Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
To get a sense of how such activities might work, we have to explore interactions in
naturalistic settings, where the students feel like they are engaged in such activities
rather than being laboratory subjects.
Data Collection at the Group Level of Description
(Unit of Analysis)
Take the network of references in a chat-threading diagram (see Fig. 2.1) as an
image of meaning making at the group level (Stahl, 2007). One could almost say
that the figure consists entirely of contributions from individuals (the chat postings
and whiteboard drawings) and resources from the math community, that everything
exists on either the individual or community level, not on the group level. Yet, what
is important in the figure is the network of densely interwoven references, more
than the objects that are connected by them. This network exists at the group level.
It mediates the individual and the community by forming the joint problem space
(Sarmiento, 2007; Teasley & Roschelle, 1993), indexical ground (Hanks, 1992),
referential network (Heidegger, 1927/1996) or situation (Suchman, 2007) within
which meanings, significant objects and temporal relations are intersubjectively co-
constructed (Dourish, 2001). On the individual level, these shared group meanings
Fig. 2.1
The network of references in a chat log excerpt
