add them below}

[1] http://www.kti.jyu.fi/
http://geourl.com/
…

TITLE OF PAPER: Designing of CSCL Environments
PRESENTED BY: Barbara Wasson

CONFERENCE:
DATE: October, 8th, 2004
LOCATION: EPFL, CRAFT

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REAL-TIME NOTES / ANNOTATIONS OF THE PAPER:
-R. Ramberg-
Target-context representations
Action-context representations

Collaborative creation of sketches (design proposal)
How these sketches are porposed in the design activity.
They found that users had no problem to draw on their laptop or on a piece of paper, but when it get to the common board they felt embarrased to move their personal creation on the common screen.

The interactive screens could also save the collective representations.

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The CSCL Symposium held at EPFL, Lausanne.

TITLE OF PAPER: CSCL Symposium
PRESENTED BY: Ulrich Hoppe

CONFERENCE: CSCL Symposium
DATE: October, 7th, 2004
LOCATION: EPFL, CRAFT

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REAL-TIME NOTES / ANNOTATIONS OF THE PAPER:

-F. Hesse, from DFG, DE-
Why group-awareness tolls can undermine participation: the effect of providing participants’ portraits in a virtual information-exchange environment.
[1]

Communication with shared databases: information is distributed among people: individuals need information from others: shared repository/ shared db.

Barriers for contributions comes from low intrinsic motivation; from the messagin threshold (Reid et al 1996); contributing takes time anb effort; knowledge is a source of power; information sharing is not rewarding…

Formal Structure: Social Dilemma [Dawes, 1980]
Social situation: high anonimity. No social cues; no awareness about others; people do not feel embedded ina group with a common goal.

A Solution: providing group awareness
Three type of awareness (Carroll, Neale, Isenhour, Bosso, Mc Crickard, 2003)
-social awareness
-group awareness
-activity awareness

SIDE-Model (Lea & Spears): effect of anonymity in group discussion
it consider the effect of the “identifiability” or effect of “visual anonimity”.
Identifiability of contributions leads attention to the individual.
Viceversa the group identity leads attentio to the group and far from the individual.

Therefore the portrait should have both approach depending on the mood of the contributor to preserve both the group identity and the personal identity.

The outcome of the experimental study showed that depending on the initial mood of the contributors influenced their attitude towards the system, namely if haveing the potrait would be perceived as positive or negative.

-J. Tholander, DSV.SU.SE-
Embodied programming with visual and tangible representations.

Two different project: SPLASH, Weblabs [2].
To understand children’s interaction and leaning in construction and programming activity. Four main pedagogical approaches: kids own creations; collaboration; new programming representations; webbased shared and decision making models.

Representations for learning: Logo is textual; ToonTalk is animated; AgentSheets follows graphical rules.

What are these representations? Simplifications? Alternative representations?
To overcome some limitations of this approach they introduce the term Embodied programming follwing P. Durish Embodied Interaction (Dourish, 2001).

Three microanalytical investigations of children’s programming with animated pictures and tangible representations: a) pointing and gesturing “ouside” the computer; “inside” the computer; social representation of social elements.

They used some fast prototyping technique and video recording of children’s activity as a way to gather experimental data. They deducted that lots od feictic references are usually used in this kind of interaction (two kinds in front of the computer, programming a game). Again, the discussion involves the combination of talk and gestures.

Three issues:
– programming is seen as a mental activity
– knowing in tool-intense activity
– how do we interpret learning in these embodied forms of interaction?

They argue that is worth to look at this kind of interaction. Is it possible to interpret learning from the microlevel of activity? Are you looking at the engagement or at the learning? What is your definition of learning? Is it a change of your problem-solving at a certain time? We cannot assimilate learning with activity. For learning in a group the core concept is the share of the knowledge.

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REFERENCES: {as documents / sites are referenced add them below}

[1] http://www.wissenkommunikation.de
[2] http://www.weblabs.?
…

TITLE OF PAPER: CSCL Symposium
PRESENTED BY: Nicolas Balacheff, opening

CONFERENCE: CSCL Symposium
DATE: October, 7th, 2004
LOCATION: EPFL, CRAFT

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REAL-TIME NOTES / ANNOTATIONS OF THE PAPER:
-Nicolas Balacheff-
Kelaidoscope is an existing reality. We exists and we need to achieve the best from each participants. There are no subset. We have a mission: to build bridges between technology, computer science, and educational, social and cognitive
sciences.

We have a Structure: Integrating instruments, Integrating structures and Research actions [JEIRP: Jointly Executed Research Projects]

CSCL is at the core of the challenge [1]: enhance the current understanding and developing proper concepts.

-Sten Ludvigsen-
The CSCL Sig is an arena for CSCL research in Europe. Different fields can meet here for explore boundaries. Senior researchers and PhD students canb meet here to collaborate. Kaleidoscope members can configure themself in the network.

There are two PhD courses from the CSCL SIG: Current Cognitive Approach to Media-based Learning. PhD courses and PhD forum.

-Pierre Dillenbourg-
Practicals. Conference program. Chocolate on Saturday morning. Tour in Leysin. CSCL Journal. CSCL Book Series. CSCL Conference: June 2005 in Taiwan.

1st KEYNOTE Speaker: Gabriel Mugny_
Professor of Social Psychology, University of Geneva.

Influence of information sources on acquisition and appropiation of knowledge.

Cognitive developmentsl social psychology: costructivism resulting from sociocognitive conflicts between peers or between child and adult.

Competences are grounded in social context. Vigotskyj and Piaget have agreed on the importance of the social aspect.

Elements of developmental social psychology:
– It is by coordinating their own actions and judgments with those of others that the children are led to construct cognitive coordinations.

– Social interaction is the source of cognitive progress thanks to the sociocognitive conflicts which it generates.

– Regulations of a social nature which govern a given interaction constitute an essential factor.

{Serge Moscovici}
> The 2-4-6 paradigm {Watson, 1960}

Basic Principles of Conflict Elaboration Theory [2]

Divergence -> Source representation -> Specific conflict elaboration

Task dimenstions in the conflict elaboration in function of relevance of error and social anchoring

-lost… 🙁

–

—
REFERENCES: {as documents / sites are referenced add them below}

[1] http://noe-keleidoscope.org
[2] G. Mugny, 1960 The conflict Elaboration Theory
…

CRAFT Semester Projects
=======================

Center for Research and Support of Training and its Technologies (CRAFT)

Fall 2004

Projet A: Combined GPS-GSM Tracker
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* Description:
We are looking for a Semester Project student to implement a navigation application for SmartPhones. This project involves programming a Java 2 Micro Edition application able to retrieve data from external Bluethooth GPS modules (see http://www.emtac.com/products/bluetooth/index.html). Analogously, the CellID, provided by the GSM network infostructure, should be retrieved by the application. Once logged, these data should be parsed and sent over the GPRS network to a test server. Depending on the time left, the student will be asked to combine the terrestrial location information with the information provided by the satellite maximising the precision and minimising the loss of positioning (e.g., switching to the CellID when indoor or while waiting the GPS startup time). The application code should be reasonably organised and well documented to be reused in other applications. The aim is to release the outcome in the form of an Open Source package with GPL license.

* Prerequisites:
– Programming skills in Java, and C++
– Experience in J2ME development is a “plus”.
– Not afraid to “googleing” around to find solutions 😉

* Keywords:
– Mobile application
– J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) / MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile)
– GPS
– Bluetooth

* Responsible: Mauro Cherubini and Zeno Crivelli, CRAFT

* Contact:
Please email Mauro Cherubini (mauro.cherubini@epfl.ch) to set up an interview.
Please include information on the courses you’ve taken and projects you’ve done in the past.

Projet B: J2ME porting of a Symbian application for mobile phones
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* Description:
We are looking for a Semester Project student to port a Symbian application to a Java 2 Micro Edition implementation. The application, for “Spatialised Communication”, should enables the users to attach virtual notes to physical places. These information will be retrieved through an existing interface which runs on mobile phones (see http://www.urbantapestries.net/). The construction of “ad-hoc” solutions would be required give the current use of specific API developed for the Symbian OS. The application code should be reasonably organised and well documented.

* Prerequisites:
– Programming skills in Java, and C++
– Experience in J2ME and/or Symbian OS development is a “plus”.
– Not afraid to “googleing” around to find solutions 😉

* Keywords:
– Mobile application and LBS (Location Based Service)
– J2ME (Java 2 Micro Edition) / MIDP (Mobile Information Device Profile)
– Symbian OS

* Responsible: Mauro Cherubini and Zeno Crivelli, CRAFT

* Contact:
Please email Mauro Cherubini (mauro.cherubini@epfl.ch) to set up an interview.
Please include information on the courses you’ve taken and projects you’ve done in the past.

This morning I have been puzzling around some blog posts, articles and web pages around the concept of building a GPS, GSM tracker. I started from this nice post of Chris Heatcote who used a commercial product, namely the GSM tracker of Aspicore, to track his movement into the city and attach a comment to those.

This approach of combining terrestrial and satellite positioning is becoming quite standard. I saw the same into many different project, one for all the MogiMogi hunting game. The extra bit is this idea of using the external Bluetooth GPS module, that would allow more phone models to play with the same application.

The final note is that I was amazed by the fact that many persons seems to be excited by this kind of use of technology without a socially defined use for it. I am referring particularly to these posts [1], [2], [3]. This is just the beginning.

Speaking with Zeno, we thought that could be a nice semester project to develop a J2ME Open Source implementation of this GPS tracker.

_

I recently discovered iCalShare a nice web site which collects lots of public calendars that can be added to iCal with a single click. Nice utility for collaborative annotations. There is also a calendar for canton Vaud public holydays! Bucka

Reading Fabien’s blog I found an interesting project called CellSpotting. Although a rather simple concept, it can be seen very powerful from two different points of view: the first is that is a collaborative effort to map the mobile network providing a free positioning tool; the second is that it provides an alternative to the GPS positioning where this is not available (e.g., indoor).

An extra value is given by the fact that the tool doesn’t incur in privacy issues because the authors give their consent at all time while sending their records into the databases.

An open question is how to merge these data with a GPS positioning. To be continued …