Beehive-an Internet integrated collaborative learning environment

We aim at describing the building of educational software for collaborative learning based on Constructivism, using multimedia resources, having adults as its target public. The final product was a CD-ROM prototype of a learning environment to be used in connection with the Internet in order to socialize the students' synthesis based on questioning in the CD-ROM, to visualize the peers' contributions, to debate and clarify doubts and to pose new questions. First, we introduce the metaphor used in the application, the beehive. Next, we describe the connection of the collaborative learning approach to the use of an integrated system made by a CD-ROM and the Web for educational purposes. We then show the development of the environment based on the metaphor. Following this, we describe the prototype pages. Finally, we briefly mention the possible applications of the beehive metaphor and the integration of a multimedia CD-ROM with the Internet.