Abstract
New digital educational environments invite almost unlimited possibilities for interactive learning and collaboration in the digital university. However, to support quality education, learning activities need to be guided by principled models of interaction, guidelines for the design of user interfaces, and policies for the management of interaction and collaboration. In this chapter a model of interaction among instructors, students, and educational material will be introduced to help define the types of collaborative interactions among instructors, among students, between instructors and students, and with materials. To further define learning activities, the structure of the human/computer interface will be discussed in terms of interface metaphors and a prototype system that provides tools for accessing materials, submitting assignments, asking questions and providing feedback, engaging in dialogue, and working on team projects. These metaphors and resulting systems add necessary structure, meaning, and limits to learning activities. Finally, both instructors and students need to manage interaction by scheduling, organising, and focusing activities. Policies may be implemented in the system to provide scheduled roll out of materials and assignments, automatic filing and storage of materials, and deadlines and constraints on submissions. Illustrations and applications will be drawn from seven years of experience in the Teaching Theatres at the University of Maryland and other collaborative projects.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Baecker, R.(1993) Readings in groupware and computer-supported cooperative work: Assisting human-human collaboration, San Francisco, CA: Morgan Kaufmann.
Chambers, J. A. and Sprecher, J. W. (1983) Computer assisted instruction: Its use in the classroom. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
Shneiderman, B., Alavi, M., Norman, K. and Borkowski, E. (1995) Windows of opportunities in electronic classrooms, Communications of the ACM, 38, 19–24.
Alavi, M. (1994) Computer mediated collaborative learning: An empirical evaluation. MIS Quarterly, 18, 159–173.
Norman, K. L. and Carter, L. (1994) An evaluation of the electronic classroom: The AT&T Teaching Theater at the University of Maryland. Interpersonal Computing and Technology: An Electronic Journal of the 21st Century, 2, 22–39. (http://wvvw.helsinki.fi/science/optek/1994/nl/norman.txt).
Norman, K. L. (1997) Teaching in the switched-on classroom: An introduction to electronic education and HyperCourseware. (http://www.lap.umd.edu/SOC/).
Norman, K. L. (1990) The electronic teaching theater: Interactive hypermedia and mental models of the classroom. Current Psychology Research and Reviews (Special Issue: Hypermedia and artificial intelligence). 9, 141–161.
Norman, K. L. (1994) HyperCourseware for assisting teachers in the interactive electronic classroom. Proceedings of STATE 94: Fifth Annual Conference of the Society for Technology and Teacher Education, Washington, DC, 473–477.
Sebrechts, M. M., Silverman, B. G., Boehm-Davis, D. A. and Norman, K. L. (1995) Establishing an electronic collaborative learning environment in a university consortium: The CIRCLE project. Computers in Education. 25, 215–225.
Norman, K. L. (1991) The psychology of menu selection: Designing cognitive control at the human/computer interface. Norwood, NJ: Ablex Publishing Corporation.
Norman, K. L. (1994) Navigating the educational space with HyperCourseware. Hypermedia., 6, 35–60.
Shneiderman, B. (1997) Designing the user interface: Strategies for effective human-computer interaction (3rd ed). New York: Addison-Wesley.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1998 Springer-Verlag London
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Norman, K. (1998). Collaborative Interactions in Support of Learning: Models, Metaphors and Management. In: Hazemi, R., Hailes, S., Wilbur, S. (eds) The Digital University. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0625-8_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-0625-8_4
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-003-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-0625-8
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive