Enthusiasm Meets Experience: Collaboration of Two Communities through Computer Conferencing

This paper reports on a course format where a group of in-service teachers works together with a group of computer science and mathematics majors via a computer conferencing system. Most of the time, participants studied using the Internet, but at the end they produced and presented a seminar paper together in pairs. This type of course has now been given twice, and both times produced different outcomes. The teacher group did not turn out to be more discursive or more active in moderating than the student group. The teachers participated in a larger number of discussion topics while the students concentrated on those that were compulsory. However, an analysis of the discussion threads shows that both communities took equal part in most of the longer discussions, suggesting that the course goal of sharing multiple perspectives was fulfilled. Computer conferencing was shown to alleviate the problems of participating and running the courses. (Contains 11 references.) (Author) Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made from the original document. Enthusiasm Meets Experience: Collaboration of Two Communities through PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE AND DISSEMINATE THIS MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY