This book reveals how advances in computer science and human-computer interaction impact Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environments. The underlying theme of the contributions is the social affordances of physical objects. The collaborative situations illustrated in the book are not necessarily learning situation in a school sense. In summary, this book illustrates a turn in the field of CSCL and emphasizes an important message for a generation of CSCL users.

This book constitutes the refereed proceedings of the 6th European Conference on Technology Enhanced Learning, EC-TEL 2011, held in Palermo, Italy, in September 2010. The 30 revised full papers presented were carefully reviewed and selected from 158 submissions. The book also includes 12 short papers, 8 poster papers, and 2 invited paper. There are many interesting papers on topics such as web 2.0 and social media, recommender systems, learning analytics, collaborative learning, interoperability of tools, etc.

The Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) Conference 2013 proceedings, Volume 1

The book addresses the main issues concerned with the new development of learning processes, innovative pedagogical changes, the effects of new technologies on education, future learning content, which aims to gather the newest concepts, research and best practices on the frontiers of technology enhanced learning from the aspects of learning, pedagogies and technologies in learning in order to draw a picture of technology enhanced learning in the near future. Some issues like “e-learning ... m-learning ... u-learning – innovative approaches,” “the Framework and Method for Understanding the New Generation Students,” “Context-aware Mobile Role Playing Game for Learning,” “ Pedagogical issues in content creation and use: IT literacy through Spoken Tutorials,” “Supporting collaborative knowledge construction and discourse in the classroom,” “Digital Systems for Hierarchical Open Access to Education,” “ Using Annotated Patient Records to Teach Clinical Reasoning to Undergraduate Students of Medicine,” “ Utilizing Cognitive Skills Ontology for Designing Personalized Learning Environments” and “Using Interactive Mobile Technologies to Develop Operating Room Technologies Competency” are discussed in separate chapters.

Ubiquitous computing has a vision of information and interaction being embedded in the world around us; this forms the basis of this book. Built environments are subjects of design and architects have seen digital elements incorporated into the fabric of buildings as a way of creating environments that meet the dynamic challenges of future habitation. Methods for prototyping interactive buildings are discussed and the theoretical overlaps between both domains are explored. Topics like the role of space and technology within the workplace as well as the role of embodiment in understanding how buildings and technology can influence action are discussed, as well as investigating the creation of place with new methodologies to investigate the occupation of buildings and how they can be used to understand spatial technologies. Architecture and Interaction is aimed at researchers and practitioners in the field of computing who want to gain a greater insight into the challenges of creating technologies in the built environment and those from the architectural and urban design disciplines who wish to incorporate digital information technologies in future buildings.

The objects displayed on a table can take multiple forms. In meetings, it is still very often printed paper although its content was originally created on a computer. The content can also be a “table”, but now in the mathematical sense, showing, e. g. , the budget of a project. Then, we have a “table” on the table. Most often, the computer-generated contents are subject of frequent changes or dynamic in nature. It is a logical consequence to avoid the detour and the inherent media break by transforming the surface of the table into a display able to show media that are active and can be computer-generated and computer-controlled. At the same time, it is desirable to maintain the inherent features and affordances of working with the objects and the contents while sitting or standing around a table. Electronic Meeting Rooms On the basis of these and other elaborate considerations, we started to design in 1992/1993 an electronic meeting room in Darmstadt at GMD-IPSI (later Fraunhofer IPSI). The setup of our custom-built DOLPHIN-System consisted of a “traditional” large rectangular wooden table with four physically integrated workstation-like computers with at screens. This set-up was complemented by linking a large ver- cal pen-operated interactive display, at that time the rst LiveBoard outside of Xerox PARC (two of which I was able to get to Darmstadt after my stay at Xerox PARC in 1990).

The interdisciplinary field of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) explores ways of making learning more engaging, stimulating, and effective by promoting collaboration among learners through the use of computer networking, simulations, and computational support. This volume reproduces the editorial introductions to the International Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (ijCSCL) since its beginning in 2006. The introductions situate the articles in each quarterly issue within current CSCL research activity and highlight the unique perspectives and important contributions of the included papers. The introductions also present reflections on topics of CSCL theory and methodology, providing concise contributions of their own. Written in different styles, the introductions as an ensemble provide a lively, stimulating introduction to the CSCL research field as it has grown over the years.