In a way, the American educational system has indeed progressed in leaps and bounds. It has moved away significantly from the 18th century model of public education that had begun in Western Europe just a few centuries before the birth of the Internet.

The use of computers has also spawned a collaborative and yet competitive environment for learning. The competitive nature stems for the actual competition among students for higher marks and better learning results.

According to David Williamson Shaffer, a researcher and critic for the Journal of Interactive Learning Research:

“Interviews with students suggest that the processes of collaborative learning in this competitive environment were fundamentally similar to collaborative learning processes observed in more cooperative contexts.

“Individual learners assumed roles that mapped to important elements of the conceptual domain. Learners developed understanding through feedback on their own role from peers, and by observing their peers enact roles that represented alternative facets of the domain under study.”

Shared or conflicting goals?

The question on most researchers' minds right now regarding the use of computer mediation in learning is the kind of learning being fostered.

The worrying is due to the fact that in the beginning, the new technologies being employed are relatively alien implements. The educational process in a way has been disrupted, to begin anew.

The disruption is being seen as a nominal and necessary one, owing to the fact that progress has to be made. In fact, the advent of interactive learning has been found to be more effective over a larger educational grouping than other approaches.

Context of mediation and learning through computers

What can clearly be seen is the fact that there is a general scarcity of information when it comes to learning. All traditional approaches have been rendered obsolete with the birth of information technology potent enough to bear the weight of pedagogy.

In any case, the environment fostered remains important. According to Shaffer, there is actually a theoretical disagreement regarding the categories used:

“Cooperative learning, such theorists suggest, implies a shared purpose. Collaborative learning environments reflect the fundamentally social nature of the learning process, and the importance of developing contexts that foster constructive and productive interactions in support of learning--whether or not those interactions arise in the context of working towards a shared goal.”

Structure

The basic structuring of computer programs used in this manner is actually quite simple. There is a particular goal, which is marked as the basic end of a task.

A task is a set actually a set of goals to be accomplished over a period of time. Students are divided and teamed up. The navigation team is one responsible for determining the basic direction that all other teams should take.

In this manner, we can already see where the conflicting goals will come from. Indeed, cooperation and competitiveness will go hand in hand in the resolution and completion of the said tasks.