Introduction of Synchronous Peer Collaboration Activities in a Distance Learning Course

This paper presents the main findings, and lessons learned, from introducing a synchronous peer collaboration activity in a distance learning computer science course. Synergo, a software that supports such an approach, was used in this activity. The organizational, technical, and academic challenges of introducing this activity in the course are discussed. After analyzing the students´ interaction and their opinions, and evaluating the final results, it was found that this activity was received positively by the group of students concerned, who engaged in peer tutoring and used this as an opportunity to break the isolation of the distance learning setting and to forge links with each other.