This presentation will begin by exploring and critiquing some of the assumptions that are made about learners and learning by technology enhanced learning designers and in particular, challenging the supposition that young people are assumed to be ‘digital natives’ who embrace new technologies effortlessly (Prenksy, 2001). It will be argued that both learning and communications are social activities that take place within a community (Wenger, 1998) and the importance of the cultural context in the development of human functioning has always given rise to the production of local practices, tools, signs and language right from the earliest examples of rock paintings (Säljö, 2007). Drawing on recent research, including a study of digitally–mediated communications amongst undergraduate students to support collaborative learning, some of the important areas where connecting learners can contribute to educational purposes will be highlighted, together with constraints and challenges that may arise for learners. The group will then break into small group discussions to explore the themes that have been presented and to consider more fully the educational purposes of connecting learners. A final plenary discussion will bring together thoughts and ideas from all the groups before conclusions are drawn.

The [interactive] lecture deals with participatory processes applied to research, pedagogy and design, and to the building of communities around different themes. As the lecture will be included into the ”Connecting Learners” challenge session, the stress will be put on participatory processes in pedagogy (why, how, when, with whom…) and the building of communities such as learning communities, communities of practice of researchers, the participation of learners as novices in professional communities of practice, the role of communities of practice in developing knowledge and taking place in continuing education. Connecting people requires “suitable” technology; the lecture will also insist upon the key role of participatory design in the ability to build these “suitable” technology. An light insight about other uses of participatory processes (development, citizenship, etc.) will also be given, as participants are also citizens of the world. The lecture will built upon the experience of participants; for example, it could be asked from each participant to “tell a story” about their experience in participatory processes. These stories will be used as material for the lecture.

Liliane Esnault is a consultant in the domain of interactions between Information Technology and Social and Educational Sciences. Her main areas of interests are in developing and animating participatory processes, building and animating networks and communities of practice, conducting and animating longitudinal project evaluations. These works rely on theoretical domains such as Actor Network Theory, Appreciative Inquiry, Participatory Design, Cultivating Communities of Practice, Constructivism. She graduated from Ecole Supérieure de Physique et Chimie de Paris (ESPCI) and has a Doctorate in Fundamental Molecular Physics. She was Associate Professor in Information Systems management, e-Business and Project Management at EM LYON during more than twenty years. She is also teaching an e-Business course in a French-Chinese Executive MBA organized by the Rhône-Alpes Region and Shanghai University. She was involved in the European Research projects PALETTE (Organizational Learning and Knowledge Management in Communities of Practice), after several other European projects in the same area. She is the author of several writings linked with her areas of expertise: Information Systems and Technology Management, Project management, Management of Organizational Networks, e-learning and pedagogy. She also is a member of International Information Resources Management (IRMA), Association for the Advancement of Computing in education (AACE), Information Technology Development for the Rhone-Alpes Region (ADIRA).

High school classrooms are complex social entities in which learning processes may occur on at least three levels: a plenary level (e.g., a teacher presentation), a small-group level (e.g., dyads discussing ways how to solve a given mathematical problem) and an individual level (e.g., single students working silently on a math task). Research has demonstrated that learning processes on all three levels and (more importantly) their combination may effectively be supported by learning technologies. For example, the ArgueGraph script (Dillenbourg & Jermann, 2007) uses computer technologies to (a) enable single students express their opinions on a controversial topic, (b) force dyads of learners to discuss their differing view points and (c) lead a plenary discussion in which all students are supposed to express their views and argue with each other. ArgueGraph may therefore be called a “classroom script” (Kollar, Wecker, Langer, & Fischer, submitted). Classroom scripts may be understood as instructional interventions that specify and distribute learning activities and roles over the three social levels of a classroom. However, quasi-experimental research on the effects of different classroom scripts that are supported by learning technologies is scarce. Therefore, we developed a five-weeks inquiry curriculum on Genetic Engineering during which students were supposed to form a warranted position on whether Genetic Engineering should be allowed or not. To come to this position, the students were supposed to (a) gather relevant background knowledge on Genetics and Genetic Engineering (which was available in an online library), (b) perform collaborative online searches to find evidence to support their arguments and (c) lead plenary discussions during which the different arguments were exchanged and debated. In a 2x2 factorial quasi-experimental study, we investigated the effects of two different classroom scripts and two computer-supported small-group collaboration scripts on the acquisition of online search competence. While the classroom scripts differed with respect to whether online searches were either constantly to be performed by dyads or alternating on a plenary and a small group level, the small-group collaboration scripts (high vs. low structure) were implemented as browser plug-ins during dyadic online search and provided learning partners with complementary prompts on how to perform their online search. Results indicated that online search competence can be supported on both the classroom script level (favoring an alternation of dyadic and plenary phases) and the small-group level (favoring the high structured small group script), but that their effects do not add up. Consequences with respect to the orchestration of learning processes will be drawn.