Case-based reasoning
CSCL '95 The first international conference on Computer support for collaborative learning
CSCL '97 Proceedings of the 2nd international conference on Computer support for collaborative learning
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JavaCAP, a software tool for student authoring and searching of case libraries, has been implemented in support of the Learning-by-Design curriculum development project at Georgia Tech's EduTech Institute. Its case-authoring component, when used as part of the LBD curriculum, asks students to reflect on a recent Learning-by-Design experience, summarize it, and present important aspects of it and what they've learned from it for other students to learn from. By focusing on this part of the tool, we are able to both put our focus on supporting reflection and collect a library of student-authored cases that we will later edit and publish as exemplary cases for other students to use as models and to learn from. JavaCAP is meant to be used as a collaboration tool. Supporting collaboration in middle school requires supporting both group work around the computer (synchronous collaboration) and asynchronous editing of cases. We support asynchronous collaboration by allowing each student to write on the case and providing distinguishing formats for each so it is easy to see the changes made since last using the tool and identify whose changes they are. Our two studies suggest that JavaCAP does have potential as a collaborative reflection tool. We've used the metaphor of scenes in a play to help students remember different aspects of the experience they are analyzing and summarizing. Our first pilot showed that we had indeed found a way to engage students in effective reflection. However, this pilot also revealed flaws in the underlying technology. We needed to support asynchronous collaboration better than we were doing; the easiest way to do this was to reimplement using what the world wide web and its development tools had to offer. Our second pilot, using a revised tool both better supported asynchronous student authoring and made it easy for students to add images to their presentations. This study pointed out the need to better support writing itself within the framework we've created and suggests other collaboration features that students need.