Karen Littleton is a Lecturer in Psychology at The Open University. Her previous publications include Cultural Worlds of Early Childhood (1998), Learning Relationships in the Classroom (1998), Making Sense of Social Development (1998) (all edited with Martin Woodhead and Dorothy Faulkner)., Paul Light is Pro-Vice Chancellor at Bournemouth University. His previous publications include Learning to Think (1991) (edited with Sue Sheldon and Martin Woodhead) and Growing up in a Changing Society (1991) and Becoming a Person (1991) edited with Martin Woodhead and Ronnie Carr.

• Chapter 1 Introduction, Paul Light, Karen Littleton; Chapter 2 Task effects on co-operative and collaborative learning with computers, Jean Underwood, Geoffrey Underwood; Chapter 3 Productive interaction in the context of computer-supported collaborative learning in science, Christine Howe, Andrew Tolmie; Chapter 4 Time-based analysis of students studying the Periodic Table, Kim Issroff; Chapter 5 Collaborations in a primary classroom, Eileen Scanlon, Kim Issroff, Patricia Murphy; Chapter 6 Is ‘exploratory talk’ productive talk?, Neil Mercer, Rupert Wegerif; Chapter 7 Computers in the community of classrooms, Charles Crook; Chapter 8, Danièle Golay Schilter, Jean-François Perret, Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont, Franco de Guglielmo; Chapter 9, Roger Säljö; Chapter 10, Paul Light, Vivienne Light; Chapter 11 Productivity through interaction, Karen Littleton;