Research contents
Learning objects and learning design
Learning interaction and networked communities
Informal eLearning
Funded projects

A tool for synchronous collaborative argumentation

LTRI and partners at Southampton, UK OU and Bolton were awarded funding (£107,000) to develop an e-Learning innovation that scaffolds critical discussion and reasoning under the Joint Information Systems Committee (JISC) Distributed E-Learning Tools strand of development.

The project delivered an engaging and pedagogically sound tool for supporting dialogue games that structure discussion and argumentation, for use as a component in a suite of tools for e-Learning. The project developed an existing innovation and tool (AcademicTalk) that successfully supported synchronous online educational argumentation for open and distance learners and built an environment around this application to set up and manage the dialogue exercises, specified as learning sequences, so that these can be adapted to particular educational contexts.

The application was developed into a transportable, re-usable and adaptable tool that can be used in a range of educational contexts to realise structured, and yet tailored and flexible pedagogical approaches to dialogical learning. The later InterLoc project has further developed this approach and pilot tested the tool with a wide range of learners.

For more information about JISCs Distributed e-Learning Tools programme go to: http://www.jisc.ac.uk/programme_edistributed.html

See the AcademicTalk website for more information and downloads: http://learning.unl.ac.uk/ltri/academictalk/

Contact details

Dr. Andrew Ravenscroft
Learning Technology Research Institute
London Metropolitan University
35 Kingsland Road, London, E2 8AA
Email: a.ravenscroft@londonmet.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)207 749 3753
Fax: +44 (0)207 749 3781
WWW: http://www.londonmet.ac.uk/ltri

Last updated 21 December, 2010