Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALNs) make the process of collaboration more transparent, because a transcript of conference messages can be used to assess individual roles and contributions and the collaborative process itself. This study considers three aspects of ALNs: the design; the quality of the resulting knowledge construction process; and cohesion, role and power network structures. The design is evaluated according to the Social Interdependence Theory of CooperativeLearning. The quality of the knowledge construction process is evaluated through Content Analysis; and the network structures are analyzed using Social Network Analysis of the response relations among participants during online discussions. In this research we analyze data from two three-monthlong ALN academic university courses: a formal, structured, closed forum and an informal, nonstructured, open forum. We found that in the structured ALN, the knowledge construction processreached a very high phase of critical thinking and developed cohesive cliques. The students took on bridging and triggering roles, while the tutor had relatively little power. In the non-structured ALN, the knowledge construction process reached a low phase of cognitive activity; few cliques were constructed; most of the students took on the passive role of teacher-followers; and the tutor was at the center of activity. These differences are statistically significant. We conclude that a well-designed ALN develops significant, distinct cohesion, and role and power structures lead the knowledge construction process to high phases of critical thinking.
Learning in an ALN mode is modeled by a set of educational processes. The group is modeled by an abstract entity that provides services to the learners via its group educational processes. The learners reciprocate by their corresponding educational processes. Following findings of the Social Interdependence Theory of Cooperative Learning, we conjecture that the ALN is Cooperative Learning enhanced by extended think time. If ALN is structured for effective cooperation then the group dynamics will regulate the high level reasoning and the interpersonal relationships of the learners towards their highest levels.If this conjecture is found to be true, it identifies the maximization of reasoning and interpersonal relationships as one of the educational benefits of an ALN.To test the conjecture, we developed a methodology for the evaluation of the performance profiles of the ALN educational processes. Performance profiles are calculated via content analysis of the information flows exchanged between the participants, and the results are tested for reproducibility. We use this methodology to analyze three weeks of asynchronous discussions embedded in an ALN course of the Open University of Israel (OUI). The results of this analysis indicate the plausibility of our conjecture.
[1] We analyzed sequences of lightning flashes in several thunderstorms on the basis of data from various ground-based lightning location systems. We identified patterns of clustering and synchronicity of flashes in separate thunderstorm cells, distanced by tens to hundreds of kilometers from each other. This is in-line with our early findings of lightning synchronicity based on space shuttle images (Yair et al., 2006), hinting at a possible mutual electromagnetic coupling of remote thunderstorms. We developed a theoretical model that is based on the leaky integrate-and-fire concept commonly used in models of neural activity, in order to simulate the flashing behavior of a coupled network of thunderstorm cells. In this type of network, the intensity of the electric field E i within a specific region of thunderstorm (i) grows with time until it reaches the critical breakdown value and generates a lightning flash while its electric field drops to zero, simultaneously adding a delta E to the intensity of the internal electric field in all thundercloud cells (E j,k,l . . .) that are linked to it. The value of DE is inversely proportional to the distance between the ''firing'' cell i and its neighbors j, k, l; we assumed that thunderstorm cells are not identical and occupy a grid with random spacing and organization. Several topologies of the thunderstorm network were tested with varying degrees of coupling, assuming a predetermined probability of links between active cells. The results suggest that when the group coupling in the network is higher than a certain threshold value, all thunderstorm cells will flash in a synchronized manner.
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