Investigation 17. Co-experiencing a Shared World

Abstract

The ability of people to understand each other and to work together face-to-face is grounded in their sharing of our meaningful natural and cultural world. CSCL groups—such as virtual math teams—have to co-construct their online, shared world with extra effort. A case study of building shared understanding online illustrates several aspects of co-experiencing a digital world. Asking each other questions is one common way of aligning perceptions. Literally looking at the same aspect of something as someone else helps us to see what each other means. The co-constructed shared world has social and temporal as well as objective dimensions. This world grounds communicative, interpersonal, and task-related activities for online groups, making possible group cognition that exceeds the limits of the individual cognition of the group members.