Conference ICL2006 September 27 -29, 2006 Villach, Austria LoL Classroom: A Virtual University Classroom Based on Enhanced Chats Erika Pigliapoco 1 , Giovanni Torrisi 2 , Massimo Messina 2 , Alessandro Bogliolo 1 1 CRiSeL – Information Science and Technology Institute - University of Urbino 2 CRiSeL – Institute of Sociology - University of Urbino Key words: Virtual classroom, Chat Room, E-learning Extended abstract This paper presents an enhanced chat room developed to recreate the environment of a physical university classroom within a learning management system. The enhanced chat tool, called LoL Classrom, has been developed by MEC Informatica s.r.l. in cooperation with the University of Urbino and implemented in the Land of Learning (LoL) platform [1]. The presentation of LoL Classroom is taken as an opportunity for proposing a more general discussion about the usage of synchronous textual interactions in computer-mediated learning environments inspired to a constructivist teaching model. The teaching model In this subsection we try to explain the alignment between the theoretical principles of constructivism and the features of LoL Classroom. Providing a thorough definition of constructivism is beyond the scope of this work, here we only summarize the main aspects of the constructivist approach that have been used as guidelines for designing the virtual classroom: • Active learning: Knowledge is actively constructed rather than passively acquired by the individual [2] • Context-specific learning: Knowledge construction is an adaptive process affected by the specific context and by the environment [3] • Social learning: Knowledge is rooted not only on biological and neurological mechanisms, but also on social and cultural interactions among people who agree on a common perception of a given subject [4] • Formative evaluation: While summative evaluation is performed at the end of the learning process with the only purpose of verifying that teaching objectives are met, formative evaluation is carried out during courses and it is integral part of the learning process [5]. The interaction model LoL Classroom is based on textual synchronous interactions because of their recognized pedagogical value and their cross-platform compatibility. In particular, it has been shown that the exercise of elaborating thoughts in a written form within a computer-mediated learning environment enhances thinking and conceptual skills, causes an equal involvement of all students in the learning process, and promotes the development of language abilities [6], [7]. Furthermore, it has been demonstrated that students who use written synchronous interactions within chat rooms produce two to four times more sentences with a greater variety of discourse functions than they usually do in face-to-face communication, and they generally interact with each other decentring teacher’s authority [8]. Although text-based interactions could seem primitive and less user-friendly than audio-visual ones, several apparent benefits [9] can be outlined: i) ASCII characters can be easily sent