Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) is a n emerging branch of the learning sciences. It is concerned with studying how people can learn together with the help of computers.As we will see in this chapter, such a simple statement conceals considerable complexity. The interplay of learning with technology turns out to be quite intricate. The inclusion of collaboration, computer mediation and distance education has problematized the very notion of learning and called into question prevailing assumptions about how to study it.Like many active fields of scientific research, CSCL has a complex relationship to established disciplines, evolves in ways that are hard to pinpoint and includes important contributions that seem incompatible. The field of CSCL has a long history of controversy about its theory, methods and definition. Furthermore, it is important to view CSCL as a vision of what may be possible with computers and of what kinds of research should be conducted, rather than as an established body of broadly accepted laboratory and classroom practices. We will start from some popular understandings of the issues of CSCL and gradually reveal its more complex nature. CSCL within educationAs the study of particular forms of learning, CSCL is intimately concerned with education. It considers all levels of formal education from kindergarten through graduate study as well as informal education, such as museums. Computers have become important at all levels of education, with school districts and politicians around the world setting goals of increasing student access to computers and the Internet. The idea of encouraging students to learn together in small groups has also become increasingly emphasized in the learning sciences, as seen in many of the other chapters of this Handbook. However, the ability to combine these two ideas (computer support and collaborative learning, or technology and education) to effectively enhance learning remains a challenge-a challenge that CSCL is designed to address. Computers and educationComputers in the classroom are often viewed with skepticism. They are seen by critics as boring and anti-social, a haven for geeks and a mechanical, inhumane form of training. CSCL is based on precisely the opposite vision: it proposes the development of new software and applications

Now well into its second decade, the field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) appears healthy, encompassing a diversity of topics of study, methodologies, and representatives of various research communities. It is an appropriate time to ask: what central questions can integrate our work into a coherent field? This paper proposes the study of technology affordances for intersubjective meaning making as an integrating research agenda for CSCL. A brief survey of epistemologies of collaborative learning and forms of computer support for that learning characterize the field to be integrated and motivate the proposal. A hybrid of experimental, descriptive and design methodologies is proposed in support of this agenda. A working definition of intersubjective meaning making as joint composition of interpretations of a dynamically evolving context is provided, and used to propose a framework around which dialogue between analytic approaches can take place.

This paper explores how wikis may be used to support primary education students' collaborative interaction and how this such an interaction process can be characterised. The overall aim of this study was is to analyse the collaborative processes of students working together in a wiki environment, to be able to unfoldin order to see how primary students can actively create a shared context for learning in the wiki.Educational literature has already reported that wikis may support collaborative knowledge-construction processes, but in our study, we claim that a dialogic perspective is also needed to accomplish this. Students are requiredmust to develop an intersubjective orientation towards each other participants' perspectives, to be able to co-construct knowledge about a topic. For this purpose, the our project utilised a '"Thinking Together'" -type approach to help students to develop an intersubjective orientation towards one another and to support the creation of a 'dialogic space' to coconstruct new understanding in a wiki science project.The students' asynchronous interaction process in a primary classroom , --which led to the creation of a science text in the wiki --, was analysed and characterised, using a dialogic approach to the study of Computer-Supported Collaborative LearningCSCL practices. Our results illustrate how the 'Thinking Together' approach became embedded within the wiki environment and in the students' collaborative processes. We would argue that a dialogic approach for examining interaction can be used to help to design more effective pedagogic approaches related to the use of wikis in education and to equip learners with the competences they need to participate in the global knowledgeconstruction era.

The importance of both social processes and of representational aids for learning is well-established, yet few experimental studies have addressed the combination of these factors. The research reported in this article evaluates the influence of tools for constructing representations of evidential models on collaborative learning processes and outcomes. Pairs of participants worked with 1 of 3 representations (Graph, Matrix, Text) while investigating complex science and public health problems. Dependent measures included (a) the content of participants' utterances and representational actions and the timing of these utterances and actions with respect to the availability of information; (b) a multiple choice test of the ability to recall the data, hypotheses, and evidential relations explored; and (c) the contents of a written essay. The results show that representational notations can have significant effects on learners' interactions, and may differ in their influence on subsequent collaborative use of the knowledge being manipulated. For example, Graph and Matrix users elaborated on previously represented information more than Text users. Representation and discussion of evidential relations was quantitatively greatest for Matrix users as predicted, yet this came at the cost of excessive consideration and revision of unimportant relations. Graph users may have been more focused in their consideration of evidence, and the work done in the Graph representation had the greatest impact on the contents of the essays. Although limited to initial use of representations in a laboratory setting, the work demonstrates that representational guidance of collaborative learning is worthy of study and suggests several lines of further investigation.

ABSTRACT:This study documents an instructional methodology to teach a fundamental reasoning skill during scientific inquiry: the evaluation of empirical evidence against multiple hypotheses. Using the "design experiment" approach, with iterative cycles we developed an instructional framework that lends itself to authentic scientific inquiry by providing a nontraditional approach to three aspects of learning: the activities students are engaged in during scientific inquiry, the tools students use while constructing knowledge, and the assessment of learning outcomes. The present article focuses on the contribution of two components of this instructional framework: the effect of technology-based knowledge-representation tools and the effect of reflective assessment on learning to act and think scientifically. The technological tools of the framework allowed students to represent their developing knowledge of natural phenomena with either graphical mapping or with word-processed prose. The reflective assessment we used was a form of inquiry rubrics that provided clear expectations for optimal progress throughout the entire process of inquiry by indicating specific assessment criteria for the various components of scientific inquiry. The results indicated that in real-life-like classroom investigations designed to teach students how to evaluate data in relation to theories, the use of evidence mapping is superior to prose writing. Furthermore, this superior effect of evidence mapping was greatly enhanced by the use of reflective assessment throughout the inquiry process. Modes of representational guidance explain both the superior effect of evidence mapping as well as the discrepancy between the effects of explicit reflection on evidence mapping compared to prose writing. These results have fundamental implications for the development of cognitively-based classroom learning environments and for the design of further research on learning.