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Many researchers argue that students must be meaningfully engaged in the learning resources for effective learning to occur. However, current online learners still report a problematic lack of attractive and challenging learning resources that engage them in the learning process. This endemic problem is even more evident in online collaborative learning approaches whose resources lack of authentic interactivity, user empowerment, social identity and challenge, thus having a negative effect on learners' self-motivation and engagement. To overcome these and other limitations and deficiencies, in this paper, a new type of learning resource named Collaborative Complex Learning Resources (CC-LR) is presented based on the virtualization of collaborative learning with the aim of leveraging knowledge elicited during live sessions. During the CC-LR execution, the collaborative sessions are animated so learners can observe how avatars discuss and collaborate, how discussion threads grow and how knowledge is been constructed, refined and consolidated. In addition, complex aspects of the learning process can be incorporated in the CC-LRs during their creation, such as cognitive assessment and emotional awareness. The system produced from this research is tested to evaluate the CC-LR enriched with complex information and analyze its effects in the discussion process. The research reported in this paper was undertaken within the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) European project called "Adaptive Learning via Intuitive/Interactive, Collaborative and Emotional systems".

Discusses the distribution of cognition in small virtual group learning and examines how the distribution of cognition is manifested in the context of student-student interaction. Describes a collaborative problem-solving situation in a virtual learning environment and presents an approach to analyzing and modeling asynchronous collaborative interactions by students cooperating from a distance. (Author/LRW)

In this article, the authors address the distribution of cognition in small virtual group learning. In particular, they examine how the distribution of cognition is manifested in the context of […]

Byline: T. Daradoumis, F. Xhafa, J.M. Marques In this work, we present a new way to use existing technology in a real learning context. We investigate and propose a scenario based on collaborative work of virtual groups of students developing a software project. Our intent is to promote learning through collaborative implementation of a project in shared workspaces. This raises several important issues that concern virtual group formation techniques, group regulation and role-playing by students. Other important aspects are related to the pedagogical side and include setting project development phases, assessment, tutor role, student tracking, and the tutor's understanding and awareness of the social and cognitive processes. We consider them to be fundamental concerns and influencing factors in supervising, guiding and enhancing the collaborative learning process. Our approach describes the bases of a methodological framework for collaborative project development and proposes some solutions to the above matters. It also allows for the exploration of new forms of collaborative learning and teaching.

This study aims at managing activity carried out in Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) environments. We apply an approach that gathers and manages the knowledge underlying huge data structures, resulting from collaborative interaction among participants and stored as activity logs. Our method comprises a variety of important issues and aspects, such as: deep understanding of collaboration among participants in workgroups, definition of an ontology for providing meaning to isolated data manifestations, discovering of knowledge structures built in huge amounts of data stored in log files, and development of high-semantic indicators to describe diverse primitive collaborative acts, and binding these indicators to formal descriptions defined in the collaboration ontology; besides our method includes gathering collaboration indicators from web forums using natural language processing (NLP) techniques. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this work we investigate the importance of emotion awareness in e-learning environments, with emphasis to Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) activities. Our presented solution involves a new conceptual model of emotions of interest in e-learning context. In the basis of this model, a computational model has been implemented employing self-report of emotions, affective feedback and effective emotion visualisations. Both models have been tested in real education settings, contributing to the research agenda. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many researchers argue that students must be meaningfully engaged in the learning resources for effective learning to occur. However, current online learners still report a problematic lack of attractive and challenging learning resources that engage them in the learning process. This endemic problem is even more evident in online collaborative learning approaches whose resources lack of authentic interactivity, user empowerment, social identity and challenge, thus having a negative effect on learners' self-motivation and engagement. To overcome these and other limitations and deficiencies, in this paper, a new type of learning resource named Collaborative Complex Learning Resources ( CC-LR) is presented based on the virtualization of collaborative learning with the aim of leveraging knowledge elicited during live sessions. During the CC-LR execution, the collaborative sessions are animated so learners can observe how avatars discuss and collaborate, how discussion threads grow and how knowledge is been constructed, refined and consolidated. In addition, complex aspects of the learning process can be incorporated in the CC-LRs during their creation, such as cognitive assessment and emotional awareness. The system produced from this research is tested to evaluate the CC-LR enriched with complex information and analyze its effects in the discussion process. The research reported in this paper was undertaken within the Seventh Framework Programme ( FP7) European project called ' Adaptive Learning via Intuitive/ Interactive, Collaborative and Emotional systems'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]