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Technology affordances for intersubjective meaning making: A research agenda for CSCL

  • Daniel D. Suthers
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Abstract

Now well into its second decade, the field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) appears healthy, encompassing a diversity of topics of study, methodologies, and representatives of various research communities. It is an appropriate time to ask: what central questions can integrate our work into a coherent field? This paper proposes the study of technology affordances for intersubjective meaning making as an integrating research agenda for CSCL. A brief survey of epistemologies of collaborative learning and forms of computer support for that learning characterize the field to be integrated and motivate the proposal. A hybrid of experimental, descriptive and design methodologies is proposed in support of this agenda. A working definition of intersubjective meaning making as joint composition of interpretations of a dynamically evolving context is provided, and used to propose a framework around which dialogue between analytic approaches can take place.

Keywords

CSCL research agenda Intersubjective meaning making Representational guidance Technology affordances 
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© International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc.; Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2006

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Department of Information and Computer SciencesUniversity of HawaiiHonoluluUSA

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