Jacob Davidsen

Researchers and Teachers Learning Together and from Each Other Using Video-Based Multimodal Analysis.

This paper discusses a year-long technology integration project during which teachers and researchers joined forces to explore childrens collaborative activities through the use of touch screens. In the research project discussed in this paper, 16 touch screens were integrated into teaching and learning activities in two separate classrooms; the learning and collaborative processes were captured by using a video, collecting over 150 hours of footage. By using digital research technologies and a longitudinal design, the authors of the research project studied how teachers and children gradually integrated touch screens into their teaching and learning. This paper examines the methodological usefulness of video-based multimodal analysis. Through reflection on the research project, we discuss how, by using video-based multimodal analysis, researchers and teachers can study childrens touch-screen supported collaboration and how researchers and teachers can learn together.

“This is the size of one meter”: Children’s bodily-material collaboration

In CSCL studies, language is often foregrounded as the primary resource for engaging in collaborative learning, while the body is more often positioned as a secondary resource. There is, however, a growing interest in the body as a resource in learning and collaboration in and outside CSCL. In this paper, we present, analyse, and discuss how two nine-year-old children collaborate through gesturing and moving their bodies around a touchscreen. The pair is working with the concept of scale and area measurement and are in midst of copying their rooms from paper to touchscreen. During this process, the pair engages in a discussion regarding the size of one meter through language, gestures and manipulation of the material resources. The analysis shows two distinct ways of understanding the length of one meter, which primarily are visible through the children’s gestures and bodily movements. In the analysis we show how the children dynamically produce body-material resources for communicative and illustrative purposes; moreover, they use body-material resources as a cognitive tool and as a way of shepherding each other. The study forms part of a body of studies analysing and theorizing the body in education, learning, and interaction. We discuss the wider impact of our findings and argue how they may challenge and improve studies relying mainly on a coding and counting approach or automated capture of e.g. gestures. In addition, we provide a detailed multimodal representation of the subtle bodily-material resources, which we argue is a modest contribution to a catalogue of ways of representing and making bodily-material resources visible in CSCL research.

‘You should collaborate, children’: a study of teachers’ design and facilitation of children’s collaboration around touchscreens

Touchscreens are being integrated into classrooms to support collaborative learning, yet little empirical evidence has been presented regarding how children collaborate using touchscreens in classrooms. In particular, minimal research has been directed towards how teachers can design for and guide children’s touchscreen-based collaboration. Concurrently, the Programme for International Student Assessment and other international organisations have highlighted collaboration and ICT skills as crucial competencies for mastery in the twenty-first century. Accordingly, this article presents three narrative cases from a touchscreen project in Denmark, where 41 second-grade children and three teachers from two classrooms participated. The cases are based on ethnographic field data and 150 hours of video footage of natural occurring interaction in classroom settings. The ethnographic field data and video footage are examined using a collaboration model and embodied interaction analysis. Each case presents features of the subtle processes of children’s collaboration around touchscreens and teachers’ role in designing and guiding such collaboration. Thus, this article illustrates teachers’ and children’s situated processes of integrating touchscreens for collaborative activities in their classrooms.

Introducing the Collaborative E-Learning Design Method (CoED)

Our aim in this chapter is to present the rationale and theoretical underpinnings of a particular method for learning design called CoED1 (Collaborative E-learning Design). The method was originally developed by Nyvang and Georgsen (2007) as part of the Learn@Work project, and has since been further developed in other projects we have engaged in as a research collective

Understanding nomadic collaborative learning groups

The paper builds on the work of Rossito et al. (2014) on collaborative nomadic work to develop three categories of practice of nomadic collaborative learning groups. Our study is based on interviews, workshops and observations of two undergraduate student’s group practices engaged in self-organised, long-term collaborations within the frame of Problem and Project Based Learning. By analysing the patterns of nomadic collaborative learning we identify and discuss how the two groups of students incorporate mobile and digital technologies as well as physical and/or non-digital technologies into their group work. Specifically, we identify the following categories of nomadic collaborative learning practices: ‘orchestration of work phases, spaces and activities’, ‘the orchestration of multiple technologies’ and ‘orchestration of togetherness’. We found that for both groups of students there was a fluidity, situatedness and improvisational aspect to how they negotiate the orchestration of their work. Their ways of utilising space, places, technologies and activities over time was a complex interweaving of the digital and physical. We conclude by suggesting that the three categories of practice identified are important for deepening our understanding of nomadic collaborative learning groups.

Exploring What Touch-Screens Offer From the Perspectives of Children

How can we study children’s interaction in a technology-rich environment from the perspectives of children? How can children’s perspectives shine a light on the teacher’s designs for activities and materials in a technology-rich environment? One approach to address these questions could be using questionnaires or survey data. For example, we could send out questionnaires to school management or teachers asking about children’s use of information and communication technologies (ICT) in schools and classrooms.

Establishing a Sense of Community, Interaction, and Knowledge Exchange Among Students

In this chapter, we share experiences from a project at Aalborg University (AAU), in which the authors designed a course using Google+ Communities for the first semester of the Communication and Digital Media programme. The main pedagogical idea was to use Google+ Communities to foster both an academic and social sense of community among the students, through encouraging interaction and knowledge exchange. Studies show that students prefer to use Facebook for academic and social purposes. Consequently, teachers have limited insight into the academic challenges facing students, which is problematic when trying to create and support an academic community. Moreover, it is problematic that the institutional system Moodle primarily is used by the teachers to push information in the direction of the students. Thus, we wanted to design a third space that would fit in-between Facebook and Moodle, and which would allow the students to experience the benefits of participating in an online community with fellow students and teachers. The study shows that teachers are crucial in developing and maintaining the online community. Nevertheless, there was also evidence that some of the online activities encouraged students to interact and exchange knowledge which fostered a sense of community.