Supporting Online Collaborative Mathematical Exploration: Studying the Development of Collective Knowledge within Math-Towers

Math-Towers is a collaborative mathematics environment for pupils in grades 7 to 9. Using a fantasy adventure game context, students are presented with a mathematical challenge, given online tools for working on the problem, and provided with a messaging system by which they may exchange ideas and partial solutions. This paper presents the philosophy behind the design of Math-Towers and, using a complexity science framework, explores the extent to which it has been successful in meeting goals. The technical and social problems encountered and revisions made to address these are also described. tion” shows over 14 million pages, but when “collaborative” is added as a search term the number of hits drops to just over 140 thousand; a reduction by a factor of 100. Examining a sample of the listed sites shows that in fact many do present interesting mathematical explorations, often supported by online tools that permit visitors to manipulate objects and adjust parameters, observe the effects, and make mathematical conjectures. But, these sites rarely provide tools that allow users to share their thoughts and collectively build solutions to the problems presented. Synchronous online communication tools such as text chat (Stahl, Ou, Cakir, Weimar, & Goggins, 2010), and voice and application sharing (Roulet, Mackrell, Taylor, & Farahani, 2004) have been successfully employed to build DOI: 10.4018/jea.2011040104 28 International Journal of E-Adoption, 3(2), 27-36, April-June 2011 Copyright © 2011, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited. computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) spaces (Lehtinen, 2003) for mathematics, but in the asynchronous mode significant problems arise. Nason and Woodruff (2004) argue that most school mathematics problems do not engage students in extended conversations and online collaborative learning environments do not support the simple exchange of mathematical ideas in symbol or image forms. The Math-Towers site (www.math-towers.ca) is an attempt to address these two issues and provide online collaborative mathematical explorations for students in grades 7 to 9 (ages 12 to 14 years).