A Conceptual Framework for Collaborative Learning ...

A Conceptual Framework for Collaborative Learning Systems Elena Nardini

Andrea Omicini

Alma Mater Studiorum – Universit` a di Bologna {elena.nardini,andrea.omicini}@unibo.it

Plenary Meeting Turku, Finland 26-27th May 2008

Nardini & Omicini (UniBo-DEIS)

Technological Aspects

Plenary Meeting in Turku

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Computer Supported Collaborative Learning

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About Existing Learning Platforms

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Toward a Conceptual Framework

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Objectives

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Bibliography




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Outline

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Objectives

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Collaborative Learning & CSCL I

In collaborative learning [Kreijins et al., 2009]: I I I I I I I

Learning is active The teacher is usually more a facilitator than a ”sage on the stage” Teaching and learning are shared experiences Students participate in small-group activities Students must take responsability for learning Students reflect on their own assumptions and thought processes Social and team skills are developed through the give-and-take of consensus-building




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Collaborative Learning & CSCL II Collaborative learning leads to desirable cognitive abilities [Kreijins et al., 2009], like: I I I I

Deeper level learning Critical thinking Shared understanding Long term relation of the learned material

For such reason, collaborative learning have collected a growing interest Computer Supported Collaborative Leraning (CSCL) [Stahl et al., 2006] arose in 1990s in reaction to software that forced students to learn as isolated individuals CSCL proposes the development of new software and applications that bring learners together and that offer creative activities of intellectual exploration and social interaction Nardini & Omicini (UniBo-DEIS)



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About Existing Learning Platform I Some useful remarks about existing learning platform can be drawn from [The 1st Report of Minerva-RESET Project, 2007, M¨ uhlpford and Stahl, 2007, Van der Pol et al., 2008] Platforms often provide collaboration tools that I

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are juxtaposed and not truly integrated with one another → Collaborating people are exposed to a series of problems coming from the visually and functionally separate nature of such tools [M¨ uhlpford and Stahl, 2007] → Several results have shown the advantage of having integrated collaboration tools [M¨ uhlpford and Stahl, 2007, Van der Pol et al., 2008] do not share a common conceptual framework → Difficult to exploit such collaboration tools altogether in a coherent and effective way




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About Existing Learning Platform II

This may decrease the effectiveness of existing collaboration tools from the stand point of collaborative learning I

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Learning activity may be carried on by students mostly through individual and autonomous study Synchronous and asynchronous forms of communication may be conceived only as an optional part of the learning process Students may be encouraged to exploit more traditional or familiar tools external to the platform (e.g. SMS, personal e-mail, Skype, MNS, telephone) → Monitoring of student activities becomes awkward




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Toward a Conceptual Framework I

What is needed A conceptual framework that features an integrated set of tools for supporting collaborative learning so as to... ...foster student participation in collaborative learning activities → learning process in students gets improved




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Toward a Conceptual Framework II Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) Paradigm A set of autonomous, pro-active, and interacting computational entities called agents... ...situated in an environment where they interact typically producing a coherent global behaviour

Why MAS Paradigm In literature, MAS has been proven to be suitable for dealing with the engineering of complex software systems like learning systems... ...which are, by definition, interaction-oriented, distributed, dynamic, and open




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Toward a Conceptual Framework III

Agents & Artefacts (A&A) Meta-model [Omicini et al., 2008] A suitable model for supporting the development of a MAS environment by focussing especially on the notion of artefact... ...which represents tools or objects that (human and intelligent) agents can either individually or collectively use to support their activities




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Toward a Conceptual Framework IV

Why A&A Meta-model I A&A is based on Distributed Cognition and Activity Theory which have an important role also in defining and modelling learning systems based on collaborative learning [Gifford and Enyedy, 1999] This makes it clear that the meta-model exhibits the potential to work as an effective and consistent conceptual framework for the modelling of systems supporting human collaborative activities




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Toward a Conceptual Framework V

Why A&A Meta-model II Through an appropriate design of artefacts, it is possible to re-frame existing collaboration tools as artefacts and integrate them in an conceptually uniform collaborative environment by exploiting linkability, an artefacts property Inspectability, another artefacts property, makes it possible to monitor collaborative activities of human beings and give feedbacks to students and teachers based, for example, on social interactions




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Objectives I Show how to exploit the A&A meta-model to engineer a set of integrated collaboration tools allow the storage and reuse of the knowledge co-constructed engineer intelligent agents that exploit the osservability to monitor human interactions in order to give feedbacks to sudents and teachers

Exploit Moodle platform I [The 1st Report of Minerva-RESET Project, 2007] shows that Moodle is one of the most used e-learning platform and... ...a quite complete platform from the point of view of the functional requirements Moodle presents the previously shown limits




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Objectives II Exploit Moodle platform II




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Objectives III

Exploit Moodle platform III Through Moodle we want to prove the effectiveness of the A&A meta-model for solving the mentioned issues Accordingly to the A&A meta-model, we decided to exploit the TuCSoN [Omicini and Zambonelli, 1999] and A&A ReSpecT [Omicini and Denti, 2001, Omicini, 2007] technologies to I

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integrate the chat service of the Moodle platform with the corresponding resource repository exploit intelligent agents for the monitoring of human interactions and the calculation of SNA indexes to give feedbacks to students and teachers about student social interactions




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Bibliography I Gifford, B. R. and Enyedy, N. D. (1999). Activity centered design: towards a theoretical framework for cscl. In the 1999 International Conference in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL 1999), Palo Alto, Californiay, USA, December 1999. Kreijins, K., Kirschner, P., and Jochems, W. (2009). Identifying the pitfalls for social interaction in comuter-supported collaborative learning environments: a review of the reserach. Computers in Human Behavior, 19(3). M¨ uhlpford, M. and Stahl, G. (2007). The integration of synchronous communication across dual interaction spaces. In the 2007 International Conference in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL 2007), New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA, July 2007. Nardini & Omicini (UniBo-DEIS)



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Bibliography II

Omicini, A. (2007). Formal ReSpecT in the A&A perspective. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Sciences, 175(2):97–117. 5th International Workshop on Foundations of Coordination Languages and Software Architectures (FOCLASA’06), CONCUR’06, Bonn, Germany, 31 August 2006. Post-proceedings. Omicini, A. and Denti, E. (2001). Formal ReSpecT. Electronic Notes in Theoretical Computer Science, 48:179–196. Declarative Programming – Selected Papers from AGP 2000, La Habana, Cuba, 4–6 December 2000.




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Bibliography III Omicini, A., Ricci, A., and Viroli, M. (2008). Artifacts in the A&A meta-model for multi-agent systems. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 17(3). Special Issue on Foundations, Advanced Topics and Industrial Perspectives of Multi-Agent Systems. Omicini, A. and Zambonelli, F. (1999). Coordination for Internet application development. Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems, 2(3):251–269. The 1st Report of Minerva-RESET Project (2007). Promoting good practice: Lessons from a collection of european elearning experiences. Technical Report 1.




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Bibliography IV

Van der Pol, J., Admiraal, W., and Simons, P. (2008). Environment in Agent-Oriented Software Engineering methodologies. The International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning, 4(3):339–357.




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A Conceptual Framework for Collaborative Learning Systems Elena Nardini

Andrea Omicini

Alma Mater Studiorum – Universit` a di Bologna {elena.nardini,andrea.omicini}@unibo.it

Plenary Meeting Turku, Finland 26-27th May 2008




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