Integrating the CSCL Activities into Virtual Campuses: Foundations of a new Infrastructure for Distributed Collective Activities

The integration of CSCL tools inside larger platforms like Virtual Campuses is often impossible. To overcome this problem, our general assumption is that they need a common theoretical framework for their design. In this context and turning our interest into the Activity Theory, we aim at providing new systems foundations supporting large varieties of learning modes, trying to capture the contributions of the human sciences. This has been concretised in the DARE system. DARE supports the coconstructive, expansive and experience crystallization properties of human activity. It introduces a meta-level architecture supporting Distributed Collective Activities and featuring a generic activitysupport model, its meta-model, a component approach, and a distributed architecture. This provides a distributed environment where the supports for learning activities and their associated meta-activities are cohabiting, thus aiming at facilitating the development of meta-cognitive skills.