elektronická verzia publikácie - FIIT STU - Slovenská technická ...

256 Selected Studies on Software and Information Systems
Following this cycle, we distinguish three types of systems that differ in the locus of
processing i.e. location where decisions about quality of interaction are made (Figure 9-3):
1. Mirroring systems aggregate data about the collaborative interactions and reflect this
information back to the user for analysis (phases 1 and 2). These systems are designed
to raise students' awareness about the actions and behaviors happening in the system.
They place the locus of processing to the students or teachers, who must compare
the reflected information with their own mental models of desired interaction
and devise their own remedial actions as needed.
2. Metacognitive tools in addition to displaying the current state of indicators provide referential
values of indicators in the desired state of interaction (phase 3). It is left up to
the user to diagnose this information and decide about what interventions to undertake.
3. Guiding systems, furthering previous types of systems, propose remedial actions to aid
learners in collaboration (phase 4) and thus bring the locus of processing to the system
itself. The model of interaction used, and system's assessment of the current state
are used by the system to moderate the interaction, and are usually left hidden from
students.
Although these types of systems provide gradually more functionality they are in certain
cases not that different. For example, in mirroring systems by displaying participation
indicators students easily identify cases where more participation would be appropriate,
having the effect comparable to an advice from a guiding system. Coaching advices become
important only when non-trivial inference is required to devise the remedial action
needed.
Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) systems typically employ lowbandwidth
communication facilities such as text-based discussions because the interactions
need to be tracked and analyzed, and methods for analyzing text are currently in
a relatively mature state. Video-conferencing and other high-bandwidth streams are, on
the other hand, typically used in workplace collaboration – Computer-Supported Cooperative
Work (CSCW) systems.
In addition to text-based interfaces, structured approaches for collaboration are also
used. Shared workspaces, as an electronic version of paper that is jointly used by a group
of people for writing and drawing, can provide graph-oriented visual representations
for synchronous interaction (Mühlenbrock, 2003). In this context, building and maintaining
shared workspace representations is regarded as helpful for the externalization of possibly
conflicting problem-related conceptions (Roschelle, 1995).
Discussions can be structured by the use of sentence openers (Baker, 1996) that automate
the analysis of peer interaction. (Soller, 2000) propose a communication tool based
on their Collaborative Learning Model that contains groups of sentence openers organized
in categories of the model (Figure 9-4). To contribute to the group’s conversation, the student
selects a sentence opener from one of the subskill categories displayed around the
chatting box.