The research presented in this paper aims at inquiring a high school teacher’s process of appropriation of the software CoFFEE. CoFFEE was used to support collaborative learning activities within the curricula of Latin the class had to undertake. To understand the process of appropriation of the software, we observed and analyzed two CoFFEE-enhanced sessions, undertaken by the same classroom a year apart. At the fi rst session the same classroom from of a Socio-Psycho-Pedagogical Lyceum was a 10th grade – students age 15 years old in average; at the second session the classroom was a 11th grade – 16 years old in average. The videos and fi eld notes were collected were qualitatively analyzed by two researchers. Aim of this analysis was to single out the dimensions able to give account of the similarities and differences between the two sessions. Seven indicators were found and they were grouped into three dimensions able to describe the process of the teacher’s appropriation of CoFFEE.

The Blended Collaborative Constructive Participation (BCCP) model is a university teaching model built upon six years of experimentation. Through a flexible structure and a set of six types of activities, the aim of this model is to put into practice a series of already well-established pedagogical principles, such as the Community of Learners, the Community of Practice, the socio-constructivist dimension, the dialogical perspective, and knowledge building. A three-level system is presented as an assessment tool for web-forum discussions, organized around the contents of the course. This system is meant to be used by teachers and by students to monitor and support the evolution of the discussion.

Recent learning sciences literature proposes to conceive learning as changes in the 12learner ’s identity trajectory. In this paper, we use the analysis of dialogical positioning as a 13method to track down and understand shifts in identity trajectories. The Bakhtinian concepts 14of “polyphony” and “chronotopes” are considered as dialogical indicators of the identity 15positions, and are the basis of our method. A qualitative/quantitative nature is featured in this 16method, which is composed of three steps: a) reading of the data; b) definition of a tailored 17list of dialogical indicators; c) quantitative analysis. A highly collaborative, blended univer18sity course, drawing on socio-constructivist principles, was used as the context to test the 19method. Indeed, we believe such a course would foster dialogical identity development. All 20the notes posted online during the course by two selected students were used as the corpus of 21data. The students were selected because of their diversity in terms of level of participation 22and initial technology propensity. The application of the method revealed the uniqueness of 23the trajectories, the correlations between indicators, and their sensitiveness to the activities of 24the course and to the students ’ personal circumstances.

Qual è lo stato dell'arte della didattica online oggi nelle università italiane? Quali modelli e metodi ne rappresentano i punti di riferimento? Quali sono i problemi e le questioni ancora aperte? Questo volume si propone di riprendere di rispondere a queste domande

Il volume è idea e sperimentazione, è azione avversa al "ventre molle pedagogico e didattico" in cui sembra stagnare l'Università Italiana che ora subisce il diktat del recente DM 139/2011 secondo cui "il corso di laurea magistrale a ciclo unico per l'insegnamento nella scuola magistrale e i corsi di laurea magistrale per l'insegnamento nella scuola secondaria di primo grado non possono essere istituiti con modalità a distanza

Quasi tutti i contributi presenti in questa sezione riguardano comunque delle esperienze di dattica online ma si è deciso di presentarle in una apposita sezione perchè in questi lavori vi è un maggiore accento sugli strumenti utilizzabili o sui problemi incontrati nel corso dell'esperienza descritta

We consider the gender-technology relationship as culturally-grounded. The experience presented here inquires about the role of gender during group discussions supported by a software called CoFFEE. A classroom, composed by 14 students (average age 17), fi ve males and nine females, was involved. The activity was carried out in the computer lab where students were free to self-organize the groups. Six dyads, homogenous in terms of gender, and two students individually, sat in front of the computers. Four groups, one of them composed of boys, two of girls, and one mixed, were formed to work online. The video of the activity, the report automatically recorded by CoFFEE and the fi eld notes collected by a researcher, were analyzed by two researchers in order to single out the groups’ interaction strategies. Results showed that: a) gender is a dimension impacting groups formation; b) groups online tended to be more mixed; c) each group managed the task in a specifi c way; and, d) the teacher offered more support to the male groups.

In this literature review on the dynamics of intersubjectivity in primary and secondary education, we summarise and examine articles published in the last 10 years. This concept is considered relevant in education, in particular to enhance different types of collaborative learning situations. The articles were selected from several databases, all in English and blindly peer-reviewed. From the 157 articles appearing when limiting the contexts to primary and secondary education, 25 empirical studies were selected because they focused on the collaborative activities of students-students and/or teacher-students. We are also interested in understanding the role that technology may play in such process. Additionally, research where some types of digital technologies were used was contrasted with studies with analogical technologies. The selected articles were analysed with the aim of highlighting ideas and critical concepts featuring the process of producing intersubjectivity. As relevant dimensions, we identified: (a) teachers’ role; (b) cultural and/ or intercultural dimension; (c) the role of cognitive aspects; (d) the role of social dimension, and (e) the role of space-time. Finally, implications for future empirical studies and educational practices are outlined

The aim of this paper is to highlight the contribution offered by the dialogical approach in understanding the interconnectedness of the situated sensemaking and situation-transcending processes occurring during the collaborative finalization of a product. We propose a dialogical theory of sensemaking based on the concepts of chronotope, voice and artefact mediation, aimed at investigating how multiple space–time frames are interconnected in collaborative sensemaking. We argue that this analysis is complementary to both the semiotic and the institutional analyses of sensemaking, which constitute the basis of our theorizing. To concretely illustrate our proposal for a chronotopic analysis of collaborative sensemaking, we qualitatively discuss an excerpt taken from a meeting of a multidisciplinary professional team working on the finalization of a web platform meant for enterprises.

This paper investigates teachers’ agency in relation to their professional development. In particular, we refer to research skills and attitude in-service teachers may acquire while attending an international master of research in education. A semi-structured interview was administrated to nine in-service teachers, coming from three different African countries. All of them are attending an international master course aimed to acquire skills in science educational research. The data collected was qualitatively analysed through a category system based on five types of agency. Teachers express the various types of agency in their attempt to extend their action in the context of belonging, with a strong social connotation towards colleagues, students, and the community.

In this paper, we use the concept of chronotope to analyse the co-construction of 12spatial and temporal frameworks during collaborative interaction. A chronotope is a genre 13of movement or pacing in the space that participants adopt over the temporal duration of an 14activity. We look in particular at the conjunction point of time and space as revealing how 15collaboration works and what role is played by technology. Six sessions during which 10 16teachers prepared a pedagogical scenario to be implemented in school were filmed and 17qualitatively analysed. The tempo of the activity was found to vary considerably depending 18on various factors, such as the features of the tools used, the aims of the activity, and the 19skills employed by the participants to achieve them. Three different tempos were identified, 20which we named, using a musical metaphor, Adagio, Andante, and Allegretto. Some 21representative excerpts of each of these tempos, and of the moving from one tempo to 22another, are selected and discussed. Our results allow an in-depth understanding of 23coordination within a group of teachers working on planning a common educational 24scenario for their classrooms with the mediation of a software tool.

This article analyses how a group of teachers managed the resources available while performing computer-supported collaborative problem-solving tasks in the context of professional development. The authors video-recorded and analysed collaborative sessions during which the group of teachers used a digital environment to prepare a pedagogical scenario for subsequent implementation in their schools. The findings provide evidence that some aspects of context management can be explained in terms of explorative (opening problem space) and focused (closing problem space) actions. The results indicate that (a) the focused problem-solving took place when the problem space reached a provisional stability and problem-solvers developed a plan for proceeding with the task, (b) the individual exploration of the context was associated with the process of appropriation of a digital educational environment, and (c) the collective exploration of the context fostered the advancement of collaborative problem-solving and the introduction of new elements in the joint problem space.

This article presents the findings of a qualitative interview study of professional identity of 38 Italian teachers close to retirement. Through a dialogical analysis of the interviews, the authors trace the trajectory of the teachers’ voices along a temporal axis, to retrieve the history of the voices and the connections to a specific period of the teachers’ careers. In particular, the authors focus on how the interviewees dealt with problems and dilemmas in their professional lives and solved their feelings of professional inadequacy. This study highlights the importance of the time dimension in relation to teachers’ professionalism, in particular with regard to identity resources to overcome critical moments in their careers.

Boundaries-crossing from university to workplaces is one of the most meaningful crisis for the professional development of the young people. Students need to develop cultural tools to solve their inner conflicts typical of this phase. In this study, the Dialogical Self Theory is used, inspired by Bakhtin, to define cross-boundaries in terms of identity positions development. The Trialogical Learning Approach is applied to design collaborative activities implemented during the course, aimed at building professional objects, designed together with some companies. During the course, students are required to build and maintain e-portfolios, which we consider as the place where cross-boundaries of I-positions can be observed. One case is selected as representative of the trajectories toward the so-called trialogical position that has a professional nature and takes into account the objects built. The results show an expansion of the student identity position repertoire, including future, professional and collective positions. Furthermore, the object designed with the company is perceived as a boundary-object that supports the shift from present to future positions and from university to professional communities.