Distances et Médiations des Savoirs (Oct 2016)
Gestion du pouvoir dans la co-construction de savoirs
Abstract
Recent research has intensively investigated the process of technology-mediated collaborative writing and has explored the benefits and limitations of this form of collaboration. Scholars have identified learners’ reluctance to edit peers’ contributions and their need to save face as one of the limitations of this practice. Many researchers conclude that interaction tools should be combined with participative editing technologies. Our research is based on the study of the use of comments (“contextualized peritextual contributions”) as a form of asynchronous communication in Google Docs. It will particularly focus on social processing in the co-construction of knowledge objects in a university course. The quantitative and discursive analysis of students’ contributions provides some insights in the way in which learners deal with the space of speech, authority and face threatening and face flattering acts.
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