New Books of Note

Analyzing Collaborative Interactions in CSCL: Methods, Approaches, and Issues

Sadhana Puntambekar, Gijsbert Erkens, and Cindy Hmelo-Silver, editors (2011). Springer

In more than two decades of research in CSCL (Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning), researchers have used several methods to understand how individuals learn in groups and how groups of learners construct knowledge. The individual and group learning processes have been studied using a variety of methods. Analyzing Collaborative Interactions in CSCL reveals the wide range of this research: qualitative and quantitative methods, studies of the learning process as well as outcomes, and the measurement of group and individual members’ learning. Focusing on three major research areas—group processes, learning within groups, and frameworks for analyzing CSCL—leading scholars present models, methods, and tools that readers can adapt to fit their own projects. Basic research issues such as defining the unit of analysis, determining the grain size of the data, and representing the temporality of interactions are discussed in the context of these methods addressing issues such as: Studying group cognition through the lens of social order; Using visualization methods to assess group members’ individual progress; Analyzing collaborative interactions with data mining methods; Assessing student project groups online and offline; Using multilevel analysis in text-based communication; Analyzing collaborative interactions across settings and domains. Together, the chapters in Analyzing Collaborative Interactions in CSCL model a range of methods for CSCL researchers in education, education technology, and cognitive science.

Web 2.0-Based E-Learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching

Edited by Mark J. W. Lee, Charles Sturt University, Australia; Catherine McLoughlin, Australian Catholic University, Australia (2010). IGI Global

Educational communities today are rapidly increasing their interest in Web 2.0 and e-learning advancements for the enhancement of teaching practices. Web 2.0-Based E-Learning: Applying Social Informatics for Tertiary Teaching provides a useful and valuable reference to the latest advances in the area of educational technology and e-learning. This innovative book offers an excellent resource for any practitioner, researcher, or academician with an interest in the use of the Web for providing meaningful learning experiences.

Studying Virtual Math Teams

Stahl, G. (2009). Springer

A comprehensive, integrated report on a major CSCL research effort, including chapters by 29 authors from the project team and 10 collaborating centers. It includes sections on project philosophy, pedagogy and technology; interaction analysis; methodology; software design; interaction representations; and theory. This is a follow-up to Stahl, G. (2006) "Group Cognition: Computer Support for Building Collaborative Knowledge", MIT Press, 510 pages—carrying out the kinds of development, interventions, analysis and theory building proposed there. You can download the book’s table of contents or a flyer with order form. The book is available in hardback and ebook (including as individual chapters) from Springer Press with a 25% discount for ISLS members, or from Amazon.

WISE Science: Inquiry and the Internet in the Science Classroom

Slotta, J. D. & Linn, M. C. (2009). Teachers College Press

This book shares the lessons learned by a large community of educational researchers and science teachers as they designed, developed, and investigated a new technology-enhanced learning environment known as WISE: The Web-Based Inquiry Science Environment. WISE offers a collection of free, customizable curriculum projects on topics central to the science standards as well as guidance for teachers on how these Internet-based projects can be used to improve learning and instruction in their science classrooms (grades 6-12). Hundreds of teachers and over 100,000 students have learned from WISE projects taught in English, Norwegian, Dutch, German, Hebrew, Chinese, and Korean.

Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology: The Digital Revolution and Schooling in America

Allan Collins and Richard Halverson (2009). Teachers College Press

Allan Collins and Richard Halverson argue that the way computers have transformed our workplaces and lives can and should be adapted to transform American education. This groundbreaking book offers a vision for the future that goes well beyond the walls of the classroom to include online social networks, distance learning, digital home schooling models, video games, and more.

Argumentation and Education: Theoretical Foundations and Practices

Muller Mirza, Nathalie; Perret-Clermont, Anne-Nelly, editors (2009). Springer

During the last decade, argumentation has attracted growing attention as a means to elicit processes (linguistic, logical, dialogical, psychological, etc.) that can sustain or provoke reasoning and learning. Constituting an important dimension of daily life and of professional activities, argumentation plays a special role in democracies and is at the heart of philosophical reasoning and scientific inquiry. Argumentation, as such, requires specific intellectual and social skills. Hence, argumentation will have an increasing importance in education, both because it is an important competence that has to be learned, and because argumentation can be used to foster learning in philosophy, history, sciences and in many other domains. However, learning argumentation and learning by arguing, at school, still raise theoretical and methodological questions such as: How do learning processes develop in argumentation? How to design effective argumentative activities? How can the argumentative efforts of pupils can be sustained? What are the psychological issues involved when arguing with others? How to evaluate and analyze the learners' productions? Argumentation and Education answers these and other questions by providing both theoretical backgrounds, in psychology, education and theory of argumentation, and concrete examples of experiments and results in school contexts in a range of domains. It reports on existing innovative practices in education settings at various levels.