e-Underline: a tool to support collaborative learning

In the present work, after having quickly analysed the new orientations in the e-learning field, and how the Web 2.0 applications are changing models, technologies and tools in educational contexts, a tool called e-underline, designed to be integrated in a learning network is described. The aim of this tool is to extract from a text the most important information units by underlining them, as it is done in the study processes on paper support, in order to record and remember them over the time, and whenever one will refer to the resource. The tool allows the learner who uses a Learning Object of textual nature to underline some relevant traits, and to give them one or several keywords to facilitate a better classification and a more immediate retrieving later. The tool requires that the underlining activity and the allocation of keywords done by the learner is notified to all the other learners who share the learning environment and to the teacher through an e-mail, in order to favour negotiation forms of knowledge for the construction of networked learning in a collaborative way according to the constructivist model. The present work aims to be the starting point for the development of environments and tools in 2.0 optics able to supplement well-established patterns of formal learning schemes with informal and spontaneous modes to facilitate the shared construction of knowledge