Main functionalities of the knowledge practices environment (KPE) affording knowledge creation practices in education

The present paper examines how to develop technology-mediated educational practices from acquisition and participation type approaches towards more sustained, collaborative knowledge creation, where students' work is organized around developing shared epistemic objects (artefacts, processes, practices). Typical forms of technology-mediated collaborative practices in education are illustrated through a framework of 'stairs of collaboration' related to three metaphors of learning: knowledge acquisition, participation and knowledge creation. It is maintained that typical functionalities in existing educational web-technologies, such as various Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs), are quite inflexible and inadequate for shared work on epistemic objects. The main focus in the present paper is on describing how a basic platform supporting collaborative knowledge creation, called Knowledge Practices Environment (KPE), has been built to provide affordances to work around epistemic objects and practices.

[1]  K. Hakkarainen,et al.  Communities of Networked Expertise: Professional and Educational Perspectives , 2004 .

[2]  Merja Bauters,et al.  The Knowledge Practices Environment: a Virtual Environment for Collaborative Knowledge Creation and Work around Shared Artefacts , 2008 .

[3]  Michael J. Baker,et al.  Arguing to Learn: Confronting Cognitions in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning Environments , 2003 .

[4]  Hanni Muukkonen,et al.  Collaborative technology for facilitating progressive inquiry: future learning environment tools , 1999, CSCL.

[5]  Minna Lakkala,et al.  Case studies of learning objects used in school settings , 2006 .

[6]  K. K. Cetina,et al.  The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory , 2001 .

[7]  Paavola Sami,et al.  From meaning making to joint construction of knowledge practices and artefacts: a trialogical approach to CSCL , 2009 .

[8]  Gaëtan Bourmaud,et al.  From computer to instrument system: a developmental perspective , 2003, Interact. Comput..

[9]  K. Hakkarainen,et al.  The Knowledge Creation Metaphor – An Emergent Epistemological Approach to Learning , 2005 .

[10]  S. Schrire.  Interaction and cognition in asynchronous computer conferencing , 2004 .

[11]  Carl Bereiter,et al.  Education and Mind in the Knowledge Age , 2002 .

[12]  Vassiliy Tchoumatchenko,et al.  Tools for document centred collaboration in Shared space , 2009 .

[13]  A. Sfard.  On Two Metaphors for Learning and the Dangers of Choosing Just One , 1998 .

[14]  Marlene Scardamalia,et al.  Computer Support for Knowledge-Building Communities , 1994 .

[15]  Christopher M. Hoadley,et al.  From dialogue to monologue and back: Middle spaces in computer-mediated learning , 2006, Int. J. Comput. Support. Collab. Learn..

[16]  R. Kozma.  Technology and Classroom Practices , 2003 .

[17]  Olga Dysthe.  The Learning Potential of a Web-mediated Discussion in a University Course , 2002 .

[18]  Teemu Leinonen,et al.  Learning with Collaborative Software - A guide to Fle3 , 2003 .

[19]  Minna Lakkala,et al.  Analyzing technology-enhanced knowledge practices in an engineering course , 2009, CSCL.

[20]  Hanni Muukkonen,et al.  Technology-Mediation and Tutoring: How Do They Shape Progressive Inquiry Discourse? , 2005 .