HÅKON TOLSBY
Virtual environment for 
project based collaborative learning 
“Learning cannot be designed; it can only be designed-for; that is – facilitated or frustrated”. 
(Wenger 1998, p229)
Introduction 

A virtual environment for project based collaborative learning consists of more than software and computers. A virtual environment is situated in practice (Salomon, 1992; Pea, 1993). It encompasses a group of people working together with the aim of solving a problem. It also includes a curriculum to be studied and the pedagogical practice in which project work is founded as an activity of learning. All these aspects contribute to an understanding of the virtual environment and shape the practice that take place. 
This chapter presents the study of a project group at Aalborg University who customized a groupware system and created a virtual project room, which they shaped and furnished to support their own practice. The decision for using a virtual environment was made by the students alone. They did that without any imposition from either teacher or institution, and they shaped the virtual environment according to their own needs and ideas. The virtual project room was not only a generic space for sharing material, but a joint place inhabited and constructed by the students.
Ryberg and Ponti (2004, 2005) argue that ‘place making’ is an important aspect of supporting social interaction on the Internet. They define place as the setting in which our intentions and behaviours become comprehensible and meaningful. It is a construction, consisting of reifications and shared experiences, that reflects a social practice. Furthermore, they argue that “fostering a social context cannot be disconnected from developing a sense of place in networked environments.” The challenge is however to design and organise environments that can support place-making.
The aim of this study is to reveal how the students in the Aalborg case used a groupware system to construct a shared place on the internet where they collaborated to solve a project. The aim is to understand how they used the virtual environment to successfully coordinate their work on a joint project, how they shared knowledge, and how they engaged in each other’s contributions. 
Hopefully, the findings discussed below will contribute more knowledge to the field of virtual environment design, while improving our understanding of how virtual environments can be organised to support project based learning.
The case
I learned about this case during a workshop with students and teachers at Aalborg University. The aim of the workshop was to discuss different approaches towards the use of ICT for supporting project-based learning. During the workshop a group of students presented their experiences with a groupware system called iGroups. Their presentation was particularly interesting, because it demonstrated how a virtual environment could be constructed in collaboration, and how the environment could be used to share knowledge and to coordinate the process of creating a joint project.
According to the students, comprising four males, iGroups was being used by several student groups at the University of Aalborg in similar ways. This was not something promoted by the institution, but chosen by the students themselves as a useful means to support their work with collaborative projects.    
The students who were demonstrating their experience with iGroups had just finished their sixth semester project at Allborg University’s Institute of Humanistic Informatics, on which they all collaborated. The objective of their project was to design a prototype of a virtual learning environment that could be used in project based learning.  This had involved some empirical research among their fellow students with the aid of questionnaires, workshops and observation of other students already using the iGroups groupware system.
Although they did not directly study their own experience as part of their project, it is natural to assume that the very nature of the project had impact on their creation and utilisation of the virtual learning environment, and vice versa. 
In this case I consider the close relationship between the students’ own project and their working methods as a strengthening of the case. It entails that they had strong interests and motives in reflecting on the processes involved in project-based learning and in the implementation of a best practice within a virtual environment.
The students gave me access to their virtual environment where I was allowed to study their constructions and activities. In addition, they gave me a copy of their project report that contained their own considerations and discussions of the topic. 
The iGroups groupware system used by the students in this case is a free product, hosted by a Danish software developer. It is a flexible system, allowing the group of users a certain degree of shaping and building the environment according to their own needs.  This customization is achieved over and above the basic structure of the system with the aid of a built-in set of tools. The main feature of iGroups is that it provides a file-sharing environment where the students can organize and structure their shared documents. Another important feature is that new workspaces can be added on demand. These are simple editable spaces where all group members can add and edit text and hyperlinks. Furthermore, the system provides tools like: internal message system, forum for asynchronous discussions, news forum, link collections, chat, photo album and mailing lists. The architecture of iGroups is open and easy to navigate. It has a flat structure, and all links to available tools and workspaces are present in a menu bar to the left of the screen.
However, the purpose of this text is not to evaluate iGroups, which is by no means a perfect system, although it certainly has is advantages. The purpose is to reveal and discuss how project based learning can be supported by a virtual environment, what activities and processes are central, and what demands it  places on technological solutions.
Project based learning and POPP
Aalborg University is a project-organized university. The students learn to work in project groups from the day they arrive as freshmen, and 50 percent of each semester is devoted to project work (Kjersdam & Enemark, 1994). Project based learning, as practised at Aalborg University, has its own pedagogical foundation called Problem Oriented Project Pedagogy (POPP). In order to understand the practices in which the students of this case study are involved, it is necessary to know the basic aims and principles of POPP. 
A central aspect of POPP is the focus on problem orientation. The students are defining and formulating their own problems. They do not work on predefined tasks with known solutions, but engage themselves in real problems that they find meaningful to work with. In addition, they are responsible for deciding which perspectives, theories and methods they want to use in the inquiry. The fact that the students have ownership of the problem and the inquiry is implicitly encouraging their involvement and motivation
POPP is also a collaborative pedagogy and the students are mutually responsible for creating and conducting a joint project (Dirckinck-Holmfeld, 2002). They are, therefore, not supposed to divide the project into discrete tasks  for individuals to complete. While they are each responsible for their own leaning, the principle of mutual responsibility means they must engage in each others contributions and perspectives. The project work is a means of integrating individual constructions of knowledge, as well as constructing a shared understanding through negotiations and confrontations. It is a dialectic process based on a social constructivist understanding of leaning (Dewey, 1966; Piaget, 1969; Vygotsky, 1978; Illeris, 1981).
The Research study
The study of the project group and their virtual environment was conducted as a qualitative case study (Stake, 1995). The aim was to understand the meaning of the constructions and processes that took place in the virtual environment and how it afforded collaboration and learning among the students. 
The research questions were focused on how the students shaped the environment and used the technology to support project-based learning. Stake (1995) describes such a case study, driven by specific research questions, as an instrumental case study. The aim is to provide insight into an issue by studying a particular case. 
The case was not selected in order to be representative of project groups at Aalborg University. It was chosen because the group demonstrated a best practice, and it was assumed that it would provide valuable knowledge for understanding how a virtual environment can support learning and knowledge construction in a collaborative project.
Since the students had finished their project at the time I started to study them, the study of the virtual environment had the character of a retrospective observation, where I tried to recapitulate the processes and activities that had taken place some months earlier. Although I did not directly observe the project as it evolved, the virtual environment gave access to lots of useful information: documents, discussions, task lists, structures, constructions of work spaces etc. This made it possible to recapitulate at least parts of the activities and processes that had taken place. 
Based on findings from the retrospective observation, I conducted an interview with one of the student participants, taking the approach of a semi structured qualitative research interview (Kvale, 1996). This means it was an explorative interview, where interpretations were present in all phases of the process, from the construction of the interview questions to the actual interview and in the resulting analysis. A computer showing the students’ project environment was used during the interview to prompt the interviewee in his recapitulations and reflections on the activities and processes that had taken place. 
After the interview a preliminary analysis was sent to all participants in the project group, including the interviewee, for verification and further comments (Meriam, 1988). Three out of four students responded to the request for verification, and their comments were incorporated in the final analysis.
In addition, I have used results from the research presented in the student’s own project report as an additional resource in the analysis and discussions. 
The analysis of the case study is organised into themes or concepts in order to understand the activities and processes in which the students were engaged. In the following text these themes are discussed and illustrated with examples from the virtual environment and statements from the interviewee. As the interview was conducted in Danish, these statements have therefore been translated into English. 

A need for tools that support collaboration 
The interviewee gives two reasons why the project group chose to use a virtual environment as the working arena for their project. Firstly, they wanted to experience project-based learning with the aid of Internet based tools. This was the aim of their project. And although they did not investigate their own practice it gave them a useful insight into the problem area.
Secondly, they had found that working on a joint project can be simultaneously constructive and troublesome. In the introduction to their report, the students write the following about this:
There are euphoric moments, where one as a student sees connections that were earlier concealed. But there are also moments where the group members glow with frustration because the project is about to collapse. Papers are not delivered in time, the members have divergent goals and expectations and deadlines are postponed. 
They had experienced the benefits of working together in solving a problem, but also the difficulties in maintaining and coordinating a joint project. Although they were on-campus students and could meet face to face, they were looking for tools to coordinate the process of writing and sharing material. They chose to use a virtual environment in order to strengthen the collaborative processes, to support coordination of work and to represent and make visible the project as a joint construction and enterprise. 
Conclusion
A single study like this has its limitations as an explanation of collaboration and knowledge construction in a virtual environment. However, the case was chosen for study because it appeared to be a best practice and because the students had chosen to use a virtual environment of their own free will. It was not forced upon them, and they didn’t know until later that their virtual practice would be a subject of investigation. Although it is a single case, the fact that they constructed a learning environment based on their own needs and desires and without any imposition from teachers and supervisors makes this case particular interesting.
The students in this case showed a desire to collaborate. Although the virtual environment supported this desire, it was grounded in the Problem Oriented Project Pedagogy as practiced at Aalborg University. The students were trained in collaborative learning and had several years of experience in it. Dirckinck-Holmfeld (2002) argues that POPP is a well qualified method for Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) because it enables genuine collaboration. This study emphasizes that using a virtual environment can contribute to strengthening group awareness and the construction of a joint project.
The aim of the study was to reveal how the student group used the virtual environment to successfully coordinate the working on a joint project, and how they together created a shared space which they inhabited and structured according to their own practice. 
Coordination was one arguments put forward by the students for using a virtual environment.  Two types of coordination were identified; coordination of activities, such as tasks and schedules; and coordination of knowledge construction, which is understood as the coordination of people who are negotiating their positions and their engagement in each other’s contributions.
The extremely visible and interactive process of uploading, sharing and commenting on documents encouraged the students to be active within the virtual environment. They felt committed to work and to engage in each other’s contributions. The group process was transparent, and the students could watch each other’s participation within the virtual environment and adjust themselves to the others. 
A flexible infrastructure made it possible for the students to shape and extend the environment after their own needs. The students were place makers who constructed their own collaborative environment.
Furthermore, the case demonstrated the signification of elements in the environment that function as images of experiences. These are objects and structures that can accumulate and reflect the shared experiences of the participants, and aid them in problem solving.
Finally, the case has shown that a virtual environment is constructed through the participation of its members; that it is a product of both ordinary participation and more explicit design decisions. The case points out that, given adequate tools, members of a project group can construct a productive and meaningful place for learning.
Tools supporting virtual environments are not neutral. They afford a certain practice (Norman, 1988; Pea, 1993. Dirckinck-Holmfeld et al, 2008), and one has to choose them according to the practice one wants to support. It is in the nature of POPP that the virtual learning environment must be open and flexible. POPP is a flexible pedagogy (Dirckinck-Holmfeld, 2002) with a flexible curriculum where the students define problems, theories and research methods themselves. Therefore the technology should not force the students to work according to a predefined structure. Instead, it should enable them to create their own knowledge constructions, around which they can negotiate their contributions and positions. 
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AFFILIATIONS

Håkon Tolsby
Dept. of Communication
Aalborg University and 
Dept. of informatics
Ostfold University College