Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning with Mind-Maps

Collaborative learning is a set of various approaches in education that involve joint intellectual effort by students or students and teachers. It opposed to the traditional 'direct transmission' model, in which learners are assumed to be passive, receptive, isolated receivers of knowledge and skills delivered by an external source. Today Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) is actively developed to support collaborative learning process with the help of modern information and communication technologies. Mindmaps is one of the wide-known learning technique which can be used in CSCL. In this paper we present new mindmaps Web-based tool Comapping, which provides a wide variety of ways to organize collaborative processes in education. We also describe our experiments with applying the CSLC-paradigm using Comapping while teaching Software Engineering in Saint Petersburg State University.