Collaborative knowledge construction in the web supported by the KnowCat system

1. Collaborative knowledge construction in the web supported by the KnowCat system Presenter: Ming-Chuan Chen Advisor: Ming-Puu Chen Date: 12/29/2008 Cobos, R., & Pifarre, M. (2008). Collaborative knowledge construction in the web supported by the KnowCat system, Computers & Education, 50(3), 962-978.

2. Introduction (1) • Collaboration involves the construction of meaning through interactions with others and can be characterized by a joint commitment to a shared goal.(Littleton & Hakkinen, 1999) • KnowCat (“Knowledge Catalyser”): • To generate quality educational materials as a result of users’ interaction with the materials • Based on the mechanism called “Knowledge Crystallisation” • It has been used, tested and improved over the last six years

3. Introduction (2) • The main characteristics of the system: • To organize the knowledge in a tree structure • To express the opinions about any documents • Votes, annotations & a new version • Sorted by their degree of acceptance • Research questions • The students’ collaboration process that occurred in the system • The role of annotations of KowCat in collaborative knowledge construction process • To improve the mechanism of knowledge crystallisation process

4. Knowledge crystallisation (1) Knowledge crystallisation: Based on the virtual communities The opinions of other users will decide whether these elements of knowledge are useful or not Useful =>remaining in the system longer Useless =>disappearing from the system

5. Knowledge crystallisation(2) Each document in the system has a value called “degree of acceptance” (0~1) Calculated by (1) Votes and notes (2) Number of times Beyond the “crystallisation point” for a period of time => crystallised The knowledge crystallisation process determines when a new document version replaces the previous one. Continuity point Improvement point Knowledge evolution: Through a sequence of document versions

6. Participants & Procedure • 31 students enrolled in the course “learning strategies” at the “UdL” • The students used the system during 10 weeks

7. Instructional tasks • (a)To obtain a crystallised document • search a document related to the selected to the topic • vote for the best document described the topic • (b)To write a report about the selected topic • Main idea, Relations & reflections • (c)To add noted to other classmates reports • At least 3 notes • (d)To vote the best description of the topic • (e)To write the new document version • (f) To decide which document version will be reserved • Continuity & Improvement

8. Students’ participation in the system • Passive (just reading notes) v.s.active • Students show active and high participation by contributing with new knowledge • An active learning attitude is crucial to promote knowledge contribution and better learning. (e.g. Dillenbourg, 1999, 2002; Stahl, 2002; Veldhuis-Diermanse, 2002) • 75% of students read the notes and rewrote a new version • The rewrite task implies the development cognitive and metacognitive activities by the students and deeper knowledge construction. (Allal, 2004; Allal, Mottier Lopez, Lehraus, & Forget, 2005)

9. The different types of notes

10. These activities influence the way in which acquired information can be transformed into knowledge, and the way in which knowledge can be transferred to othercontexts (Laurillard, 1993) • “Addition” notes get the highest number • Related to high levels of knowledge construction

11. Content analysis of notes added in the system(1) • “Addition”, “Correction” & “Delete” notes • external regulation process in which students’ plan and monitor the other’s work. • “Addition” or “Correction” note • a metacognitive activity(Flavell, 1992; Schraw, 1998). • The use of metacognitive learning activities is essential to explain successful collaborative learning. (Salovaara & Ja‥rvela‥, 2003; Stahl, 2003; Veerman & Veldhuis-Diermanse, 2001).

12. Content analysis of notes added in the system(2) • Students used the notes as explicit scaffolds among peers and the students realized which notes were more useful for the learning purpose. • “support” notes • Positive feedback • Positive feedback encourages people to participate in discussion and thereby engage in the group, actively contributing to the web-based learning environment (Hara, Bonk, and Angeli, 2000).

13. Analysis of document quality • The average number of documents per topic : 8 • The average number of new document versions per topic : 6 • 91% of document versions received better evaluation than the original ones. • The paired t test shows the versioned documents were statistically better than the original. • 68% of the notes received are explicitly introduced in the new document versions.

14. Comparison between instructor’s and students’ opinion about the “improvement”

15. Conclusions KnowCat is based on the “knowledge crystallization” This computing research must be supported by instructional studies using CSCL environment.(Dillenbourg, 1999,2002; Jarvela & Hakkinen, 2002; Hakkinen, 2004) Future work How the system may be used in an instructional design to support and improve students’ interaction process To analyze the effect of students’ participation in the KnowCat instructional process