COLLAGE: A collaborative Learning Design editor based on patterns

At the moment, there are several LD editors available or under development. Some of them are listed in Griffiths et al. (2005), and in Griffiths & Blat (2005). Depending on the type of user (technical expert, instructional designer, teacher) and their degree of pedagogical specialization, these authors classify the tools according to two dimensions: Higher vs. lower level tools (or distant from specification vs. close to specification). This dimension is related to the level of expertise in LD required by the user of the tool. That is, how much the tool interface is influenced by LD or how many LD details it hides. General purpose vs. specific purpose tools. This dimension deals with the pedagogical scope of the tools. Teachers using a clearly defined pedagogical approach (e.g. collaborative learning) would not need all the capabilities of the LD specification. This implies that authoring tools more tightly focused on that particular pedagogical approach might present to their users only the needed functionality, reducing significantly the complexity of authoring. p. 2

RELOAD (RELOAD, 2005), CopperAuthor (OUNL, 2005) and COSMOS (Miao et al., 2005) are examples of general purpose editors that are close to the specification. Their target audiences are LD experts that are not focused on a particular pedagogy. MOT+ editor (Paquette et al., 2005) and ASK-LDT (Karampiperis & Sampson, 2005) are intended also for expert learning designers rather than teachers, although they provide graphical representations that facilitate the authoring task to a certain extent. However, the type of editor practitioners (usually classroom teachers and not expert learning designers) need should be similar to the authoring environment provided by LAMS (Macquarie University, 2005). LAMS is a specialized editor because it offers a set of predefined learning activities, shown in a comprehensible way for teachers, that can be graphically dragged and dropped in order to establish a sequence of activities. Nevertheless, although LAMS is inspired by the LD philosophy, it is not LD compliant at the present time. p. 2

To overcome these drawbacks, we advocate the use of patterns (Alexander et al., 1977) that reflect best practices in collaborative learning structuring as LD templates that can be applied to many collaborative learning situations (Koper, 2005). We call these patterns Collaborative Learning Flow Patterns (CLFPs) (Hernández-Leo et al., 2005), since they represent broadly accepted techniques that are repetitively used by practitioners when structuring the flow of learning activities involved in collaborative learning situations. p. 2

CLFPs represent broadly accepted techniques that are repetitively used by practitioners when structuring the flow of types of learning activities involved in collaborative learning situations (Hernández-Leo et al., 2005). Thus, CLFPs can be understood as a way of collecting “best practices” in collaborative learning. p. 3

Some examples of CLFPs are: TPS (Think-Pair-Share), Simulation, TAPPS (Thinking Aloud Pair Problem Solving) and Brainstorming (Aronson & Thibodeau, 1992; Johnson & Johnson, 1999; NISE, 1997).

* Anchored Note, page 3 How to decide which to choose? p. 3

A collaborative learning situation may be designed according to several CLFPs in different levels. For instance, the “expert” phase of Jigsaw CLFP can be organized according to Pyramid CLFP. p. 3

A necessary step before using CLFPs in an authoring tool is to represent them in a formal way. Our proposal for such a formalization, which has been reported in Hernández-Leo et al. (2005), is the basis for Collage. p. 4

Collage provides a repository with a pool of CLFPs. The available CLFPs available at the moment are Jigsaw, Pyramid, Simulation, Brainstorming, TPS and TAPPS, but more CLFPs can be added. p. 6

CLFPs’ metadata, p. 7

which include: p. 7

Learning objectives that the CLFP elicits. p. 7

2004). Types of problems that are best served with the CLFP. p. 7

Complexity or risk in terms of collaborative learning experienced needed. p. 7

The evaluation method that has been applied is a simplification of the mixed method proposed in (Martínez et al., 2003). Although it is devoted to the study of classroom social interactions, it includes quantitative approaches that allow us to detect general tendencies related to practitioners ́ opinions and attitudes, and qualitative methods that help us to better understand these tendencies through the introduction of context issues and considering the participants’ perspective (Stake, 1995). p. 10

References p. 12