Knowledge Building and Students’ Perception in the EU-SUPPORT Network

Salubsri Charoenwet 

Suratpittaya School Surat Thani 84000 Thailand salubsri@gmail.com

Zurida Ismail zurida

University Sains Malaysia Penang Malaysia zurida@usm.my

Abstract— The EU-SUPPORT (Partnership and Participation for a Sustainable Tomorrow) network is a sub-network of the Norwegian Environmental Education Network that focuses on schools to promote the quality of education for sustainable development. Under the EU-SUPPORT, a social network was established based on the CSCL platform. Students from secondary schools in Malaysia and Thailand participated in this learning network through online collaborative project activities via web-based instructions with the theme ‘Climate Change’. The initiative and development of the social network was monitored. Density of the network and quality of discussion thread were examined prior to further assessment of collective knowledge in the network community. Interaction analysis model (IAM) was used to determine the degree of knowledge building through discussion forum and students’ perception towards the learning environment were investigated using self-reported survey. The results indicated that the established student network was considered active with rather dense network. The discussion forum produced in the network was proven to be sustained with high average length of discussion thread. Statistical analysis of the data from the questionnaires revealed positive perceptions of students participating in the network activities. However, there was a lack of in-depth discussion and hence, higher learning in this collaborative student network was not obtained.

Keywords —Computer-supported collaborative learning, Knowledge building, Student network, Students’ perception            

Presented in 2^nd Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi International Conference, 24-26 November, 2010, Bangkok, Thailand