Conceptualizing the designs of authentic computer-supported collaborative learning environments in schools

The new natural? Authenticity and the naturalization of educational technologies

“…Interactive technologies are presented as enabling the progressive vision of situated learning that was previously either unrealistic or not cost-effective (Collins 1991;Shaffer and Resnick 1999). Overall, technology's capacity to increase authentic learning can be divided into two main affordances: the capacity to bridge the divide between the classroom and the external world, and the possibility of simulating external environments in the classroom (Hod and Sagy 2019).…”

“…In addition, students have more opportunities to communicate with experts in the appropriate fields, either via predesigned collaborations or in emergent opportunities that rely on technological tools such as email and social networks (Herrington and Kervin 2007). Finally, digital technologies allow students to more easily participate in real-world endeavorsfrom contributing definitions to Wikipedia to taking part in citizen science projectswhile significantly reducing the complexity characteristic of actual physical interaction (Hod and Sagy 2019).…”

“…In the case of beyond-the-school authenticity this leads to assuming that schools should replicate students' everyday practices in order to maintain their relevance. However, this conflation is also characteristic of authentic expertise, which runs the risk of not distinguishing between actual professional contexts, and the idealized versions of these contexts that are deemed productive for learning (Hod and Sagy 2019;Splitter 2009).…”

“…The focus on novel technologies and their affordances all too often comes at the expense of examining the differences between the educational context and the professional context it strives to approximate. Hence, there is need for a much more nuanced understanding of technology's precise role in supporting authentic expertise, including attention to its interplay with the overall pedagogical design of the learning environment (Hod and Sagy 2019). This relates to a broader problem with the perception of authenticity in education already discussedthe lack of distinction between the objective and subjective view of authenticity (Gulikers et al 2008).…”

Experiencing CSCL: from motivation to the embodied experience and beyond

“…Continuing investigations of designing authentic learning experiences for science classrooms (Hod and Sagy 2019), the final article of this issue, by Yotam Hod and Daniel Twersky, "Distributed Spatial Sensemaking on the Augmented Reality Sandbox" explores a novel environment for embodied CSCL experiences in an environment referred to as the Augmented Reality Sandbox. In contrast to prior research, which has focused on AR Sandbox activity designs, outcome measures, and user's perceptions of different usability functions, this article probes deeply into the situated processes by which groups engage in CSCL activities.…”