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Collaborative drawing on a shared digital canvas in elementary science education: The effects of script and task awareness support

  • Hannie Gijlers
  • Armin Weinberger
  • Alieke Mattia van Dijk
  • Lars Bollen
  • Wouter van Joolingen
Article
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Abstract

Creating shared representations can foster knowledge acquisition by elementary school students by promoting active integration and translation of new information. In this study, we investigate to what extent awareness support and scripting facilitate knowledge construction and discourse quality of elementary school students (n = 94) in a computer-supported collaborative drawing scenario. Students in the awareness condition received feedback prompts based on the characteristics of their drawing. The script foresaw a sequence of creating, comparing, discussing, and merging individual drawings to arrive at a shared representation of the subject matter, which was photosynthesis. Both forms of support, (awareness and scripting) facilitated the learning processes and outcomes. Discourse analysis revealed that awareness and scripting increased (the share of) integrative and conflict-oriented consensus-building activities as well as (the share of) off-task and coordination-related activities in comparison to the control group. Awareness and scripting facilitated deeper understanding of the processes and relations of domain concepts. The scripted students acquired significantly more conceptual knowledge than the unscripted students.

Keywords

Collaborative drawing Scripting Awareness 
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Copyright information

© International Society of the Learning Sciences, Inc. and Springer Science+Business Media New York 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Hannie Gijlers
    • 1
  • Armin Weinberger
    • 2
  • Alieke Mattia van Dijk
    • 1
  • Lars Bollen
    • 1
  • Wouter van Joolingen
    • 3
  1. 1.Department of Instructional TechnologyUniversity of TwenteEnschedeThe Netherlands
  2. 2.Department of Educational TechnologySaarland UniversitySaarbrückenGermany
  3. 3.Institute for Teacher Education, Science Communication & School PracticesUniversity of TwenteEnschedeThe Netherlands

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