{"id":823,"date":"2006-03-18T15:44:12","date_gmt":"2006-03-18T15:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/online-collaboration-and-knowledge-construction\/"},"modified":"2026-11-11T22:05:04","modified_gmt":"2026-11-12T03:05:04","slug":"online-collaboration-and-knowledge-construction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/online-collaboration-and-knowledge-construction\/","title":{"rendered":"Online Collaboration and Knowledge Construction"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/ritl.fsu.edu\/papers\/gao_baylor_shen.pdf\">linked paper<\/a> is authored by members of the Florida State University Instructional Systems Program and published in Educational Technology &amp; Society.&nbsp; It is an excellent evaluation of the effectiveness of computers in an online learning environment to &quot;function as cognitive tools . . . that extend student&#39;s capacity to learn and create knowledge.&quot;&nbsp; Their observation is that current course management systems largely fall short of this goal.&nbsp; They propose improved design to address (1) social structure (shared context) and (2) collaboration (knowledge construction) in an online learning environment. <\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Design support to create a shared social context:<\/strong><\/em> The authors propose that a shared social context is needed for &quot;online learners to socialize, learn and create knowledge.&quot;&nbsp; They note that it can be established by providing:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em><strong>Virtual environments<\/strong><\/em> to foster social relationships:&nbsp; They point to research indicating &quot;design of the virtual environment has to have the impact of being real and concrete&quot;&nbsp; to produce a feeling of &quot;place&quot; with the goal of increased and sustained user involvement in the online activities.&nbsp; Suggestions include student lounges, space for personal information, virtual office hours, lecture halls and enhanced discussion forums. <\/li>\n<li><em><strong>I<\/strong><\/em><em><strong>nformational support<\/strong><\/em>: This includes support for navigation and use within the learning environment itself (for example, providing assistance in selecting &quot;features of interest&quot;).<\/li>\n<li><em><strong>Multiple information channels<\/strong><\/em> and <em><strong>tools to support collaboration<\/strong><\/em>:&nbsp; Learners need to be &quot;aware&quot; in order to act and react.&nbsp; Awareness includes: <em><strong>social <\/strong><\/em>awareness (who is involved?), <em><strong>action <\/strong><\/em>awareness (what is happening?) and <em><strong>activity<\/strong><\/em> awareness (how is it going?).&nbsp; The authors note that support for social and action awareness is often present, but activity awareness is rarely adequately addressed.&nbsp; Yet, they propose that activity awareness (involving goals, plans, resources, understanding of others&#39; actions, assessment of status) &quot;is necessary for the successful implementation of complex and long-term tasks&quot;.&nbsp; They suggest improved &quot;joint workspace&quot;, enhanced notification systems and other tools to address gaps in <em><strong>awareness<\/strong><\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> <strong><em>Design support that facilitates online communication:&nbsp;<\/em><\/strong> A distinction is made between systems that &quot;allow&quot; collaboration and systems that &quot;support&quot; collaboration.&nbsp; It is a fine distinction, but an important one as the ultimate goal of collaboration should be &quot;knowledge construction&quot;.&nbsp; The results of studies on knowledge construction in collaborative learning environments indicate that &quot;the students&#39; ability to conduct effective interactions with others was limited.&quot;&nbsp; It was found that the focus was primarily on &quot;observational or procedural matters&quot; versus &quot;knowledge construction where each member of the team contributed&quot; to a consensus solution.&nbsp; The authors propose both design intervention (for example, &quot;communication scaffolds&quot;, &quot;embedded communication tools&quot;, Gantt charts to display project status), but also intervention by online facilitators to support both communication, as well as to facilitate knowledge construction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The linked paper is authored by members of the Florida State University Instructional Systems Program and published in Educational Technology &amp; Society.&nbsp; It is an excellent evaluation of the effectiveness of computers in an online learning environment to &quot;function as cognitive tools . . . that extend student&#39;s capacity to learn and create knowledge.&quot;&nbsp; Their&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[194,176],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-design","category-iu-ist-p540"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3236,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/3236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.designedtoinspire.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}