A framework for the development of educacional-collaborative applications based on social constructivism [educacional read educational]

We present a new telematic-educational framework for the development of educational applications for co-operative work. It has three layers: the first one is called the co-operative layer and it describes a work group environment; the second one is called the constructivist layer and it deals with telematic support for the constructivist and co-operative principles of learning; and the third one is called the situation layer and includes a series of metaphor-based individual and co-operative activities for the teaching-learning process. We also present a description of three telematic educational applications based on the framework. These applications are currently being used in a real class environment and are allowing us to validate both the design and the usefulness of the framework.