invitationto reflect upon practice. But there is very little time allotted to philosophical reflection in the education of [computing] professionals. Much of the education takes place either at schools of engineering or at business schools where philosophical reflection is viewed as a luxury.

Educators need to provide students with a learning environment viable for discussion and reflection. From a pedagogical perspective, educators have long considered discussion one of the most powerful techniques to promote learning. Electronically enhanced discussions such as group support systems, electronic meeting systems, usenet news etc., have been around at least since the beginning of the 80's. They have become a dynamic and lively arena for discussion and interaction for many individuals in higher education, both students and faculty. But integrating these communication and group tools in educational activities has been difficult. One reason is that in typical engineering education lecture there is little discussion [4]. Moreover, collaboration is rarely taught in traditional engineering education. Hence, this paper discusses the use of a World Wide Web (WWW) based standard conference system, for reflection and sustaining a discourse, and thereby contribute to cooperative knowledge building. There is a need to develop technology and design the use of the same to condense the discourse, sustain it through interruptions and across distances, to give discussion continuity over time [5]. This paper is formulated with software engineering as an example, but can easily be translated into other engineering disciplines.

THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

This section gives a short background on how educational practice has changed over the last twenty years, and how educational technology has followed this change.

From Objectivistic Teaching to Collaborative Learning

The information age certainly puts new demands on education. Radical changes in what we learn as well as how we learn are required. A variety of models are used to characterize different paradigms of learning. These models are often classified as either behavioral or cognitive. The behavioral models are based on Skinner's theory about stimulus and response, whereas the cognitive models are based on cognitive information processing and more recently collaborativism.

Traditionally the model of choice in education has been, and still is, the objectivist model of learning. Basically, facts and information exist out there and the instructor acts as an intermediary who filters, selects and transmits the information to ignorant students. The dominating activities are active teachers presenting information to passive students, through lectures, and written material, such as text books. Students then providethe teacher with evidence of learning by recitation, orally or in written exams. At lectures, teachers ask questions and expect the student to provide an immediate answer, which is either right or wrong.

Designing Environments for Reflection and Collaborative
Learning

Urban Nuldén

Department of Informatics, Göteborg University
Göteborg, Sweden
email: nulden@informatik.gu.se

ABSTRACT:This paper reports from an on-going research project that investigates the use of information technology to enhance the learning process in software engineering education. The paper discusses the use of a standard Web-basedconference system to give students, educators and other resources the opportunity to interact as a whole unit. The aim of using such a system is that it facilitates individual reflection as well as collaborative knowledge building. The contribution of the paper is first, identification of important design principles that should be considered by educators who wish to use computer based forums to facilitate discussion and sustaining a discourse together with their students. Second, the paper describes and discusses two cases of educational activity where the conference system is integrated.

INTRODUCTION

"There's more to being a good engineer than a high level of technical competence" [1]. Engineering education came early to be based on a mixture of theoretical subjects and practical instruction. The aim with the education was to provide the students with an ability to cope with a relatively wide range of technical problems. This is not sufficient anymore, we do live in a world that demands competence in other domains than the core competence, engineering. It is important to encourage students to develop a critical, but also constructive attitude towards engineering. The students should be invited to reflect on their profession from a practical, more holistic point of view across traditional subject areas and academic disciplines. Reflection includes reasoning, the creative production of ideas, problem solving and the awareness of these activities, that is, metacognition [2]. Metacognition refers to a person's knowledge of the nature of learning, effective learning strategies, and aspects of one's own learning strengths and weaknesses. To understand complex matters students must learn to think in the large and not become blinded by the details [3]. To think in the large students need time to reflect on new knowledge. In education in technical domains, problems are generally considered only from a technical point of view. Often, it is difficult to understand and solve problems from this viewpoint only. A philosophical discussion of software engineering is an