2007 - 2010
German Science Foundation (DFG)
Digital video tools afford new ways of learning in school-based education, especially in subjects like history, social studies and language arts. Here, students can discuss and reflect on social/ historical topics based on video information and learn through designing their own media products using video tools (e.g., they may design a webpage). By doing so, they can acquire important media-related communication skills, too. In this DFG-funded project we investigated the technical, cognitive and social conditions necessary for effective collaboration and successful learning with video tools. Results from a series of experiments show that video tools can support collaboration in design tasks und the acquisition of media-related skills (Zahn,Pea, Hesse & Rosen, 2010). This was evidenced not only in our research labs, but also in a large field study with 234 16-year-old German students (Zahn, Krauskopf, Hesse & Pea, 2010). Further analyses demonstrated positive effects of social interaction related instructional guidance on the outcomes of collaborative learning in a design task. The project was conducted by PD Dr. Carmen Zahn, Prof. Dr. Dr. Friedrich W. Hesse and Dipl. Psych. Karsten Krauskopf. It is part of the DFG funded research group „Analysis und advancement of effective teaching and learning" (Chairperson: Prof. Dr. Dr. Friedrich W. Hesse) in cooperation with the educational science department at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and Prof. Roy Pea, Director of the Stanford Center for Innovations in Learning, Stanford University, CA, USA.