http://www.itd.cnr.it/page.php?ID=STELLARWorkshop&FlagSelected=en

Organizers
Francesca Pozzi and Donatella Persico
Istituto Tecnologie Didattiche (ITD) - CNR
Via De Marini 6 - 16149 Genova
Tel. +39.10.6475338 - Fax +39.10.6475300
Emails: (pozzi, persico)@itd.cnr.it

Scientific Committee (to be completed)
Ulriche Cress, Knowledge Media Research Center (KMRC), Germany
Thanasis Daradoumis, Department of Computer Science -Open University of Catalonia, Spain and Department of Cultural Informatics - University of the Aegean, Greece
Stavros Demetriadis, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Pierre Dillenbourg, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Suisse
Yannis Dimitriadis, University of Valladolid, Spain
Bernhard Ertl, Universität der Bundeswehr München, Germany
Patrick Jermann, École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, Suisse
Heinz Mandl, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Germany
Symeon Retalis, University of Piraeus - Department of Technology Education & Digital Systems, Greece
Armin Weinberger, Saarland University, Germany.

The STELLAR Alpine Rendez-Vous (March 28th - 31st, 2011, La Clusaz, France)
The Alpine Rendez-Vous (ARV) is an event supported by the STELLAR Network of Excellence (www.stellarnet.eu), aimed at building a Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) researcher capacity at European level. The ARV is an atypical, informal gathering, lasting three and a half days. It is composed of a set of independent workshops located at the same time in the same hotel. Four workshops run in parallel during the first part of the ARV and four during the second part. It's called "Rendez-Vous" because shared events are organized in the middle of the week (Tuesday evening) and because breaks and meals are set up in a way that promotes informal encounters between participants from the different workshops. Finally, it is called "Alpine" because it gathers scientists in the Alps, away from their workplace routines, in a place where snow is used as "social facilitator." For more information about the ARV 2011, see http://www.stellarnet.eu/programme/wp3/rendez-vous

Workshop description
This workshop will take place during  the first part of the ARV 2011, on March 28th and 29th,  and is entitled "Structuring online collaboration through 3Ts: Task, Time and Teams". The workshop intends to bring together researchers (not necessarily STELLAR members) who have worked on the general issue of "structuring online collaboration" with different approaches, be it collaboration techniques, strategies, scripts, content schemes, or any other type of structuring technique.
In order to allow and foster a productive discussion, in this workshop we propose to regard Task, Teams and Time as fundamental components to structure students' activities. The idea is to look at the 3Ts as the main dimensions along which structure can be provided to scaffold interactions among learners. From this point of view, we propose that the 3Ts should be considered as a unifying and common backbone for a discussion among people who traditionally orient their research efforts towards different design approaches.
Workshop participants are expected to express  their opinion and vision about the 3Ts and their power to represent in a complete and functional way the different structuring techniques.

The workshop aims to gather scattered research results and identify possible joint research frameworks addressing the following issues:
- Role of the 3Ts in structured collaboration (i.e. connecting learners through the 3Ts):

- looking insidel each T (identifying subcomponents to scaffold collaboration, understanding 3Ts'  nature and reciprocal influences, etc.);
- relationships between instructional design approaches and 3Ts; 
- representational issues related to the 3Ts' structure (textual format, IMS LD, patterns or swimlane description, etc.).

- Orchestrating learning through the 3Ts:

- freedom and constraints of orchestrating the 3Ts;
- teacher's role in orchestrating the 3Ts;
- computer's role in orchestrating the 3Ts;
- students' role in controlling  the Ts.

The workshop activities are therefore framed within an intersection of the two STELLAR Grand Challenges, "Connecting learners" and "Orchestrating learning", as these have been defined in STELLAR (see http://www.stellarnet.eu/programme/wp1/).
The workshop will provide input to the Grand Challenges by formulating a joint vision of the participants on the issue "structuring online collaboration" and by proposing a set of "Small or Medium Challenges"  that participants deem worth tackling in the near future.

Workshop format
The workshop will take the form of a blended event, composed of a preliminary online session and a main face-to-face session (to be held at the ARV).
In particular, before the ARV, a virtual event will be held by using the STELLAR communication platform TELeurope.  A discussion group will be created, launched and managed by the workshop organizers and will involve all the perspective participants and Scientific Committee members. Through this facility, workshop participants will be able to share some materials (abstracts of their presentations and/or previously published papers), which will be used during the face-to-face event as a common background. The face-to-face event at the ARV will start from a re-elaboration by the organizers of the concepts and ideas emerged within the TELeurope group. This will allow participants to have an immediate overall view of the issue and of how their work can be collocated within the other participants' vision.

Call for Participation
Interested researchers, practitioners and educators are warmly invited to submit a proposal to pozzi@itd.cnr.it and persico@itd.cnr.it by October 31st, 2010, through the ad hoc application form (downloadable at http://www.itd.cnr.it/page.php?ID=STELLARWorkshop&FlagSelected=en).
You do not have to be a STELLAR member to respond to this call and apply for financial support (see next section).
Each proposal will consist of an abstract, which should indicate which type of participation is envisaged (see below - Discussant or Presenter).

Discussant: Discussants are those who are interested in the topic "structuring online collaboration"  and are developing some experience about it. Their application (see application form at http://www.itd.cnr.it/page.php?ID=STELLARWorkshop&FlagSelected=en) should include a summary of their background and prior relevant experience and their objectives in participating in this workshop, as well as their position with respect to the three Ts approach.

Presenter: Presenters are people who have developed extensive experience in the field and wish to contribute to the workshop with a short presentation of their work and/or proposals that might help setting the stage for the workshop activities. To this end, Presenters may also bring to the workshop any material they believe might serve as a bases for further activities, such as, for example, transcripts of online interactions between students, content schemes, CSCL software, provided that they are understandable to an English speaking audience. Their application (see application form at http://www.itd.cnr.it/page.php?ID=STELLARWorkshop&FlagSelected=en) should include the same information required to the Discussants plus an abstract of their presentation.

Output of the workshop
The organizers are willing to make an effort for the workshop outcomes to take the form of some publishable output (journal special issue or book). However, this possibility is subject to participants' willingness and interest.  This matter will therefore be discussed during the workshop itself.

Important dates
Deadline for applications: October 31st, 2010
Notification of acceptance: November 30th, 2010
Workshop online preparation session: Early March, 2011
Workshop dates: March 28th  and 29th, 2011
ARV 2010: March 28th- 31st, 2011

Financial aspects
STELLAR will be able to fund food and lodging for 3 nights as well as the community event on Tuesday, March 29th for 10 selected participants (regardless of whether they are STELLAR members or not). Traveling expenses are to be paid by individual participants.

Location
The third biennial ARV will take place in the French Alps in the Massif des Arravis at a beautiful ski resort called La Clusaz (hotel Alpen Roc): http://www.laclusaz.com/hiver-winter10/index.php?lang=_uk
There will be some free time in the afternoons for TEL community building during winter activities.