Iterative Design of a Labelling Feature: Supporting Online Learning through Structuring the User Interface
Abstract: Online dialogue holds promise to support high-level dialogue by allowing for more reflective reading and writing, but can be superficial just as in face-to-face conversations. This paper describes the design of a labelling feature intended to improve the quality of dialogue students write, n=53 participants (phase one) and n=est. 55 participants (phase two). The labeling feature was designed drawing on sentence-openers (i.e. Ravenscroft, 2001; Soller, 2004; and Jeong, 2004) and on in-line labeling features (Scardamalia & Bereiter; Hewitt.) It was first developed into vBulletin. It allows users to enter in shorthand acronyms for communicative phrases such as “Building on your point”. Students make suggestions for labels for the following term (following a socio-cultural Vygotskian framework). Now we are re-designing the feature as an add-on to Moodle, in conjunction with Marginalia, an annotation tool implementing the key features of TextWeaver (Xin & Feenberg, 2005).