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the forum. This will help students to share documents and to perform collaborative
tasks. Also they can use the chat activity to inform others about what are they doing in
the system.
To share documents, a database can be used. This activity provides means to
upload and store resources. Students could see documents uploaded by other students.
To communicate with others, students can use the chat activity. Through this activity,
they are able to express their ideas and to inform the group about his activities in the
collaborative task. There, students can notify when they upload documents to the
database activity. Analyzed activity involves to share pictures and to discuss with
other students about those pictures. Therefore, two windows are needed in order to be
aware about the pictures and the chat. The main activity window is in the background.
In the foreground, are used the database window and the chat window. But there are
problems related with these activities. In collaborative tasks students need to be aware
about what is going on, that is, what other students are doing within the objects
involved in the collaborative activity. In the described scenario, users must be paying
constant attention to the chat window and the database window. Also, users have to
follow several steps to upload images into the database and they have to repeat each
step in case they want to upload more than one image. This may cause user’s
frustration and demotivation.
3 Drag and Share on Moodle
One solution to share resources within Moodle synchronously and in real-time is to
integrate Drag&Share as an activity in Moodle. Therefore, teachers will be able to
include as many shared workspaces as they want, according to their needs. To achieve
this, we have developed a module called dragandshare. It is based in standard
technologies and does not need any special software to be installed in the client
system. It is very easy to include this activity in a course. Teachers only have to
follow the same steps needed to add other activities to their courses. Drag&Share for
Moodle is a module that allows students to share documents in real-time as an activity
in Moodle. They can also communicate with each other easily through the means
provided by the system. Students interact with the system dragging documents inside
the shared workspace from anywhere in his computer. They act as they were working
within his operative system, following the same principles. They can easily move
documents, show and organize them as they want. Also, they can delete documents.
All this actions can be done easily through the metaphors presented in the shared
workspace. As a result of the features presented by Drag&Share, collaboration takes
place in one window. On that window is shown the shared workspace. There, users
are represented, as well as the shared documents, the action metaphors and the
communication system. Users are represented through the multi-pointer system. Their
movements are shown to other students in real-time. So, they are aware about the
actions performed by other students. Documents are represented in the shared
workspace with a correspondent metaphor. If the document is a picture, a preview is
shown. Students may open documents and show their content dragging them to the
corresponding metaphor. But through the representation of the document in the shared
workspace, students are able to know the contents of the document before opening it.
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