Together on the Web

It is entirely appropriate that this month ’s column represents a collaboration. Karen Lunsford and I are working together to study how people—scientists, writ-ers, teachers, students—come together t o share their expertise, to construct something more than they might have alo ne, and to learn from one another in the process. As we collaborate, we learn a bout the process, just as we learn by seeing how others do it. In their collaborations, people increasing ly make use of new information and communication technologies to aug ment their work. Technologies have always been used to support collaboratio n: At one time these may have been marks on a log or jottings on paper. Mor e recently, we have seen telephones and e-mail as communication tools for colla boration, along with databases as in-formation tools. Notes taped to the refrig erator door must be one of the most powerful of these collaborative technologi es, if one can infer anything from the way such notes are relied on in so many ho mes and offices. Today, even more powerful collaboration tools are being developed and explored. These are coming together into s uites of tools that help create virtual workspaces. We take here a brief excursio n into some of these spaces with the aim of understanding how they may be ch anging the way people communicate, make meaning, and work together