Collaborative and Cross-Modal Accomplishment of Practical Accord in a Video-Mediated Learning Situation

Carrying out collaborative activities in video-mediated learning settings requires constant interactional work to maintain alignment between participants’ actions and the use of virtual and material artifacts (also known as ‘practical accord’). This study uses screen recorded data and multimodal conversation analysis (CA) to present a case analysis of an extended sequence in interaction where a group of learners has been divided into two groups, and they encounter a difficulty in sharing materials with each other during a momentary breakdown of the learning platform. The analysis shows how the teacher and learners deploy multiple channels of communication, including spoken interaction, the chat interface and WhatsApp, to accomplish practical accord in a progress-wise manner. It is also shown how verbal (i.e., both spoken and written) and embodied resources are coordinated from the moment when the trouble emerges to the point when a solution is found. The study highlights the accomplishment of practical accord as a complex cross-modal process where collaborative practices are key. The findings have implications for both research and teaching, as they can help design tasks for online learning.