Collaboration and Learning Online

Amy BruckmanAssociate Professor

User-Generated Content Online

• The World in 1995:– The Internet can help individuals become

creators, not merely recipients, of content

– Democratizing force

– Educational opportunity

• The World in 2000:– Lots of commercially published (one to many)

content

– Maybe it’s business as usual after all

The World in 2008

• User-generated content is happening!– The Blogosphere

• As predicted by science fiction writer Orson Scott Card

– Wikipedia– MySpace– YouTube– Etc.

• The results:– Citizen journalists, artists, activists, scientists– Gossip, copyright violations, really bad poetry

Outline

• Why is the Internet an interesting learning environment?– Constructionist learning & online communities– Legitimate peripheral participation (LPP)

• Electronic Learning Communities (ELC) research on collaboration online:– Understanding Wikipedia– Science Online– Leadership in online creative collaboration

• Conclusion: fostering collaboration

Constructionist Learning

• Piaget’s constructivism• Papert’s constructionism

– Examples:• LOGO• LEGO Mindstorms• StarLogo• Scratch

• Designing construction kits– Personal connections– Epistemological connections

Constructionist Online Communities

• People creating something together online– Stricter sense: artifact– Looser sense: shared understanding

• Community provides both motivation and support:– Technical support– Emotional support– Role models– An appreciative audience

Collaborative Constructionism?

• Constructionism is often surprisingly individualistic– Each person has his/her own project

• Does this matter?– Working on your own project with help is often ideal

– But working together:• Can accomplish much, much more

– Example: Wikipedia

• Can learn by Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP)

Legitimate Peripheral Participation (LPP)

• Lave and Wenger (1991)– Example: tailors in West Africa– Start by sweeping floor

• Legitimate: floor needs to be swept• Peripheral: watching activity around them

– When someone finally says “sew this seam,” they’re ready

• Seen it over and over

• Real-world learning is often more like this than like school

Becoming Wikipedian

• Interviews with:– Regulars (Andrea Forte and Susan Bryant)– People kicked off (Jordan Patton)– Leaders of WikiProjects (Vanessa Larco)

• Typical progression:– Start with one edit– Get a watch list– Begin to care about the site as a whole

• In other words, LPP

Science Online: Motivation

• What if we created a version of Wikipedia written by high-school students?– Focus is on science

• PhD work of Andrea Forte

Collaboration & Assessment

• Students can write collaboratively– Early on: “I can just go back and document how little or how much that

person contributed.” – Mr. Grant– End of term:“There’s a problem with collaboration and then assigning

grades… when you come back to the tried and true method of doing things you don’t have to worry about all that… one person one grade.” – Mr. Grant

Leadership in Online Creative Collaboration• People collaborate on animations online

– Each person still works on their own section, but these are assembled into a whole

– Example: Flash animations on newgrounds.com

• How is this done?– Methods (Luther & Bruckman, CSCW 2008):

• Screen scraping• Interviews with 14 animators

• Three primary collaborative modes– Narrative– Continuation– Collection

• PhD work of Kurt Luther

Narrative: “Valentine ‘29”

Linear Story Collab

Continuation: “Pass-my-Flash 2”

Continuous Story Collab

Collection: “When Farm Animals Attack”

Nonlinear Story Collab

Heavy Demands on Leaders

• Articulate vision

• Recruit contributors

• Give feedback

• Justify decisions

• Replace dropouts

• Integrate final product

• Etc.

New Tools

• Sandbox– Tools to support creation of animations– Support existing practices– Reduce burden on leader

• Example: claim system for available tasks

• Sandbox Improv– Transform existing practices– Reduce role of leader– Dynamic leadership

• Latest person is leader

– Branching structure of final product

Conclusion:Collaboration Revisited• Remarkable what collaboration can accomplish

– Product

– Process• What is gained from being a part of the process

• More nuanced understanding of how this really works is needed

• New tools can make new things possible– There are new “Wikipedia-scale” successes to be

designed

Acknowledgments

• Celia & Beth• ELC students:

– Betsy DiSalvo, Andrea Forte, Kurt Luther, Sarita Yardi

• ELC sponsors:– IBM, Intel, Microsoft, Pitney Bowes, Ricoh – The National Science Foundation– US Department of Education

• For more info:– http://www.cc.gatech.edu/elc/