Can CSCL Make a Global Contribution?

Our previous gathering, CSCL 2005 in   Taipei, opened with reflections on increasing international participation in  computer-supported collaborative learning research and later celebrated the  launch of ijCSCL, an international journal representing our field.  Coincidentally, 2005 was also the year of publication of "The World is Flat,"  a book which highlighted the growing challenges of globalization for a  worldwide audience and argued that improving education is one of the few  viable responses. In this keynote, I'll justapose these two independent events  and ask: Can international collaboration among CSCL researchers address  challenges of a globalizing world?

International collaboration among  CSCL researchers is on the increase in part because we find our distant  colleagues striving to address similiar problems and because we find  complementary talents and research opportunities across locales. I'll argue  that we are beginning, in our own small ways, to rise above narrow technical  research issues to ones with broader conceptualization and impact. To make the  case, I'll reflect on several International efforts I've been involved with,  such as:

* G1on1.org -- A social network of researchers concerned with  leveraging the potential of wireless mobile devices, which responded to the  One Laptop Per Child initiative, envisioned future scenarios for CSCL, and  summarized the state of the art in a journal article.

* mCSCL -- A  network of projects between the UK, Chile, and the United States which is  studying how carefully designed mobile CSCL activities can increase teamwork  among students while increasing individual learning outcomes

*  Connected SimCalc - An expansion of SimCalc's successful application of  multiple representational software to the challenge of democratizing  mathematics learning into a classroom-network-based version that addresses  student alienation from mathematics as well as concept learning and is being  simultaneously tested in the United States and Singapore

*  GroupScribbles - A simple, flexible classroom coordination tool that enables  teachers and students to improvise a wide range of distributed and  collaborative learning activities and is being studied simultaneously in  Spain, Taiwan, Singapore and the United  States.