![](bg2.png)
criticism is born out of discussion and discussion is
only possible among equals, therefore, only
cooperation will realize what intellectual constraint
is incapable of realizing" (Piaget, 1994, p. 298-299).
Based on these conditions, it is understood that
to achieve the highest levels of autonomy
development, it is necessary that, throughout the
educational process, teachers and students take on
distinct actions in which the former must create for
the latter, ever more challenging situations for
resolution and development, offsetting practices
which are limited to reproduce or copy. The
intention is for the students to be able to support
their actions within the principles of critical thinking
about their own process. In this study, critical
thinking is considered as a sense of experience and
need for logical consistency that are placed in the
service of an autonomous reasoning, common to all
individuals and not depending on any external
authority (Piaget, 1998). Thus, social exchange acts
as a tool that encourages creativity and critical spirit.
The construction of critical spirit is fundamental to
the intellectual and social development of the
individual (Piaget, 1986). It is from the social
relations which follow the cognitive conflict that
subjects are enticed to question, doubt and criticize
the different points of view and from there are
motivated to propose solutions and alternatives that
are shown as more viable for conflict resolution.
This set of elements shows the complexity of
students' reflection, the complexity that is found in a
critical thought (Parrat-Dayan, 2007). Thus, Piaget’s
perspective (1986) indicates that pedagogical
practice must insist on the exchange of different
points of view in order to provide mutual enrichment
between subjects. Such a perspective consists of
leading each individual to think for themselves and
position themselves relative to another.
Different challenges can make the subject feel
the need to seek elements, information that will help
him/her to realize the given situation. The measure
to which the student can realize their limitations,
procure and articulate new information to enable
him/her to overcome the challenges posed is that we
can talk, beyond autonomy and critical thinking, of
learning to learn.
Piaget’s perspective (1973) on learning focuses
on the reflexive action of each individual with the
world and exchanges between individuals. For the
author, real learning is that which generates
knowledge.
It is noteworthy that, on a permanent basis, inter-
individual exchanges touch on the basic assumptions
of pedagogical practice highlighted in this study. In
this sense, each subject is responsible for their
production and learning and may ultimately
contribute to the learning and production of others,
since the interaction can enable favorable conditions
for this process. Hence the need for pedagogical
practice to consider and contemplate actions that
allow the articulation of the subject in collective
contexts.
This study understands the articulation of the
subject in collective contexts from the social
exchanges dealt with by Piaget (1973).
3 THE CONCEPTS NETWORK
TOOL
It is noteworthy that the focus of the problem
identified by teachers who utilize collective text
practices is the amount of time required to monitor
the high volume of data generated in the writing
construction process. It was at this point, from
numerous analyses and investigations that we chose
Text Mining technology for the development of the
tool, here called the Concepts Network, in order to
meet the demands posed.
When based on statistical methods, Text Mining
(Feldman and Sanger, 2006) depends on the
frequency with which the terms appear in the texts.
To generate the Concepts Network, the first
processing step comprises the lexical analysis, where
the produced text is broken down word by word.
Following this, all extracted concepts are subjected
to statistical analysis. At this point, based on the
statistical data, a base of concepts is created, which
will then assist in building the Network. In the next
step, the system removes words that do not add
meaning to the text, such as articles, conjunctions of
the verb to be and have, as well as pronouns. This
process was based on the method used by Schenker
(2003).
The representation of information extracted from
the texts requires specific data structures such as
Vector Space Model (VSM). The VSM-based
representation is basically a list of keywords
commonly used in Information Retrieval - IR –
(Greengrass, 2001). In the process of indexing, each
document is represented by a list of keywords. When
the user submits a query to the system, it is
converted also into a list of terms. Both lists
subsequently undergo a process of comparison,
using the scaling method (Russel and Norving,
2003). Thus, the search may return documents in
order of relevance and of similarity. However, the
VSM has, in its own model, some undesirable
CSEDU2012-4thInternationalConferenceonComputerSupportedEducation
72