The Children in the Centre (CiC) framework, introduced in this paper, facilitates successful multidisciplinary research and design collaboration in computer science and special education with partners in non-academic contexts. The CiC framework emphasizes the active role of children and their families in the research and design processes. Practical tips for including children with special needs in the design and development of technologies are also described.
The rapid development of computer-supported collaborative environments has highlighted the need for collaborative knowledge construction devices. Because most available mindtools do not promote collaboration, there is a need for social mindtools that can be used in collaborative learning situations. We have used activity theory as a conceptual framework to define the requirements of social mindtools as awareness of other participants, communication and the ability to edit common objects together. We present the concept of Woven Stories and use it as an example of an effective social mindtool. We also describe a case study in which Woven Stories software was used as an online debating forum. This case study reveals the potential inherent in the concept, compared with other text-oriented Web 2.0 tools, such as wikis.
IntroductionBecause of the continuous flow of powerful new technologies, research in the field of educational technology tends to concentrate on the use of mobile technologies, virtual worlds, and other relatively complex tools and technologies. Given the popularity of technology-driven developments of this kind in research, it is easy to overlook the fact that learning is inextricably bound up with thinking and that simple solutions can often be crucial in the evolution of educational research. Jonassen (1992) notes: 'Rather than developing more powerful teaching software, we should be teaching learners how to think more efficiently'. If we are to accomplish what Jonassen recommends, we need to develop a range of simple and generic thinking tools that can be taught to learners. The development of simple tools of this kind is predicated on the realisation that the primary purpose of learning is not how to use the tool but how to think efficiently.
We present a collaborative learning tool for programming, Jeliot Collaboratively or JeCo. Jeliot Collaboratively is a combination of a program visualization tool for Java programs, called Jeliot 3, and a collaborative authoring tool, Woven Stories. We introduce these systems and explain how they can be used in learning. Furthermore, we present future directions in order to support a wider range of use cases with JeCo.
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