1. Decreasing CSCL interaction costs by offering common ground Jakko van der Pol Barcelona, February 5 th 2010 EURO-CAT CSCL
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4. Results: Van der Pol, J. Admiraal, W. & Simons, P. R. J. (2006). The affordance of anchored discussion for the collaborative processing of academic texts. ijCSCL, 1 (3), 339-357. Blackboard (n=514) Annotation tool (n=782) Task-related Opinion-oriented 42 % 23 % Meaning-oriented 58 % 77 % Non task-related Regulation 25 % 4 % Social 42 % 2 %
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Notes de l'éditeur
Requesting the caller to leave a message, to maintain sufficient level of ‘answerability’ > There seems to be more distance & freedom online (leaving in the middle of a converstion without saying anything, not answering, normal in online chatrooms or email, but f2f would be considered impolite). Therefore, the social and regulative activities here have the function of making sure to get a response , as with the voice mail message.
Whereas, In the Annotation tool, both social and regulative activities have virtually disappeared, only the 2nd part, the ‘core’ question or remark is left.
I think these findings can be understood very well from communication theorie (Clark and others). Grounding defined as the proces aimed to reach mutual understanding, or common ground. The functional character of grounding means that a situation with more common ground will show less active grounding activities, because there is less need for them [pijl 2], and the other way around. Finally, the more common ground you have, the easier it is to ground, thus it is a circular process (arrow 3) -- Interpretation: The task-specific design of the tool for talking about the text and its clear usefullness for that, seems to make it clear to everyone that what they´re going to do: asking each other questions and helping each other to answer them .
So, same model, depicting the circular proces of grounding being aimed at reaching common ground, that, in its turn, determines the need for and facilitates the grounding proces. Only, divided grounding and common ground into three different sub-areas. I social – social ties, so that the ‘callee’ can be relied on to leave a reply II regulative – goal = to ask questions about the text and help each other understand it III semantic – Meaning-oriented: building a better understanding of the text > These three processes compete for effort. Thus, I suggest that semantic grounding is what really matters in coll. kn. constr. and our goal should be to maximize it.
Having to get to know each other, creating a plan of approach versus the actual knowledge building..
Using tool (not only online literature processing, but also interactive peer feedback) for a course or for research is free, don’t hesitate to contact me. Don’t forget: Annotation tool also facilitates interactive online peer feedback.