Cognitive Tools and Mindtools for Collaborative Learning

When a computer-based tool or application is used to carry out a specific task in a learning situation—that is, it is used for learning—more effectively or efficiently one speaks of learning with the tool or application. When, possibly, that same tool or application is used to enhance the way a learner works and thinks, and as such has effects that reach further than the learning situation in which it is used, then one speaks of learning from the tool or application. This article concentrates on the latter. It zooms in on the use of mindtools in education—computer programs and applications that facilitate meaningful professional thinking and working—because this is the epitome of learning from ICT. Mindtools and cognitive tools help users represent what they know as they transform information into knowledge and are used to engage in, and facilitate, critical thinking and higher order learning. These tools can be as simple as email and or discussion lists and as complicated as argument mapping and visualization systems. Even more specifically, it deals with one category of such tools, namely conversation tools; tools used to create and facilitate the establishment of technology-supported discourse communities—communities of practice—where collaboration can flourish.