Towards e-tutors training in on-line collaborative learning

Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning (CSCL) systems not only enable group learning independently of students' location and time, but also foster the development of leadership abilities. However, given that interactions that promote learning do not occur spontaneously, the participation of tutors is needed to promote students' interactions and resolve group conflicts. Even when the tasks of a teacher in a virtual environment are not an extension of their tasks in traditional classrooms, teachers tend to use in e-learning contexts the same practices they use in traditional education. Considering that the skills of an e-tutor in CSCL belong to the category of acquired skills, we propose to develop an application aiming at training e-tutors in these skills. With this purpose in mind, we reviewed existing automatic techniques for analyzing student-teachers' interactions, as well as teachers' roles, activities and competences in the context of CSCL. We present in this article a review of the state of the arte in these areas.