Common Knowledge: Supporting the Orchestration of Multi- Modal Note-Sharing in a Heterogeneous Classroom Ecology

We will present Common Knowledge (CK) – a pedagogical and technological innovation that supports teacher orchestration of inquiry discourse occurring in the digital and classroom environments. We designed CK to support a “knowledge community” pedagogy where students add their own ideas, build on peers’ contributions, and structure their inquiry. Using tablets, students contributed to a knowledge base that was publicly displayed on an interactive whiteboard (IWB). The IWB visualized the community’s idea flow, enabling learners to sort their ideas along socially-negotiated categories, and allowing teachers to track student progress to guide whole-class discussions. We present the final design, analyzed according to a Technology-Discourse-Activity system. We observed that teachers used “3R” orchestration cycle of Reflect-Refocus-Release, and offer guidelines about linking pedagogy to technology design.