Evolution of Collaborative Learning Environments based on Desktop Computer to Mobile Computing: A Model-Based Approach

In the last years a great amount of collaborative applications have been developed. These applications can be framed in the paradigms of Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) or Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) according to their specific purpose (group work or learning in-group). On the other hand some of them have been developed according to the paradigm of mobile computing. Advances in wireless technology and its integration on mobile devices offer support to user-to-user interaction on the move, becoming any place a potential collaborative learning scenario. Most of mobile collaborative systems are carried out in the same manner as other applications are developed, without taking into account the special characteristics of these paradigms. Therefore, the requirements that characterize these paradigms may not be considered in the most appropriate way; in special, in relation to user interface (UI) development and the perception of the context of the application. From our point of view we need appropriate frameworks and tools (methodologies, processes, specification techniques, CASE tools, etc.) to help in the analysis and design processes of these complex applications. However the current approaches do not offer an integrating and efficient solution that tackles jointly mobility, learning and group work issues. With the aim of obtaining an appropriate support for the development of multi-platform groupware applications we propose to use a model-based approach for the development of interactive groupware applications. In particular we propose to use a proposal called CIAM (Molina et al., 2009). This is a methodological framework supported by a set of notations for modeling and designing interactive and collaborative tools. This approach can be used for supporting the evolution of existing systems based on desktop metaphor towards mobile support (Eisenstein et al, 2001). In this chapter we show the application of this method to a case study. We will take as a starting point a collaborative e-learning environment called Domosim-TPC (Redondo & Bravo, 2006) and show the application of our method. 13