Andrew Ravenscroft

Combining interaction and context design to support collaborative argumentation using a tool for synchronous CMC

Empirical studies and theory suggest that educational dialogue can be used to support learners in the development of reasoning, critical thinking and argumentation. This paper presents an educational design for synchronous online peer discussion that guides student dialogue in ways that lead to improved argumentation and collaborative knowledge development. This design includes a mediating interface – or tool, linked to a broader set of online educational activities – a designed local context, where the latter aims to provide conditions that support argumentation. The approach is based on collaborative working and dialogue game approaches to discussion. Preliminary findings with UK Open University students showed the argumentation process was more coherent, varied, deeper and extended when using our interaction design compared with the use of a simple unstructured interface.

Designing E-learning Interactions in the 21st Century: revisiting and rethinking the role of theory

In this article, I shall consider research and development in e-learning in terms of learning processes and interactions that are stimulated, supported and favoured by innovative educational technologies. I examine relationships between learning theory and interaction design by reviewing and critiquing a relevant selection of work that has been undertaken in the last 50 years. Implicit in this review is the development of an argument that emphasises the role of collaborative dialogue and discourse in the learning process, with particular reference to Vygotsky’s theory of the development of higher mental processes. In evaluating the roles that computers can play in supporting effective educational interaction, the importance of dialogue models and dialogue games is proposed; and the implications which these paradigms hold for how we actually conceive of design are articulated. E-learning: half a century of design The notion that ‘electronic learning’ is a recent initiative is a popular misconception. Arguably, electronic learning (hereafter e-learning) started in the 1950s. We should be mindful of this and initiatives since then when we consider the current feverish interest and activity in exploiting maturing Internet technologies, particularly in the context of open and distance learning (ODL) and to design virtual learning environments (VLEs), on-line courses, virtual universities and the like. Are these initiatives properly exploiting the highly interactive, communicative and participative possibilities provided by contemporary technologies? Or are we simply replicating or augmenting ‘conventional’ approaches to teaching and learning, locally or at a distance, in ways that downplay the opportunity to re-evaluate ‘what it actually takes to learn’ and thus ignoring ways of developing more innovative and improved pedagogical practices. I suggest that we should step back from the more practical and institutional concerns for a moment and focus on more fundamental issues concerning the learning processes and interactions that are, or can be, supported by innovative educational technologies. This focus is relevant to all levels of education. I argue

Promoting thinking and conceptual change with digital dialogue games

This paper will present a review of design-based research conducted over the past 10 years that has modeled and promoted students’ reasoning, conceptual change and argumentative dialogue processes and practices through designing a number of digital dialogue games. This line of work was inspired by some challenges and insights that emerged during projects dealing with conceptual change in science. Since then, the dialogical and pedagogical requirements for improved reasoning, knowledge development and conceptual understanding in a range of contexts have been addressed through projects that have designed and evaluated intelligent and highly interactive dialogue game tools, such as CoLLeGE (Computer-based Laboratory for Language Games in Education), AcademicTalk and InterLoc (Collaborative Interaction through scaffolding Locutions). This article will review this line of work through justifying and describing the rationale for its trajectory before presenting ongoing work that synthesizes and operationalizes its findings and insights. The ongoing work emphasizes an inclusive and personalized approach to learning dialogue that stimulates reasoning, collaborative thinking and the development of argumentative dialogue practices. This is arguably relevant to most learning contexts, and especially to contemporary science education. Finally, conclusions are drawn about the role of dialogue in learning in the digital age.

21st Century Learning for 21st Century Skills

I want to argue in this lecture, that life – especially educational life – is never that simple. What exactly are 21 century skills? How, for example, do they differ from ‘knowledge’? And once we know what they are, does there follow a strategy – or at least a set of principles – for what learning should look like, and the roles we ascribe to technology? Most importantly, if 21 century knowledge is qualitatively different from the 19 and 20 century knowledge that characterises much of our existing curricula, we will need to consider carefully just how to make that knowledge learnable and accessible through the design of digital technologies and their evaluation.

Designing argumentation for conceptual development

Abstract If Virtual Learning Environments are to support real learning, they must promote effective teaching–learning processes and interactions. In this paper we describe a collaborative, computer-based framework for argumentation that supports the dialogue process in ways which stimulate belief revision leading to conceptual change and development in science. This pedagogy is specified as a prescriptive ‘dialogue game’, which models features of the tutorial process. Within this scheme, the learner adopts the role of an ‘explainer’ whilst the system plays a facilitating role, and these participants collaborate to develop a shared explanatory model of a qualitative, causal domain. The design framework includes an abstract world model of a qualitative causal system, some ‘commonsense’ reasoning rules, an interaction language and dialogue strategies and tactics, that are co-ordinated within a facilitating dialogue game. A prototype CoLLeGE (Computer based Lab for Language Games in Education) system implements the framework and operates as a dialogue modelling work-bench for demonstrating, investigating and developing the approach. An empirical study showed that students revised their beliefs and improved their explanatory models, and held to their revised and improved conceptions in a delayed post-test. In using CoLLeGE to simulate these dialogues, we found that the tutor’s low-level tactical pedagogies emerged and developed reactively during the dialogues, in response to conceptual difficulties experienced by the students.

Investigating and promoting educational argumentation: towards new digital practices

This article reviews and synthesizes over a decade of research that has used discourse analysis, dialogue modelling and empirical techniques to investigate educational argumentation and to design digital tools that support its practice. This approach – incorporating theoretical, empirical and design‐based methods according to what tends to now be called a ‘learning science’ approach – has investigated argumentation through developing the notion of ‘dialogue games’. This is a paradigm that can be used analytically or prescriptively to further our understanding of argumentation processes and how these can be orchestrated for educational purposes. The article explains why argument is important; concisely reviews a range of analytic, empirical and design‐based studies of argumentation and related digital tools; critiques these methods and approaches; raises questions and provides some pointers for researching and supporting new and emerging argumentative practices within the developing digital landscape.

Mining Arguments From 19th Century Philosophical Texts Using Topic Based Modelling

In this paper we look at the manual analysis of arguments and how this compares to the current state of automatic argument analysis. These considerations are used to develop a new approach combining a machine learning algorithm to extract propositions from text, with a topic model to determine argument structure. The results of this method are compared to a manual

Appropriating Technologies for Contextual Knowledge: Mobile Personal Learning Environments

The development of Technology Enhanced Learning has been dominated by the education paradigm. However social software and new forms of knowledge development and collaborative meaning making are challenging such domination. Technology is increasingly being used to mediate the development of work process knowledge and these processes are leading to the evolution of rhizomatic forms of community based knowledge development. Technologies can support different forms of contextual knowledge development through Personal Learning Environments. The appropriation or shaping of technologies to develop Personal Learning Environments may be seen as an outcome of learning in itself. Mobile devices have the potential to support situated and context based learning, as exemplified in projects undertaken at London Metropolitan University. This work provides the basis for the development of a Work Orientated MoBile Learning Environment (WOMBLE).

Digital Games and Learning in Cyberspace: A Dialogical Approach

Currently there is considerable enthusiasm for exploring how we can apply digital gaming paradigms to learning. But these approaches are often weak in linking the game-playing activity to transferable social or conceptual processes and skills that constitute, or are related to, learning. In contrast, this article describes a ‘dialogue game’ approach to learning in cyberspace related to Wittgensteins notion of a ‘language game’ that seeks to explicitly link game-playing activity to the development of generic dialogical and reasoning skills that lead to improved conceptual understanding and collaborative knowledge refinement. This article initially discusses the current articulations of gaming as an approach to learning before justifying and describing the dialogue game approach the authors are currently adopting. This is followed by a summary of empirical evidence in support of this design paradigm and a desciption of a socio-cognitive tool called InterLoc that organises, mediates, structures and scaffolds educational dialogue games. The approach is demonstrated and the implications it holds for designing gaming or other types of educational interaction are then discussed in the context of existing and near-future possibilities within the evolving e-learning landscape.

Designing and evaluating social media for learning: shaping social networking into social learning?

Although the adoption of social media (or Web 2.0 technologies) within our everyday lives is relatively recent, many have attempted to embrace these technologies and related digital literacies for learning in educational institutions and the workplace. The state of the art in this respect before 2010 was reflected in two key publications edited by the editors of this Special Issue. These were a special issue in this journal on social software, Web 2.0, and learning (Ravenscroft 2009), and a Handbook of Research on Social Software & Developing Community Ontologies (Hatzipanagos & Warburton 2009). These covered a wide range of perspectives and projects that collectively conveyed the energy and enthusiasm for embracing more open and participative approaches to learning, mainly through applying and adapting existing social media technologies, such as weblogs (blogs), wikis, and popular social networking tools (e.g. Facebook). This collection of work also uncovered some deep misalignments and paradoxes in the context of traditional education: