Using BSCW in Learning & Teaching

The rapid expansion of networking capabilities and growing potential of access to such facilities is stimulating an exponential growth in the interest to develop resources to facilitate and enhance the learning experience. This, coupled with the 'political push' and technological 'pull' currently prevalent in the UK, is encouraging educational institutions to experiment increasingly with tools which promote collaborative working which, in turn, are perceived to help in the development of more autonomous, responsible learners. This paper therefore seeks briefly to explore the theoretical underpinnings that prompt the adoption of technology for group working in an educational environment. The paper will then go on to report on some of the issues actually encountered in implementing the use of a particular collaborative working tool - Basic Support for Collaborative Working (BSCW) - as an integral part of the learning experience within a particular module. Finally the paper will reflect on the comments given by the students at the end of the experiment in order to provide an insight into some of the pedagogical and other issues which need to be considered to enable collaborative methods to be effective.