Analysis of Supporting paper
From VMT
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[edit] Instructions
- Provide a review of this paper.
- Comment on what you found relevant to the course in this paper.
[edit] Comments on Team Statements
- Everyone in a group should proofread the posting for their group. These postings represent the work of all members, not just the one who did the posting.
- You should also read the postings of other groups. That is why they are posted together on one page. This is a good way to evaluate the work of your group in comparison to the other groups, as well as to see if your group or another group had unusual or controversial ideas.
- Your reviews are still fairly descriptive of the main points of the papers. You should try to be more critical and reflective at the level of the paper's argumentive logic or research methodology.
- Gerry 17:51, 26 May 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Team A Statement
- Members: Brian, Olivia, Elizabeth
- Date and Time of posting: Olivia 20:36, 22 May 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Provide a review of this paper
This paper puts together a rock solid case for group cognitions. This is done through describe interactional / directional tool of Concert Chat referencing. Referencing is a method of directing other or pointing them to understanding or facts that support ones or a groups gathering understands or knowledge / cognitions.
The referenceing method discussed that are use in Concert Chat are as follows; Reference the white board from a posted, Referencing between postings, Referencing a recent drawing and Linguistic referencing. The Stahl does a reference analysis by analyzing a Chat that took place with math students solving and problems. In so doing he state that many forms of referencing in chat ties together the verbal and graphical contributions of individual
The middle part of the paper explores the human interaction. Stahl use the mother and infant point example to show the human pointing natural action build on the idea of reference. And how infants points gains a reponses from it mother; who directs the child to an object that she thinks he or she is want. This interaction is then compare with the Math student interaction, when they where collaborating about the shape, so they could come to the same understand of the shape of the shape in the problem.
[edit] Comment on what you found relevant to the course in this paper
The format and content of the paper reminded use of our midterm conceptual design paper assignment. Similar to the focus of our conceptual designs, the article describes a potential extension to the VMT software with the common goal of supporting social networking. Stahl's design focuses on exploring the need for a text-chat referencing tool. Specifically, the explicit text-chat referencing tool would be used to link together text chat entries with other comments, graphics, or whiteboard elements such as text boxes.
After presenting the idea of this explicit referencing tool, Stahl presented findings from case studies aimed at demonstrating how cognitive tools can be important in supporting group collaboration. Much like the format of our current class, the case studies attempted to understand group cognition by examining the interaction of group members. The main difference is that the case studies examine the group collaboration on mathematics topics, whereas, the INFO608 course is collaborating on topics of Human-computer interaction and the design of social interaction software.
The findings from this paper are directly related to our course since the VMT is clearly an integral part of our course collaboration goals. The refencing capabilities are used withint our whiteboard and chat windows to related different pieces of information. I recall how "clumsy" and inefficient some group interactions became when my group members and I were not aware of the text-chat referencing capabilities, particularly because we had a large group at the time (five members). The communication became unguided and hard to follow; however, once one of us discovered the referencing capability, we were able to easily and explicitly point to the objects to which we were cognitively referring.
[edit] Team C Statement
- Members Ben, Kevin
- Date and Time of posting Kevin 10:32, 21 May 2007 (EDT)
The ability to reference graphic and text material is an important component of CSCL. Group learning, as distinguished from individual learning, requires the sharing of meaning between the group members; as group members are in not in physical proximity to each other, where standard forms of visual reference are enabled, different methods had to be developed to allow users to point or single out specific pieces of information.
There are several methods which can be used in ConcertChat which allow referencing: chat to whiteboard, chat to chat, and chat textual description. Observation of ConcertChat use revealed that users used all of these reference methods during the course of a discussion.
First users made purely textual references. These references however didn't take advantage of the graphical referencing tools in ConcertChat.
Users made graphical connections to messages that were posted in the chat from much earlier in the log; this kind of reference would be difficult to do using textual descriptions. This same technique also allowed users to correct or modify previous comments.
Users also made graphical connections to a specific group member, showing that their comment was directed primarily to that person. This function of the reference tool was not originally envisioned by the developers and shows that users can take a tool and adapt it's usage to provide unintended benefits. Continuing postings were also enabled through connections which showed that several postings were linked, and essentially part of the same message. This allowed the users to post continuous thoughts in multiple parts while keeping them connected which is difficult to do in an online chat environment compared to face to face chat.
Relevance to the course:
While our group does not use the referencing tools inside ConcertChat during our discussions we decided that this was because our group consists of only two people. When we were involved with larger groups we used the referencing abilities more. With just two people involved in the group there tends to only be one conversation and we take turns similar to how a face to face interaction proceeds. However in larger groups there is more interaction between the group members so the referencing tools become more important.
Our group was wondering if as a group becomes larger online does the use of the referencing abilities of ConcertChat increase. Also do the referencing tools allow larger groups to overcome the inherent confusion that can be found in large groups of people chatting in the same environment online enough to make the large groups more productive.
[edit] Team D Statement
- Members : Bertha, K8, Eric
- Date and Time of posting Eric 10:15, 16 May 2007 (EDT) Revised by k8 20 May 2007
Group statement on reading. This week's reading Supporting group cognition in an online math community: A cognitive tool for small-group referencing in text chat
This week's reading Supporting group cognition in an online math community: A cognitive tool for small-group referencing in text chat
This week's reading speaks in greater depth about how members collaborate. Specifically, people in general are able to communicate about the same object because of our ability to and our ability to understand the gestures that reference specific objects. Objects discussed here can refer to tangible objects or ideas.
The article is written to explain how VMT is used as a tool for studying collaborative behavior through observation. The reseachers are not participating in the forum. It provided descriptions of behavior to which a user familiar with VMT can relate. For example, the tendency "to spread a single contribution over two or more postings." (pg9 ln 39) I believe that this is frequently performed both because it allows other participants to begin absorbing the message, and because of the understanding that brief messages are more likely to be read.
One of the most challenging aspects of this forum has been referencing what is being said in the chat lines to what is going on in the whiteboard area. Concert chat has addd many features to the forum to help with this aspect of comunication. The whiteboard has a pointer that highlights items on the whiteboard and then arrow from the text message points to the referenced object on the whiteboard.
Speaking out of turn in a chat conversation is not uncommon. Participants are much less inhibited about posting while others are composing a message; this was established in a previous article. Hence references in different forms to previous messages helps give a conversation coherence and guide readers through complete throughts. Referencing is responsible for much of joint learning in groups.
The author is interested in exploring what new referencing gestures or tools the students can come up with to communicate more effectively.
There is much in this article that relates to our group repertoire. It clearly identified numerous types of methods we use to collaboration. It also highlights where some of the frustration in dual interfaces comes from. K8 21:26, 20 May 2007 (EDT)
[edit] Team E Statement
- Seth, Fernando, Dave, Lisa
- Seth E 22:46, 21 May 2007 (EDT)
Analysis and Course Relevance of Week 7 Reading
Essentially, the paper dealt with the VMT project, and how, through the use of a graphical referencing tool, groups collaborate and interact.
In complementary coordination with the textual chat area, to achieve "a general orientation to a particular mathematical object in the whiteboard space", deictic referencing is discussed as an essential foundation to the group cognitive process. It helps steer group cognition to a single question or object.
When designing a coginitive tool one should consider a few things with the most important being how students/users will use the tool.
The collaborative tools should be more communication-like rather than just amply an individuals cognition. By becoming a natural extention of the communication process, these tools can enhance group participation and collaboration.
Referencing is an important part of creating the group cognition as it allows the group as a whole to focus on a single question or object. Persistant referencing allows outside users, or researchers to easily analyze and follow along a chat and whiteboard collaborative session. This allows researchers to use the analysis to find new methods of referencing that people are using.
The design of the collaborative space like VMT should be decided based on user interaction, usefulness, and analysis of how the groups have used the tool thus far.
This idea definitely ties to group cognition, and as so, presents huge relevancy to Info 608. Group cognition as seen in the VMT represents the bits and pieces that everyone individually contributes. Though the original idea of cognition was the "ideas and thoughts" of individual minds, group cognition represents the group as an individual entity with members contributing and coming to a consensus. Referencing allows a natural cognitive process, a pointing device that is as the heart of group collaboration.
Understanding individual contributions are important as they form the basis for understanding how each person will contribute individual knowledge as well as how they will interact and participate in the solution. The use of referencing contributes to this immenensely. This arises as part of a chain reaction of thoughts triggered by individual ideas. Using the understanding of how individuals input and reference their contributions and accomplish problem solving is the first step in designing groupware for today.
