CHAT ANALYSIS IN VIRTUAL MATH TEAMS

A pre-conference workshop at CSCL 2007 all day, July 16, 2007, at Rutgers, New Brunswick. Register at http://isls.org/cscl2007

Please register as soon as possible for the workshop but before April 30 through the CSCL conference site.

Organized by Gerry Stahl and the VMT Project Team
For any questions, contact: [email protected]

Text-based synchronous chat can provide an effective CSCL medium for collaborative knowledge building if properly structured and presented. The Virtual Math Teams (VMT) project at the Math Forum and Drexel University has developed an online environment combining text chat, shared whiteboard and wiki for discussion of math, run many trials with students and conducted detailed analysis of numerous interactions that took place.

Chat analysis as practiced in the VMT project is an ethnomethodologically-informed approach to micro-analysis of brief excerpts of online interaction in small groups. The approach adapts the rigorous methodology of conversation analysis to text-based problem solving at a distance.

Workshop presentations will include:
• Data sessions on analysis of a chat excerpt.
• Theoretical issues related to collaborative knowledge building in chat interaction.
• Methodological techniques for the analysis of intersubjective meaning or social practices in small online groups.
Each presentation will include a presenter or facilitator, a commentator and audience participation.

The focus of the workshop will be on the analysis of meaning making or group cognition in small online groups engaged in math discussion. Preliminary results from the VMT project will be presented. This workshop will result in:
• Exposure of the audience to hands-on experience with interaction analysis of chat.
• Deepening of the analysis of data that is presented.
• Development of theoretical and methodological understanding of chat analysis.