Abstracts - Earli

Collaborative learning for teachers in Italian educational contexts: knowledge and practicesBarbara Maroni, University of Rome, ItalyFrancesca Martini, University of Rome, ItalyAntonio Iannaccone, University of Salerno, ItalyMaria Annarumma, University of Salerno, ItalyPina Marsico, University of Salerno, ItalyThe present work investigates knowledge and expertise of a group of Italian teachers about thenotion of collaborative learning (CL) from a pedagogical perspective inspired by the theoreticalmodels of socio-constructivism. The study refers to three levels of analysis: "collaborative learningrepresentation" (teachers conceptually relating to a Theoretical definition of CL); "pedagogicalactivity representation" (teachers accounting for collaboration in their classroom activities);"pedagogical activities in classroom" (collaborative activities into teachers actual professionalpractice). First and second levels of analysis are investigated through semi-structured interviews to40 teachers working in primary and secondary classrooms located in Central and Southern Italy.Content Analysis on interviews has highlighted four main categories of CL representation (firstlevel of analysis): "theoretical", "practical", "intuitive" and "undefined". At the second level ofanalysis, ("pedagogical activity representation") we frequently found that CL seems to be just asynonymous of "group work". Some teachers underline the importance of CL for problematicchildren because the group can be of a great help to them. Other teachers are not able to define CLat all. It seems that they don’t have a theoretical knowledge, but it is possible that their practicesare based on CL. Pedagogical activities in classroom (third level of analysis) will be exploredthrough systematic observations in interviewed teachers classrooms. We will observe collaborativeactivities into teachers actual professional practice looking how CL would become an implicitaspect of practice.Design issues for a co-located collaborative learning systemIlaria Manno, University of Salerno, ItalyRosario De Chiara, University of Salerno, ItalyVittorio Scarano, University of Salerno, ItalyMost of the existing systems for collaborative learning are designed for remote situations,employing the traditional client-server model where the server coordinates the cooperation amongremote users. Among the important features, remote systems is providing team awareness,workspace awareness, collaboration process awareness that have different scope in a co-locatedscenario. Users can "appropriate" these systems by using them in the face-to-face (f2f) situations,but a different design for addressing co-location is needed. The aim of this paper is to present thetechnological and design issues for a Co-located Collaborative Learning System (CoCoLeS). Ourstudies in this field are within the LEAD project, whose aims are to develop, implement andevaluate conceptual models, pratical scenarios and associated network-computing technologies foreffective face-toface problem solving discussion (LEAD). On the basis of the inputs provided usby the pedagogical partners, we analyze the differences between remote and co-located systemsand address the open questions specific to CoCoLeS design. The first and main difference betweena remote and a CoCoLeS is the distance and remote systems employs a lot of effort, resources,design issues to fill up the distance between the users, a non-existing problem in f2f.Technologically, Local Area Networks dictate stringent requirements on management and ask forsmooth service discovery and effective and stable connections. Functionalities that are influencedby the co-location are awareness, meta-task communication, teacher’s role, control and design of– 182 –