Collaborative Learning and Technological Environment for Evoking Interactivity-Building of Knowledge Mizue KAYAMA* Toshio OKAMOTO** *Senshu University, School of Network and Information **University of Electro-Communications Graduate School of Information Systems kayama@isc.senshu-u.ac.jp okamoto@ai.is.uec.ac.jp Abstract The purpose of this study is to support the learning activity in the Internet learning space. In this paper, we examine the knowledge management and the knowledge representation of the learning information for the collaborative learning (CL) support. RAPSODY-EX (REX) is a distributed learning support environment organized as a learning infrastructure. REX can effectively carry out the CL support in asynchronous/synchronous learning mode. At the CL, Various information in the educational context is referred and reused as knowledge which oneself and others can practically utilize. We aim at the construction of an increasingly growing digital portfolio database. In addition, the architecture of the learning environment that includes such a database is researched. 1. Introduction One could never guess the explosive growth of Internet. This growth is so closely, tightly, and widely that everyone even feels the power of the information evolution. Education certainly is riding on the waves. Internet is becoming the catchphrase in the world of school education, which makes the distance education possible to anybody at anytime and from anywhere. As such, a new learning style ‘e-Learning’ emerged under the umbrella new concept of “Learning Ecology and Pedagogy”, where Internet raises the level of communications and collaborations among people via technology. Nowadays, the word/system of "e-Learning” is rapidly spreading according to popularization of Internet. As for advantages of Internet, people can communicate each other for anyone, anytime and anywhere. Moreover people can share, rebuild, stock and reuse the various kind of information. Here, it seems that the concept of “e- Learning” gets the citizenship in the society instead of CAI. Along with this stream/trend, we recognize the necessity of construction to new learning society such as learning individuals, learning organization and learning community. 2. The Purpose of This Study We investigate the mechanism of transmission and management of knowledge for the development of the knowledge community in the learning space, within the educational context. In this paper, we examine the knowledge management and the knowledge representation of the learning information for the CL support. The purpose of this study is to support the learning activity in the Internet learning space. REX is a distributed learning support environment organized as a learning infrastructure [1,2]. REX can effectively carry out CL support in asynchronous/ synchronous learning mode. 3. Essential/Technological Conditions to Maintain CL Learners can belong to one project or several projects. They are involved in one project or take some role in the several projects. Therefore, they share particular space, and work independently for the other members of the projects. The shared working place (collaborative workplace) contains function such as the dialogue supported- objects for interaction, information exchange between members, the collaborative working objects for activity support, and the collaborative repository/memory for reference and information accumulation. The private working place contains the private working objects for private activity support and the private memory for consultation and accumulation. Moreover, the information referencing behaviors are used for achieving the individual and the CL goal. At the CL, learning materials made up by the teachers, various educational data, libraries, educational applications and general consumer’s tools/applications are loaded or referred in the collaborative/private work place[2] . One of the essential elements of the CL environment is the virtual agent[3,4]. The virtual agents take important role to exchange information between the other essential structural elements. The attribute(s) of the appropriate essential elements are stored in the collaborative memory as well as the learning log developed during the CL curriculum. When group member(s) and collaborative work object(s) make the request, the agents refer to the information in the collaborative memory and integrate the information into a defined form. The function of agents is designed to cope with the behavioral differences of the essential structural elements. In the CL environment, the basic functions and structure of the agents are defined and expressed simply as the exchange, deletion and addition of essential structural elements. As the protocol content of the information exchange varies, the transmission source, reception destination, and the behavior or functions of the bi-directional structure are manipulated. Proceedings of the The 3rd IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT’03) 0-7695-1967-9/03 $17.00 © 2003 IEEE