Reviewing the literature of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) to determine its usefulness in Omani education development.

As a way to develop twenty-first century skills and link education with work, researchers and international agencies have promoted collaborative problem solving for knowledge building. However, there has been little guidance about how students, teachers, and institutions from traditionally instructivist cultures—where lecture, memorization and high stakes assessment are the norm—will react to these innovations. This review is focused on how CSCL and knowledge-building pedagogies contribute to global knowledge economies, and more specifically how this applies to Omani education. The role CSCL plays in knowledge building and the limited applications of CSCL in the Arab Middle East and specifically Oman are reviewed. This article concludes with a brief overview of an educational design research study to introduce CSCL into a pre-service education technology course at Sultan Qaboos University (SQU) in Muscat, Oman, of which this literature review plays a part.

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