Supporting Out-of-class Interaction among Learners with InCircle

This paper describes the development and evaluation of a chat system called InCircle. It is widely recognized in Japan that in-class learning time is far from sufficient in higher education, and it is highly necessary to promote out-of-class learning. In recent years, with the spreads of educational application of SNS (social network services), student-centred collaborative learning environment has been drawing attention. InCircle was introduced in a language and culture class at university in Japan in order to boost up out-of-class interaction among students and to enhance learning opportunities out-of-class. The result of the pilot evaluation showed that the number of the students' posting dramatically increased, while its out-of-class use was not active as expected.