Designing an Innovative Collaborative Learning Application: The Case of Method 300

Abstract

The number of mobile learning applications is increasing and they are considered a powerful learning tool by many researchers. Among the reasons for this success are their specific characteristics, such as portability and pervasiveness, which can help student engagement and improve learning. They can also be useful for collaborative learning. This paper presents the methodology that is being used to design the Method 300 application. Method 300 is based on an active and collaborative approach that aims to improve the learning process of a team of students. At the moment, it is applied with the help of some tools, such as forms and spreadsheets. While these tools are useful, they make it somewhat laborious for teachers to organize all the documents, especially for large classes. This paper describes the empathic and collaborative approach to designing the Method 300 app, while placing educational, design and computational issues on the same level of relevance to incorporate the decisions made. The focus of this paper is to describe the application development methodology and not the application itself. Initially, a review about collaborative learning applications is presented. Then, Method 300 is presented, followed by the description of the methodology for designing the application. It is concluded that the Method 300 app has great potential to spread this method worldwide and that the empathic multidisciplinary collaborative approach to designing this application can be considered in different contexts.