Computer supported collaborative learning in schools: a distributed approach

This paper briefly surveys current work in the emerging area of Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) and describes how the technology can be extended to exploit communication between computers. A number of applications which might make use of network support, distributed CSCL, are reviewed and a simple prototype distributed CSCL application is described and evaluated. The work has highlighted issues concerning the value, viability and development of distributed CSCL software. It would appear that valuable opportunities for the development of such software exist but it is unclear how these applications might be developed using existing hardware. Conclusions are presented regarding the future of network supported CSCL.