Computer Support for Knowledge-Building Communities

In this article we focus on educational ideas and enabling technology for knowledge-building discourse. The conceptual bases of computer-supported intentional learning environments (CSILE) come from research on intentional learning, process aspects of expertise, and discourse in knowledge-building communities. These bases combine to support the following propositions: Schools need to be restructured as communities in which the construction of knowledge is supported as a collective goal, and the role of educational technology should be to replace classroom discourse patterns with those having more immediate and natural extensions to knowledge-building communities outside school walls. CSILE is described as a means for refraining classroom discourse to support knowledge building in ways extensible to out-of-school knowledgeadvancing enterprises. Some of the most fundamental problems are logistic, and it is in solving these logistic problems that we see the greatest potential for educational technology.