Enabling teachers to deploy CSCL designs across distributed learning environments

Abstract

Transforming teachers' pedagogical ideas into ICT infrastructures ready for the enactment of such ideas is a complex process, especially in the case of computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL). In higher education, the current trend of using external tools (e.g., 'Web 2.0') along with the institutional virtual learning environments (what some authors call distributed learning environments-DLEs) makes such transformation even more difficult. This paper proposes GLUE!-PS, an open extensible system that allows nonexperts in ICT to deploy learning designs into multiple DLEs. GLUE!-PS does so while maintaining teachers' and institutions' preferences regarding authoring tools and learning platforms, and making DLE-based practice more likely to be sustainable. This paper presents initial evaluation data of a reference implementation of GLUE!-PS, through two workshops with university teachers and the usage of the system in a real university course. According to our evaluation, academic teaching staff from different disciplines was able to deploy their own collaborative designs using GLUE!-PS under tight time constraints. The evaluation also hints at challenges for everyday practice adoption (reliability problems inherent to such a multisystem approach, the need for runtime flexibility, or conceptual barriers on the use of CSCL approaches). © 2008-2011 IEEE.