Sunday, November 14, 2010

The Ze Frank Phenomenon

Yesterday, we noted one example of the success of the non-academic, informal CSCL environment created by Internet personality Ze Frank. Today, this blog proposes that research be conducted to investigate the factors involved in this success, with the hope of translating such factors into the traditional online collaborative learning setting.

Hypotheses of Critical Factors

Six different factors are suggested as possible “critical” factors in considering the essential differences between traditional online collaborative learning environments and knowledge construction in an online social environment. These factors are:
1. Pre-existing online social context.
2. Number of participants in the online environment.
3. Nature of the tasks proposed.
4. Project initiator (or instructor).
5. Interest level of participants.
6. Reward offered for successful completion of project.

It would likely be worthwhile to examine the influence of each of the possibly-critical factors. Research proposals, anyone?

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