In the last decade, we have seen the emergence of virtual learning environments. Initially, these environments were a little more than document repositories that tutor used unicast to the students. Informed in part by social constructivist theories of education, later environments included capabilities for tutor-student and student-student, synchronous and asynchronous communication. The initial research of this paper reports the typical low usage of these capabilities. The main research attempted to ameliorate this problem by the provision of tools to promote a sense of social awareness as self-presence and copresence, and evaluation techniques to analyse e-learners' interactions. Data was obtained from prepost questionnaires, log files and social network analysis which augmented the data provided by the tools embedded in Moodle. The results indicate the importance of social awareness in effective e-learning; the quality of active participation can be increased by the use of associated tools. The e-tutor's role is still pivotal to facilitate and to support such engagement towards collaborative learning. Implications for future research suggest that social awareness tools and evaluation techniques can create awareness cues in an interface with a potential impact on learning. Practitioner NotesWhat is already known about this topic:• Learning Management Systems integrated applications do not fully support sociocultural and collaborative learning as such • Theoretical and analytical frameworks in social awareness in the purpose of collaborative e-learning do not exist • Such applications in wide use Learning Management Systems are not specifically designed to support social awareness What this paper adds:• Better understanding of the e-learning social aspects • A new analytical framework for social awareness as self-and co-presence as well as evaluation techniques and their increasing importance attached to collaborative e-learning activities • An innovative human-computer interaction in education approach to design requirements for tools in order to match specific pedagogical targets, in this case social awareness Implications for practice and/or policy:• Social awareness as self-and co-presence has a positive effect in collaborative e-learning • There needs to be direct fit between the everyday educational practice and the analytical frameworks proposed towards requirements for associated applications and systems • The e-tutor's role is still pivotal as a director and orchestrator of collaborative e-learning activities, however she needs specific tools and techniques to support her for effective group knowledge building • As we head towards a complete networked 21st century society, the positive effect of social awareness tools and evaluation techniques, addresses the need for coherent context-aware interfaces for an impact on positive e-learning experience IntroductionThe importance of social awareness in e-learning has only recently been investigated despite its significance to contemporary socio-cultural learn...

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Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) activities aim to promote collaborative knowledge construction and convergence. During the CSCL activity, the students should regulate their learning activity, at the individual and collective level. This implies an organisation cost related to the coordination of the activity with the team-mates and the internal and external regulation of this activity. Therefore, we consider a knowledge perspective and an organisation load perspective in the execution of the CSCL activities. We assume the time and efforts spent in the organisation are not spent in the knowledge construction and convergence process. Nevetheless, we assume that in CSCL activities a certain level of organisation is a requirement for the knowledge construction and convergence process. The students' organisation load depends on the level of the scripting of the CSCL activities. A highly scripted activity implies a high level of external organisation and a lower level of self and co-organisation. When the CSCL activity has a low level of external regulation, the students' requires a higher level of self and group organisation. CSCL approaches could then imply a high transactive cost in terms of organization that could reduce the time and efforts the students could devote to the knowledge construction and convergence process. In this paper, we analyse the impact of the organisation in the knowledge construction and convergence through a critical revision of the CSCL literature. relativa a la coordinación de la actividad con los compañeros de grupo y a la regulación interna y externa de esta actividad. Así pues, consideramos dos niveles en las actividades ACAO, un primer nivel que corresponde la construcción y convergencia del conocimiento y un segundo nivel que corresponde al coste de la organización. Asumimos que el tiempo y el esfuerzo dedicados a nivel de la organización no es un tiempo y esfuerzo dedicado al nivel de construcción y convergencia del conocimiento. Asumimos, pues, que las actividades ACAO requieren una organización de los procesos de construcción y convergencia del conocimiento. KeywordsEl nivel de organización necesaria para las actividades ACAO depende del nivel de guiaje de las actividades ACAO. Las actividades con un fuerte guiaje implican una fuerte organización externa de la actividad y un nivel más bajo de organización interna por la parte del estudiante.Cuando la actividad ACAO tiene un bajo nivel de regulación externa, los estudiantes necesitan un mayor nivel de regulación interna. En este segundo caso, las actividades ACAO pueden suponer un alto coste transactivo en términos de organización, lo que puede reducir el tiempo y esfuerzos dedicados a los procesos de construcción y convergencia de los conocimientos. En este artículo, analizamos el impacto de la organización en la construcción y la convergencia del conocimiento a partir de una revisión crítica de la literatura en el ámbito del ACAO.Palabras Clave: Aprendizaje colaborativo, Aprendizaje Colaborativo Asistido ...

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This paper presents the research design of a case study aiming to enhance Greek environmental educators' competence in collaborative creativity through online training. The study, which is part of an ongoing research project, entails the design of an e-learning course, the development and evaluation of a collaborative creativity framework called Hybrid Synergy and an associated tool to support it, and the identification of specific patterns related to the participants' engagement with the provided e-learning activities.