Synergeia Version 2
Introduction
Synergeia is a software system
developed within the ITCOLE research project funded by the European Union
in 2001-2003. It is designed to support collaborative knowledge building
in classrooms of schools in several countries.
BSCL (Basic Support for
Collaborative Learning) is the set of functions and interfaces that adapts
the BSCW software* to collaborative knowledge building in K-12 classrooms.
This includes the function to create personal, group and course learning
places and to register users in these with specific roles. It also
includes the knowledge building interface, sets of thinking types and
support for negotiation.
* BSCW - This is the Basic Support for Cooperative Work system. It is a
web-based system designed to support teams of adults professionals working
together and sharing documents. It provides mechanisms for uploading,
downloading, versioning and archiving of many kinds of documents.
Benefits for Teachers and
Students
Synergeia has been designed to be
flexible so that teachers with different curricular goals and pedagogical
approaches can adjust it to their needs.
Synergeia provides teachers and
students with a shared, structured, web-based work space in which
collaborative learning can take place, documents and ideas can be shared,
discussions can be stored and knowledge artifacts can be developed and
presented. Furthermore teachers and students are provided with tools (BSCW)
for communicating and working with partners on a common task. Teachers and
students are offered a whiteboard, accompained by a chat window, to work
together simultaneously.
Teachers can structure, seed
and guide work in Synergeia to facilitate knowledge building in their
classrooms. This program can be useful to build up students’ Portfolio.
Students and teaches are
allowed to work both asynchronously and synchronously.
This learning environment is
very successful for those students who may be to shy for joining in a
discussion.
Personal working space
Pedagogical background
The main pedagogical concepts in
Synergeia are:
- Collaborative Knowledge
Building: new knowledge will be created through the investigations and
discourse of the group. There is emphasis on sharing, critiquing and
building upon each others’ ideas to arrive at a deeper knowledge of a
topic.
- Virtual Learning Places: a set
of workspaces on the Internet where people can share ideas, documents,
web links and other objects. Teachers and students can create new places
whenever they want for any special needs they have.
- Knowledge Building Areas:
knowledge building proceeds largely through discussion.
- Thinking types: discussion
within the knowledge buiding areas is scaffolded with a set of “thinking
type” categories for the notes.
Customizing a new Knowledge
Building Area
Knowledge Building Area
Tools
1. MapTool – This is a
collaborative whiteboard that students in a group or course can work on
simultaneously (synchronously) to construct concept maps and other simple
diagrams. It includes a chat window for coordinating and discussing the
drawing. The maps are stored in BSCL learning places.
2. The Instant Messages is
another synchronous tool in Synergeia. It allows users to communicate with
some students without sharing the messages with the rest of the group.
With this tool the users can send messages to one or more users that are
connected to the tool and belong to the same group.
Technical requirements
The BSCW server is written in
Python. To run a BSCW server you need a Python interpreter for your
machine (including the standard Python libraries) as well as a standard
Web server. The BSCW server runs on
- Unix (including Solaris,
SunOS, Linux, DEC OSF, HP-UX, Irix, BSD/OS and AIX) Š
- Windows NT (version 4.0 or above)
In Version 2 of Synergeia, the
system is run for all schools from a central Internet server in Germany.
The system Administrators in Germany will take care of setting up and
mantaining the system. It is also possible for schools to set up their own
Synergeia servers.
Target age
Secondary School
