July 2006 - December 2011
Structural fund of the University of Tuebingen for excellent junior researchers
This project aimed at supporting individual and collaborative learning processes during knowledge exchange on the basis of multimedia learning material. On the one hand, it analyzed the interacting individual and collaborative demands that are placed on learners due to complex material and social interaction and, on the other hand, it investigated the possibilities of supporting learners in meeting these demands. On this basis, tools that use external representations both for supporting individual cognitive processing of complex information and for structuring the learning discourse have been developed and experimentally evaluated. For example, a Collaborative Integration Tool has been developed that provides learners with merged information about individual knowledge of the learning partners and conflicts between them. It was experimentally shown that such a tool can foster meaningful individual and collaborative learning processes while reducing extraneous effort.
