October 2007 Volume 10 Number 4 - Educational Technology ...

included a unit on collaborative learning. The Nord-Trøndelag students were taking an undergraduate introduction
course on the uses of technology in learning and had a choice to participate in the scenario to learn about networked
learning.
Figure 2. Design of VisArt
There were a number of research areas that influenced the pedagogical design. The two most significant are the
conceptual framework offered by sociocultural perspectives and the field of computer support for collaborative
learning, in particular Salomon’s (1992) work on genuine interdependence. Thus we designed a collaborative
learning activity where the students not only participated in teams collaborating to design a learning activity, but they
had to reflect on their participation. The students were informed that in the VisArt activity they would be part of a
team of 3 students comprised of 1 student from each institution. Thus each participant had complementary
backgrounds; this is in alignment with Salomon´s (1992) idea that collaboration is only successful when there is a
genuine interdependence between the collaborators. There were no opportunities for the team members to meet faceto-face.
The team was to:
• Organise a collaborative team effort thinking of Salomon’s definition genuine interdependence: 1) sharing
information 2) division of labour 3) joint thinking
• Carry out the Design Activity in TeamWave Workplace (TW)
• the room you chose to design should enable the students to know more about a concept, a procedure, a
theory, a process, etc.
• with the aid of help pages, assistance (from a course assistant), Help room in TW
• Produce 2 items:
• A document of your pedagogical decisions (e.g., who is the room intended for, the content, etc….)
• A TW room for teaching/learning
In addition to participating in the VisArt activity, the UiB students were to produce an individual report on their
experience with VisArt that contained:
• an introduction to CSCL and networked learning
• a description of the design activity, including the tools provided and used
• a presentation of their team’s room and the pedagogical decisions made
• a discussion of how the team met Salomon's requirements for genuine interdependence and whether or not
TeamWave Workplace supported activities resulting from attempts at meeting Salomon’s requirements
• a discussion of Gutwin et al.’s awareness concept and what it means in conjunction with your distributed
collaboration through TW
• their general reaction to collaborative telelearning (as you experienced it) including: a reflection on the team’s
work, the process of carrying out the assignment, general comments about the entire assignment, your reaction
to TW
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