About Metafora

Over the last decades several collaborative learning environments have been developed for the classroom. The technology used to realize those systems slightly changed but there are still many pros and cons for either web-based or non web-based applications. As web-based systems usually imply restrictions compared to client based applications when it comes to flexibility and adaptivity of user-interfaces, web-based applications are more or less ready to use when opened in a browser.

Metafora Project
In the EU funded project Metafora (The Metafora project is co-funded by the European Union under the Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) theme of the 7th Framework Programme for R&D (FP7), Contract No. 257872 ) we are bringing together a set of different learning tools for science and math that have been developed in other context and projects. Metafora combines different pedagogical strands, namely constructionism and collaboration, resulting in an approach called learning to learn together (L2L2). Constructionism stresses an active role of the learner who is (re-)constructing knowledge by herself instead of knowledge being delivered by the teacher. Usually this is achieved by direct construction of artefacts, models, programs etc. Collaboration is another facet to engage students to a more active attitude during learning, stimulating argumentation, negotiation, planning and different kinds of strategic skills referring to management and task solution.

The learning tools are integrated within the browser-based Metafora framework for collaborative and self-regulated learning and organization of the learning process to allow students to make use of the full potential of these tools while working within one integrated web-based environment, using a single login and having central access to all the available tools. Among these tools are constructionist Microworlds for Math and Physics, game-like environments for sustainability and ballistics, and editors for constructing mathematical patterns and algebraic equations. As an umbrella Metafora provides a rich collaborative environment with a shared planning space, a group chat and the LASAD discussion environment.
LASAD

One challenge of web-based collaboration is to overcome a major communication deficit between client and server. While standard web-based interaction is based on request--response, i.e. a web client sends a request to a web server and the server sends a response back, this can only be used to notify a server of a user's action. Other users working on different web clients need to be notified of the same action by the server. One way to realize this update is to change the request--response mechanism and use the so-called server push technology which enables the server to actively send messages to web clients. Metafora uses this technology for the distribution of information between the web-based clients: the built-in chat, the graphical PlanningTool, and the propagation of updates in the awareness and sharing tool, called Workbench.
PlanningTool
Workbench