Relay race of practice: integrating technological tools into teaching and learning scenarios

• Tammy Eisenmann
• Baruch B. Schwarz
• Reuma de Groot

Even though integrating technological tools into teaching and learning scenarios is an agreed upon goal it is still far from being fully implemented. This study examines a process of integration of a technological tool, to which a group of teachers participated. The technological tool was developed to enhance dialogism and argumentation, in one Grade 9 class. The question we focused on concerns whether the technological tool used by each teacher for a specific subject matter became integrated in teaching and learning practice across disciplines. Data included 22 discussion maps in five activities by different teachers. The analysis focuses on two dimensions of use of the technological tool: its form and its function. The findings show a process of appropriation of the technological tool could be detected along the five activities. This appropriation could be seen through the increase of arguments and challenges, the growing reference to each other's ideas, and capitalization of previous arguments in follow-up arguments. The results of this study stress the importance of the participation of teachers in the same teacher training and shows that appropriation of norms afforded by a tool are instigated by their participation in two activity systems stimulated by the same technological tool.
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Physical space and division of labor around a tabletop tangible simulation

• Patrick Jermann , Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
• Guillaume Zufferey , Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
• Bertrand Schneider , Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
• Aurélien Lucci , Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
• Simon Lépine , Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne
• Pierre Dillenbourg , Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne

We describe a tangible tabletop simulation, the Tinker Table, which is designed to train logistics apprentices in Switzerland. Vocational training is organized following a dual model which combines practice on the workplace and theory in the professional school. Two groups of learners were observed during an activity which consists of optimizing the layout of a warehouse. We propose a descriptive account of how the spatial position of resources and learners influences the type of manipulations which are performed by each of them.
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CSCL for teacher professionnal development

• Bruno Poellhuber , Université de Montréal
• Catherine Allen , Université de Montréal
• Martine Chomienne , Cégep@distance

Within the last fifteen years, many colleges of the province of Quebec in Canada have been faced with low admission rates in some less popular technical programs. The increased financial burden for these institutions and the enhanced task burden for teachers working with small groups of students threaten the quality of teaching and learning. In order to cope with this situation, computer-mediated collaboration (telecollaboration) was used to provide teachers with the opportunity to work with colleagues from other colleges who teach similar courses. In this short paper, the impacts of telecollaboration on resources diversity and teacher professional development are examined. After four semesters of experimentation, questionnaires and interviews suggest that teachers learned from their colleagues as they shared ideas and acquired pedagogical and technopedagogical knowledge and skills.
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