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1 14 Chapter 4 Design for collaboration and communication

Table 4.1 (Continued)

Figure 4.3 An ACTIVBoard whiteboard developed by
Promethean (U.K. company) that allows children to take
control of the front-of-class display. This allows them to
add comments and type in queries, rather than having to
raise their hands and hope the teacher sees them.

Networked classrooms: Recently schools and universities have realized the potential of using combinations
of technologies to support learning. For example, wireless communication, portable devices and interactive
whiteboards are being integrated in classroom settings to allow the teacher and students to learn and
communicate with one another in novel interactive ways (see Figure 4.3).
Argumentation tools which record the design rationale and other arguments used in a discussion that lead to
decisions in a design (e.g. gIBIS, Conklin and Begeman, 1989). These are mainly designed for people
working in the same physical location.
Shared authoring and drawing tools that allow people to work on the same document at the same time. This
can be remotely over the web (e.g., shared authoring tools like Shredit) or on the same drawing surface in
the same room using multiple mouse cursors (e.g., KidPad, Benford et al., 2000).
New kinds of functionality:
Allows new ways of collaboratively creating and editing documents.
Supports new forms of collaborative learning.
Integrates different kinds of tools.
Benefits:
Supports talking while carrying out other activities at the same time, allowing multi-tasking-which is what
happens in face-to-face settings.
Speed and efficiency: allows multiple people to be working an same document at same time.
Greater awareness: allows users to see how one another are progressing in real time.
Problems:
WYSIWIS (what you see is what I see): It can be difficult to see what other people are referring to when in
remote locations, especially if the document is large and different users have different parts of the document
on their screens.
Floor control: Users may want to work on the same piece of text or design, potentially resulting in file
conflicts. These can be overcome by developing various social and technological floor-control policies.