COLLABORATIVE LEARNING AND DIRECTIVE SOFTWARE

In this paper interactions of groups of school students working with a variety of educational software are analysed to develop an account of the structure of collaborative educational activities supported by di rective software. First the application of a quantitative method is de scribed and its results used to question the hypothesis that directive software limits the quality of discussion between groups of users. Th e nature of the talk occurring around directive software is then explo red in more detail. It is argued that the structure of educational act ivities around directive software can allow for the possibility of emb edding exploratory symmetrical pupil discussion within a directed teac hing programme: an educationally desirable combination otherwise diffi cult to achieve.