Can the interactive whiteboard help to provide ‘dialogic space’ for children's collaborative activity?

Mercer, Neil; Warwick, Paul; Kershner, Ruth; Staarman, Judith Kleine

doi:10.1080/09500781003642460

Cited by 71 publications

(39 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…This is not a simple "all-or-nothing" finding about IWB use for collaborative purposes. The groups discussed in this paper are captured at a certain stage in their collaborative learning with the IWB and neither demonstrates extended exploratory talk (unlike some others we observed, Mercer et al 2010). The teachers are similarly in the process of adapting their professional knowledge about IWB use.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 83%

Can the interactive whiteboard support young children’s collaborative communication and thinking in classroom science activities?

Kershner

Mercer

Warwick

et al. 2010

Computer Supported Learning

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Interactive whiteboards (IWBs) have been widely introduced to English primary schools (5-11 years) in the last decade and this has generated much research interest. In the past, research has focused on IWB-use in teacher-led sessions, attending particularly to the nature of teacher-pupil interaction at the IWB and the apparent motivational advantages for children. In contrast, this study focuses on children's communication and thinking during their semi-autonomous use of the IWB during collaborative groupwork in primary school science lessons, aiming in part to see if the IWB is suited to this type of use. Over the course of one school year, twelve primary teachers of Years 4 and 5 (8-10 years) took part in a professional development and research programme which involved them in devising a sequence of three science lessons incorporating small-group activity at the IWB. The functionality of the IWB is analysed here as means for supporting the children's joint communication and thinking, using embedded cues and the availability of certain features in the IWB technology. Our observational analysis of two examples of children's collaborative activity in different classrooms, together with subsequent group interviews, suggests that the IWB can make some identifiable contributions to children's productive communication and thinking. However the IWB is not seen to be an entirely distinctive or pedagogically transformative learning resource in the primary classroom. In our developing conceptual framework, the children's knowledge building is closely related to their active engagement in using IWB affordances and their productive dialogue, essentially supported by the teacher's scaffolding strategies, the establishment and use of "talk rules" in conversation, and the opportunities and constraints applying in classroom participation structures. These conditions help the children to deal with interconnected social, cognitive, and technical problems arising over time. Certain aspects of this form of computersupported collaborative learning (CSCL) are discussed. These relate to the integration of the

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 83%

Can the interactive whiteboard support young children’s collaborative communication and thinking in classroom science activities?

Kershner

Mercer

Warwick

et al. 2010

Computer Supported Learning

Self Cite

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“…The unit of analysis of students' contributions in the wiki negotiation space was an "Episode". In our study, an episode was a cluster of contributions in which students showed a common objective in order to fulfil the task and with a particular dialogic style (Mercer et al 2010).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wiki-supported collaborative learning in primary education: How a dialogic space is created for thinking together

Pifarré

Staarman

2011

Computer Supported Learning

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This paper explores how wikis may be used to support primary education students' collaborative interaction and how this such an interaction process can be characterised. The overall aim of this study was is to analyse the collaborative processes of students working together in a wiki environment, to be able to unfoldin order to see how primary students can actively create a shared context for learning in the wiki. Educational literature has already reported that wikis may support collaborative knowledge-construction processes, but in our study, we claim that a dialogic perspective is also needed to accomplish this. Students are requiredmust to develop an intersubjective orientation towards each other participants' perspectives, to be able to co-construct knowledge about a topic. For this purpose, the our project utilised a '"Thinking Together'"-type approach to help students to develop an intersubjective orientation towards one another and to support the creation of a 'dialogic space' to co-construct new understanding in a wiki science project. The students' asynchronous interaction process in a primary classroom ,-which led to the creation of a science text in the wiki-, was analysed and characterised, using a dialogic approach to the study of Computer-Supported Collaborative LearningCSCL practices. Our results illustrate how the 'Thinking Together' approach became embedded within the wiki environment and in the students' collaborative processes. We would argue that a dialogic approach for examining interaction can be used to help to design more effective pedagogic approaches related to the use of wikis in education and to equip learners with the competences they need to participate in the global knowledge-construction era.

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“…This notion of an internal or lived experience of a shared dialogic space is central (Mercer et al 2010). In teaching through the opening of a shared dialogic space, dialogic education draws learners into participation in the processes through which knowledge is constructed and validated.…”

Section: Dialogic Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Buber, educational technology, and the expansion of dialogic space

Wegerif

Major

2018

AI & Soc

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Buber's distinction between the 'I-It' mode and the 'I-Thou' mode is seminal for dialogic education. While Buber introduces the idea of dialogic space, an idea which has proved useful for the analysis of dialogic education with technology, his account fails to engage adequately with the role of technology. This paper offers an introduction to the significance of the I-It/I-Thou duality of technology in relation with opening dialogic space. This is followed by a short schematic history of educational technology which reveals the role technology plays, not only in opening dialogic space, but also in expanding dialogic space. The expansion of dialogic space is an expansion of what it means to be 'us' as dialogic engagement facilitates the incorporation, into our shared sense of identity, of aspects of reality that are initially experienced as alien or 'other'. Augmenting Buber with an alternative understanding of dialogic space enables us to see how dialogue mediated by technology, as well as dialogue with monologised fragments of technology (robots), can, through education, lead to an expansion of what it means to be human. Keywords Dialogic space theory · Educational technology · Buber · Voice · Dialogue The twofold nature of signsAlthough not all those who write about dialogic education refer to Buber, all refer, in different ways, to the fundamental distinction that Buber drew between learning from a living dialogue involving responsive voices (I-Thou) and the kind of 'knowledge' that just imposes a single perspective expanding the realm of the same and objectifying all otherness (I-It). For dialogic education, learning is not primarily conceived of as about collecting facts and returning them in an examination, but is about engaging with different perspectives in a way that expands the understanding of the learner and their capacity to see things from more than one point of view 1 . Buber's writing on the nature of I-Thou relations expands our understanding of dialogue. In particular, Buber opens the way to understanding dialogue as more than that intersubjectivity in which two separate consciousnesses engage with each other. Intersubjectivity is part of dialogue, certainly, but, Buber's (1937) accounts of dialogue with nonhuman subjects such as trees and animals suggest that we need to adapt and expand this model of dialogue.The 'intersubjectivity' interpretation of dialogue, developed by psychologists such as Rommetveit (1998), begins with the reality of separate consciousnesses and does not question this assumption, viewing dialogue as an exchange between separate consciousnesses characterised by mutual attunement. Buber's analysis suggests that dialogue is more fundamentally rooted in an 'orientation' to the other that opens a space of potential meaning preceding, and exceeding, the self/other distinction. Although Buber did not engage directly with the question of technology, this version of dialogic theory opens the way to understand the essential role that technology plays in dialogue and why it...

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Can the interactive whiteboard help to provide ‘dialogic space’ for children's collaborative activity?

Cited by 71 publications

References 20 publications

Can the interactive whiteboard support young children’s collaborative communication and thinking in classroom science activities?

Can the interactive whiteboard support young children’s collaborative communication and thinking in classroom science activities?

Wiki-supported collaborative learning in primary education: How a dialogic space is created for thinking together

Buber, educational technology, and the expansion of dialogic space

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