ABSTRACT
Dialogic learning is a theoretical framework for knowledge building in collaborative learning (Koschmann, 1999; Stahl, 2009; Trausan-Matu, 2010), based on Mikhail Bakhtin’s dialogism and polyphony (Bakhtin, 1981, 1984). Dialogic learning is specific to dialogs using natural language, both face-to-face and, in recent years, through virtual collaboration in Computer Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) using instant messaging (chat) on Internet and other facilities of the social web, such as discussion forums, wikis, blogs, etc. Moreover, many Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were launched, which may include collaborative sessions. In this new context, learning is a combination of individual reading, thinking, choices and action, according to individual personalities and, simultaneously, collaboration with other learners through dialogs including debates, facilitated by instant communication and other social web facilities. However, in order to induce a dialogic style of learning, special attention should be paid to designing the debates according to the idea of fostering multivocality and interanimation, in a polyphonic way, which, as it will be discussed herein, is a model for complex human collaboration and, as Bakhtin affirmed, is in fact present in the whole of human life and experience (Bakhtin, 1984, p. 42).
