DESK-TOP MULTIMEDIA ENVIRONMENTS TO SUPPORT COLLABORATIVE DISTANCE LEARNING

Desktop multimedia conferencing, when two or more persons can communic ate among themselves via personal computers with the opportunity to se e and hear one another as well as communicate via text messages while working with commonly available stored resources, appears to have impo rtant applications to the support of collaborative learning. In this p aper we explore this potential in three ways: (a) through an analysis of particular learner needs when learning and working collaboratively with others outside of face-to-face situations; (b) through an analysi s of different forms of conferencing environments, including desktop m ultimedia environments, relative to their effectiveness in terms of me eting learner needs for distributed collaboration; and (c) through rep orting the results of a formative evaluation of a prototype desktop mu ltimedia conferencing system developed especially for the support of c ollaborative learning. Via these analyses, suggestions are offered rel ating to the functionalities of desktop multimedia conferencing system s for the support of collaborative learning, reflecting new developmen ts in both the technologies available for such systems and in our awar eness of learner needs when working collaboratively with one other out side of face-to-face situations.