Abstracts - Earli

esults showed how participants’ experiences originated from a confluence of divergent milieus, asoffline, distributed, and online experiences of hybrid Place. Over the process, the ways in whichthey made the use of technologies an ‘ordinary’ practice was silent, yet effective revealing themany creative and economical ways in which the participants made use of the social and materialelements- including technological tools - available for them over the course.Facilitating the development of the modeling ability of fifth graders: a comparison of theeffectiveness of two instructional approachesMarios Papaevripidou, University of Cyprus, CyprusConstantinos P. Constantinou, University of Cyprus, CyprusZacharias Zacharia, University of Cyprus, CyprusThis study aimed to investigate the effect of an explicit and an implicit modeling-basedinstructional approach on the development of the modelling ability of fifth graders. Modeling hasbeen identified in the literature as a potential scaffold for more effective science teaching andlearning. Three constituent components, identified through previous research, are thought to shapethe modeling ability: modeling skills, metacognitive knowledge about the modeling process andmeta-modeling knowledge. A pre-post comparison study design was used, which involved twogroups. The first group (n=16) received an explicit modeling-based instruction that combined theconstruction of paper-and-pencil representations and the iterative development of computer-basedmodels (CBM group). The second group (n=17) received an implicit modeling-based instructionthat combined the construction of paper-and-pencil representations and the iterative design of arole-playing game (RPGM group). The role playing games took the form of run and chase gameswhere the students were assigned predator and prey roles in a pre-determined space which theyformulated with objects representing plants. All the models constructed throughout the twoinstructional approaches aimed at representing and interpreting a specific ecosystem as observedthrough a video documentary. Paper-and-pencil tests were administered both before and after theinterventions in order to assess the development of conceptual understanding about ecosystems bythe participants. The data were treated both qualitatively and quantitatively. The findings of thestudy indicate that the explicit modeling-based instruction enhanced the development of themodelling ability more than the implicit modeling-based instruction. Our findings haveimplications for curriculum design and implementation in the domain of science.Over six years (2000 – 2006) of collaborative knowledge building, using Knowledge Forum®Mauri Ahlberg, University of Helsinki, FinlandJarkko Myllari, University of Helsinki, FinlandThe aim is to describe, analyse and reflect on one of the longest known design experiments ofcollaborative knowledge building that is ever done. One of the aims is also to deepen and enrichtheory of collaborative knowledge building in an integrating way. Most design experiments ofcollaborative knowledge building last only a couple of weeks or months, very rarely over a year.Multi method research strategy is used. The collaborative knowledge building project isapproached as a case of school improvement projects. This overarching main case of collaborativeknowledge building includes multiple cases of teacher development and learning. Together thereare over 1300 notes in the Knowledge Forum¯ platform. These are the main data of this study.These notes are part of the discussion and knowledge building. They are analysed by manymethods, both quantitatively and qualitatively. It was found that these six years can be divided intofour phases. These are partly overlapping phases of active knowledge building. At the beginningof each phase some members become active and some others may drop away. Only one of the– 853 –