An Architecture for Collaborative Knowledge Building

Abstract

Conscious, cooperative development of shared knowledge is the focus of the CSILE (Computer Supported Intentional Learning Environments) project. Results to date, both from our own work and from similarly-motivated work, convince us that elementary school students can profitably make knowledge construction the focus of their efforts, although it is a novelty to them (and to their teachers) and requires a great deal of support. On the basis of what has been learned from four years of experimentation with an initial version, CSILE 1.0, we are designing a much more powerfully supportive system, which will be embodied in a second generation of CSILE. A major change in CSILE 2.0 will be the inclusion of distinct environments for different kinds of knowledge-building operations. In this paper we set out the principal features of the new knowledge-building architecture and the design principles that are guiding its development-principles that we believe are applicable to any technology aimed at restructuring classrooms as places for sustained, collaborative inquiry.