4. COLLABORATIVE INTERACTIONS IN SUPPORT OF LEARNING: MODELS, METAPHORS AND MANAGEMENT
4.3 METAPHORS AND THE HYPERCOURSEWARE PROTOTYPE
47
How we use things depends on how we think they work. In the case of new technologies, we often use metaphors and graphics to make them look like things with which we are already familiar. A multiple choice exam on computer uses the same structure of a stem and foils and can appear on the screen to look just as it might on paper. Only minor modifications are necessary so that a mouse click replaces a pencil check mark to indicate the selected alternative. Changing one's answer does not require an eraser but merely another click invoking the graphic metaphor of a radio button. Similarly, a listing of dates, lecture topics, readings, and homework assignments may look like a typical course syllabus, but a click on the topic jumps to the lecture notes, a click on the reading displays the text, and a click on the homework assignment opens a form for submitting the work.
In the new electronic educational environment, the interactions in Figure 4.2 and the relational structures in Figure 4.3 are channeled through software tools. Many tools have been developed specifically for this purpose and other generic tools have been used in creative ways to provide for interaction and collaboration
48 The Digital University - Building a Learning Community through email, listservs, and internet relay chat as well as complete courseware shells on the world wide Web. In this section, one prototype called HyperCourseware will be used to illustrate the use of metaphors and the need for an integrated electronic environment in education.
One of the greatest needs in collaborative learning in electronic environments has been an integrated software package that seamlessly ties all of the aspects of the learning, teaching, and collaborative processes together. The problem in education has not been the existence of software but the fact that most programs have been either: (a) small-scale, one-off, subject-specific, platform-dependent programs written by educators; or (b) general-purpose programs for business applications retro-adapted for educational use. To bridge the gap, Norman [5] proposed an electronic educational environment that has now become known as
"HyperCourseware". It is based on the idea of collaborative hypermedia, a system that allows multiple users to explore the same materials and to communicate with each other while making use of dynamic metaphors in education.
4.3.1 HyperCourseware Prototype
The conceptual interactions and spaces shown in Figures 4.2 and 4.3 have been instantiated in an easy-to-use interface in HyperCourseware. The objective embraced by HyperCourseware has been quite broad: to provide an integrated and seamless hypermedia infrastructure to support the full range of classroom activities [7, 1 J ]. Over its years of development, HyperCourseware has become quite extensive. Samples of screens of an early version written in stackware can be viewed at the HyperCourseware web site at http://www.lap.umd.edu/hcw, and its current web-based version can be seen at http://cognitron.umd.edu.Toillustrate a part of the interface, Figure 4.4 shows the Home Screen and a number of the current modules available around its perimeter.
At the global level, HyperCourseware is organized around educational tools, materials, and objectives rather than around semantic or domain specific knowledge. It is only at the local or content level in the materials that knowledge stmcture becomes important and is incorporated into the materials by the instmctor or instmctional designer. Consequently, HyperCourseware was written to host any subject and to support many different learning activities common across many different types of courses. These activities range from record keeping and online testing to hypermedia presentations, and from individual exploration to group collaboration and team projects [12].
HyperCourseware uses the conventional objects of classroom instmction and implements them in digital form in the electronic classroom. Objects such as the course syllabus, the lesson plan, the lecture notes, the class roll, etc. are instantiated in graphic form in a hypermedia database. Furthermore, in HyperCourseware the database is used to provide the same sort of natural links between objects as one would expect in the educational materials themselves. For example, the syllabus is a natural navigational mechanism to jump to lectures, readings, and assignments;
Collaborative Interactions in Support of Learning
the class roll is a natural navigational jump to information about students and grades; and the grade list is a natural navigational jump to exams and assignments.
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In addition to the multimedia course materials, the real advantage of the electronic environment supported by HyperCourseware has been the wide range of collaborative tools. Each tool can be used in different ways depending on project goals and course objectives.
Dialogue as collaboration
A number of collaborative exercises in the electronic classroom have used different fonus of multi-party chat sessions. These have been used for brainstorming, focused discussion, and group planning. Tools for organizing, monitoring, and analyzing chat sessions have been partially developed. At present these tools are used to count student entries and cluster them by topic and by contributor.
Additional tools that allow for visualization of threads, clustering of ideas, and better integration with other tasks are needed.
Collection and dissemination of ideas
Initial collaboration begins with the generation and polling of ideas, materials, or parts of a project. Several tools have been used for facilitating discussion by having
50 The Digital University - Building a Learning Community the students start with an initial contribution. These contributions are aggregated and then disseminated to the group for inspection. Once the group has seen everyone's contribution, it can go to the next level of discussion. Other applications have involved collecting parts of a larger project from either individuals or from subgroups. For example, subgroups might contribute parts (e.g., subroutines for a program, sections of an article, or designs of rooms in a building). The parts are collected, aggregated, and disseminated. The group evaluates whether the aggregation works and/or what needs to be changed.
Project spaces
Structured project spaces have been used for team collaboration. A structured project space is a template that allows different members of the team to contribute to their prescribed parts while also allowing all members to view and comment on any part of the project. Parts of the project space are write protected so that only certain members may change the information. This approach helps to manage and track the contribution of individual members of the team and hold members accountable for their individual work rather than only being able to assess the overall project for assigning grades.
Ordered file exchange
Collaboration is often serial. One person creates the first part, the next member adds the second part, and so on. Routing handlers are used to direct materials from one student to another. In one application, the first student wrote an article which was then passed on to four other students who read the article and critiqued it. The critiques were then passed back to the first student. Similar procedures can be programmed for other routing of materials in learning environments.
4.3.2 Interface Design for Collaboration
The challenge to the software engineer and the instructional designer is to develop interfaces for these tools that are easy to use and that assist both the students and the instructors in using the collaborative tools in a productive and efficient manner.
A number of books and articles deal with the problem of interface design [4, 6, 8, 13]. These outline the methods of interaction, the principles of screen layout, the importance of consistency, the need for clear directions, and the need for the interface to match user expectation.
In the area of interfaces for collaboration there are some additional concerns that need to be mentioned. First, navigation is a pervasive problem in all software;
however, in collaborative tools it is often critical. Clear navigational tools are needed to find where to go for a particular collaborative session. There are many times when all of the students need to be at the same point in the system to perform an exercise. A homing function that jumps all of the students to an instructor defined location is one solution for group navigation.
Collaborative Interactions in Support of Learning 51 Second, clear displays are needed to inform the student of important parameters of the interaction and controls to set those parameters. For example, student identity or anonymity in collaboration is an important factor. The screen should clearly indicate whether the contribution is to be anonymous or whether identification is to be associated with the transmission. Figure 4.5 shows such controls on a chat tool in HyperCourseware.
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Finally, the interface needs to provide information and feedback on how collaborative information is shared among the students, who can see and modify information, and how group consensus is achieved for the final product.
52 The Digital University - Building a Learning Connnunity