Scaffolding wiki‐supported collaborative learning for small‐group projects and whole‐class collaborative knowledge building

While educators value wikis' potential, wikis may fail to support collaborative constructive learning without careful scaffolding. This article proposes literature‐based instructional methods, revised based on two expert instructors' input, presents the collected empirical evidence on the effects of these methods and proposes directions for future refinements. The instructional methods were implemented by an expert instructor teaching a 12‐week 68‐student undergraduate design class in Canada. Data were collected from observations, interviews and content analysis of wikis. The findings revealed that in small‐group project (SGP), the wiki instructional methods enhanced collaborative learning with most instructional methods derived from cooperative learning, but in whole‐class collaborative knowledge building (CKB), the wiki instructional mehtods failed to turn the class into a self‐sustained learning community after the scaffolding faded. We conclude that the genre of wikis should be different for SGP and CKB. While the students easily adopted the ‘reproduced’ genre of wikis for SGP with familiar tasks, they felt overwhelmed or resistant to the unfamiliar ‘emergent’ genre of wikis for CKB in massive collaborative constructive learning. Therefore, we propose that future refinements for wiki‐supported CKB should focus on providing students scaffolding for intersubjectivity (understanding collaborative constructive learning) and transfer of responsibility (developing autonomy).     

Efficiency of learning environment using GeoGebra when calculus contents are learned in collaborative groups

In this paper we present a modern approach of teaching mathematics based on the computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) of calculus contents. The collaborative learning was used in calculus course at the University of Novi Sad, Serbia, for examining functions and drawing their graphs. In 2012 the authors decided to improve the collaborative learning introducing GeoGebra application. Small four member groups were formed by using Kagan's (1994) principles. Two groups of students, the experimental, and the control one were observed. The students in the experimental group learned with the help of GeoGebra, and the students in the control group learned without using GeoGebra.Comparison between those two groups of the first year calculus students, regarding their way of learning and the results achieved, is described below. Before the students' collaborative learning, they were tested with a pre-test and their knowledge necessary for examining functions was verified. The pre-test showed that there was no significant statistical difference between the experimental and the control group. The experimental group worked with the help of the computer and the control one without it. After the collaborative learning, the students were tested with a test (colloquium) and the results of the experimental group were significantly better than the results of students in the control group. At the end of the course the students did their exams (post-test), and the results of the experimental group were significantly better than the results of students in the control group.Some students from the experimental group had to answer questions in an interview related to the use of GeoGebra during their collaborative learning. In order to see the students' difficulties in solving problems, students in the experimental group were asked to cross out incorrect parts of solutions, not to erase them. The teachers reviewed the students' tasks done during the collaborative learning and after that the students who had corrected their mistakes were invited for an interview about using GeoGebra for overcoming their difficulties. Based on the students' results in the tests, answers in the questionnaire and in the interview, it can be concluded that GeoGebra has enabled an easier learning of this material. The GeoGebra package enables the students to check whether each step in the process of solving a task was correctly done or not. The results of our research show that GeoGebra can help those students having insufficient knowledge (necessary for solving those tasks) to improve it.We can say that our research shows that the students' learning achievement in examining functions and drawing their graphs is better when they use GeoGebra, working in collaborative groups than without using it. Also, GeoGebra enables creation of effective learning environment for examining functions and drawing their graphs.     

Utilizing Wiki-Systems in higher education classes: a chance for universal access?

Wikis are a website technology for mass collaborative authoring. Today, wikis are increasingly used for educational purposes. Basically, the most important asset of wikis is free and easy access for end users: everybody can contribute, comment and edit—following the principles of Universal access. Consequently, wikis are ideally suited for collaborative learning and a number of studies reported a great success of wikis in terms of active participation, collaboration, and a rapidly growing content. However, the wikis success in education was often linked either to direct incentives or even pressure. This paper strongly argues that this contradicts the original intentions of wikis and, furthermore, weakens the psycho-pedagogical impact. A study is presented which focuses on investigating the success of wikis in higher education, when students are neither enforced to contribute nor directly rewarded similar to the principles of Wikipedia. Amazingly, the results show that, in total, none of the N = 287 students created new articles or edited existing ones during a whole semester. It is concluded that the use of Wiki-Systems in educational settings is much more complicated, and it needs more time to develop a kind of “give-and-take” generation.     

Re-embodying Online Composition: Ecologies of Writing in Unreal Time and Space

Using the ecological theories of writing proposed by Marilyn Cooper's “The Ecology of Writing” (1986) and Margaret Syverson's The Wealth of Reality: An Ecology of Composition (1999), this article describes a multi-step assignment sequence designed to engage online first year composition students across the ecological breadth of their writing and learning environments. The goal of the project is twofold: enriching students’ writing processes with a sophisticated understanding of the social situatedness of knowledge and rhetoric, we can simultaneously create high-functioning learning communities in an otherwise disembodied online learning space, not by upgrading our technological tools but by pedagogically guiding learners toward ecological and productively collaborative interactions with one another.     

The effect of reflective learning e-journals on reading comprehension and communication in language learning

This study focused on the use of reflective learning e-journals in a university web-based English as a foreign language (EFL) course. In the study, a multimedia-based English programme comprising fifteen different units was delivered online as a one-semester instructional course. Ninety-eight undergraduate students participated, and they were divided into two groups: the treatment group used reflective learning e-journals, while the control group completed content-related exercises. The study investigated the effects of reflective learning e-journals and how students used them to aid learning. Results show that when learning from web-based instruction, students who used reflective learning e-journals outperformed students who did not do so in terms of reading comprehension. Using reflective e-journals improved the academic performance of learners in the online course. In addition, journal writing students claimed that they also improved their organisational skills and writing abilities through their reflective learning e-journal writing and found the journal writing to be a very helpful tool in reviewing the course and preparing for the exam.     

Teaching with Wikis: Toward a Networked Pedagogy

Computers and writing scholarship is increasingly turning towards the network as a potential pedagogical model, one in which writing is intimately connected to its social contexts. The use of wikis in first-year composition classes can support this networked pedagogy. More specifically, due to unique features such as editability and detailed page histories, wikis can challenge a number of traditional pedagogical assumptions about the teaching of writing. This article shows how wikis can challenge assumptions in four categories of interest to composition studies: new media composition, collaborative writing, critical interaction, and online authority. The analysis demonstrates that wikis, while not automatically revolutionary to composition pedagogy, hold significant potential to help facilitate pedagogical changes.     

Wiki-supported collaborative learning in primary education: How a dialogic space is created for thinking together

This paper explores how wikis may be used to support primary education students’ collaborative interaction and how such an interaction process can be characterised. The overall aim of this study is to analyse the collaborative processes of students working together in a wiki environment, in order to see how primary students can actively create a shared context for learning in the wiki. Educational literature has already reported that wikis may support collaborative knowledge-construction processes, but in our study we claim that a dialogic perspective is needed to accomplish this. Students must develop an intersubjective orientation towards each others’ perspectives, to co-construct knowledge about a topic. For this purpose, our project utilised a ‘Thinking Together’ approach to help students develop an intersubjective orientation towards one another and to support the creation of a ‘dialogic space’ to co-construct new understanding in a wiki science project. The students’ asynchronous interaction process in a primary classroom—which led to the creation of a science text in the wiki—was analysed and characterised, using a dialogic approach to the study of CSCL practices. Our results illustrate how the Thinking Together approach became embedded within the wiki environment and in the students’ collaborative processes. We argue that a dialogic approach for examining interaction can be used to help design more effective pedagogic approaches related to the use of wikis in education and to equip learners with the competences they need to participate in the global knowledge-construction era.     

Promoting collaborative skills in online university: comparing effects of games,mixed reality,social media,and other tools for ICT-supported pedagogical practices

ABSTRACT

This article analyses the development of collaborative skills through nine tools for information and communication technologies (ICT)-supported pedagogical practices, which are used in online universities. Using survey data for 930 online students at the Open University of Catalonia and partial least squares path modelling estimation techniques, three main findings emerged from the study. First, collaborative skills are directly explained by gamification and the use of mixed reality and social media in a socio-technical online learning context. Second, other tools for ICT-supported pedagogical practices (media content, wikis, open educational resources, personal webpages, personal cloud, and sharing files with fellow students and lecturers on the cloud) are not significant on collaborative skills development, when compared to use of games, mixed reality, and social media. Third, the analysis of indirect effects suggests that all four socio-technical factors (ICT, learning tasks, students, and organisation) existing in online university play a decisive, positive and significant role in collaborative skills development. Finally, these results are shown in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM studies. Thus, gamification, mixed reality, and sharing files are significant ICT-supported pedagogical practices in STEM studies. On the other hand, gamification is the only significant tool in non-STEM studies. Results are very useful for new approaches to design a framework for learning-team effectiveness in computer-supported collaborative learning.     

Examining effectiveness of communities of practice in online English for academic purposes (EAP) assessment in virtual classes

The literature on English for academic purposes (EAP) methodology highlights the significance of learners' engagement in learning language (Hyland, 2006) in mainstream general and online contexts. Blogs have been recommended in many studies as having the potential to bring the sense of community and collaboration in online classes. Therefore, this study sought to investigate whether blogs in large classes would help students enhance their perceptions of learning. To this end, Forty-two undergraduate students of Information Technology (IT) at an Iranian university participated in a weblog writing course in order to promote collaboration and reflective learning. Instrumentation included a questionnaire of perceived learning and sense of community, semi-structured interviews, and participant observations. The findings revealed a significant difference in perceived learning between the students with low sense of community and those with a high sense of community. Based on the qualitative findings of the study, we suggest an assessment framework incorporating constructivist and social-interactionist theories of learning in order to treat students as members of a community of learning. The findings may promise implications for gearing EAP assessment to more collaborative modes in online courses and suggest a model framework for the assessment of students in EAP online classes.     

Exploring relationship between students’ questioning behaviors and inquiry tasks in an online forum through analysis of ideational function of questions

In this study we explored questioning behaviors among elementary students engaging in inquiry science using the Knowledge Forum, a computer-supported collaborative learning tool. Adapting the theory of systemic functional linguistics, we developed the Ideational Function of Question (IFQ) analytical framework by means of inductive analysis of the questions found in 10 online forums contributed by three classes of Year 4 elementary school students and their teachers. We found 25 categories of questions which we grouped into three main kinds: Scientific, Epistemological, and Meta-discoursal. We then narrowed our analysis to three forums involving digestive systems. Using the IFQ framework, we explored the relationship between nature of inquiry task and students’ questioning behaviors. Our analysis shows that for close-ended task that sought scientific facts from authoritative sources, students tended to ask only scientific questions. For open-ended problem-solving task that demanded epistemic justification from the students, there was more even distribution in all three kinds of questions.     

Wiki as a collaborative writing tool in teacher education: Evaluation and suggestions for effective use

Wiki technology provides new opportunities to foster collaborative writing in teacher education. To empirically evaluate the level of collaborative writing in a wiki-based environment, this article used three methods and their combination. The first method was the history function that records all students’ actions, enabling to trace all changes made in the wikis. The actions were analyzed in terms of number and percentage of contribution using a taxonomy categorized by 10 editorial types. The second method examined comments posted on the wiki discussion page to evaluate the level of collaboration. The third method provided feedback on the level of collaboration by means of peer assessment. The results show important differences in the types of contributions across the categories investigated. The results also reveal that the level of collaborative writing was lower than expected. Possible factors that may influence wiki-based collaborative writing are discussed. Finally, suggestions for effective use of wikis as collaborative writing tools in teacher education conclude the article.     

Effects of a collaborative annotation method on students’ learning and learning-related motivation and affect

Two studies tested the effectiveness of a web-based collaborative annotation system (Hy-Lighter) for learning comprehension, and learning-related affect and motivation. In an undergraduate course setting, students (N = 27) in study 1, (1) highlighted and annotated selected articles, and (2) highlighted and annotated selected articles and reviewed peer highlights and annotations. In a graduate course setting, students (N = 40) in study 2, (1) highlighted and annotated selected articles, and (2) highlighted and annotated selected articles and reviewed peer highlights and annotations. Control groups in both studies read a hard copy of the articles -without using HyLighter and engaging in its associated annotation practices. The main dependent variables included: (a) performance on quizzes, and (b) a number of affective and motivational variables related to reading assignments and academic success. Although not statistically significant, summative assessment scores were higher for students using HyLigther relative to the ones exposed to conventional instruction. HyLighter use also seemed to be associated with more positive affect in undergraduate students relative to their graduate counterparts. Somewhat equivocal findings between the two studies were attributed to the differential implementation of the software in and outside of the classroom. Recommendations for optimal use and desired outcomes were advanced.     

Tracing knowledge co-evolution in a realistic course setting: A wiki-based field experiment

The co-evolution model of collaborative knowledge building by Cress and Kimmerle (2008) assumes that cognitive and social processes interact when users build knowledge with shared digital artifacts. While these assumptions have been tested in various lab experiments, a test under natural field conditions in educational settings has not been conducted. Here, we present a field experiment where we triggered knowledge co-evolution in an accommodation and an assimilation condition, and measured effects on student knowledge building outside the laboratory in the context of two university courses. Therefore, 48 students received different kinds of prompts that triggered external accommodation and assimilation while writing a wiki text. Knowledge building was measured with a content analysis of the students' texts and comments (externalization), and with concept maps and association tests (internalization). The findings reveal that (a) different modes of externalization (accommodation and assimilation) could be triggered with prompts, (b) across both conditions, this externalization co-occurred with internalization (student learning), and (c) there is some evidence that external assimilation and accommodation had differential effects on internal assimilation and accommodation. Thus, the field experiment supports the assumptions of the co-evolution model in a realistic course setting. On a more general note, the study provides an example of how wikis can be used successfully for collaborative knowledge building within educational contexts.     

Scalability of assessments of wiki-based learning experiences in higher education

In recent years, the focus on higher education learning has shifted from knowledge to skills, with interpersonal skills likely being the most difficult to assess and work with. Wikis ease open collaboration among peers. A number of these skills can be objectively assessed by using wikis in an educational environment: collaborative writing, conflict resolution, group management, leadership, etc. However, when the number of students increases, their interactions usually increase at a higher rate. Under these circumstances, traditional assessment procedures suffer from scalability problems: manually evaluating in detail the information stored in a wiki to retrieve objective metrics becomes a complex and time-consuming task. Thus, automated tools are required to support the assessment of such processes. In this paper we compare seven case studies conducted in Computer Science courses of two Spanish universities: Cádiz and Seville. We comment on their different settings: durations, milestones, contribution sizes, weights in the final grade and, most importantly, their assessment methods. We discuss and compare the different methodologies and tools used to assess the desired skills in the context of each case study.     

Discovering the campus together: A mobile and computer-based learning experience

One of the most relevant difficulties faced by first-year undergraduate students is to settle into the educational environment of universities. This paper presents a case study that proposes a computer-assisted collaborative experience designed to help students in their transition from high school to university. This is done by facilitating their first contact with the campus and its services, the university community, methodologies and activities. The experience combines individual and collaborative activities, conducted in and out of the classroom, structured following the Jigsaw Collaborative Learning Flow Pattern. A specific environment including portable technologies with network and computer applications has been developed to support and facilitate the orchestration of a flow of learning activities into a single integrated learning setting. The result is a Computer Supported Collaborative Blended Learning scenario that has been evaluated with first-year university students of the degrees of Software and Audiovisual Engineering within the subject Introduction to Information and Communications Technologies. The findings reveal that the scenario improves significantly students’ interest in their studies and their understanding about the campus and services provided. The environment is also an innovative approach to successfully support the heterogeneous activities conducted by both teachers and students during the scenario. This paper introduces the goals and context of the case study, describes how the technology was employed to conduct the learning scenario, the evaluation methods and the main results of the experience.     

Toward a Complexity of Online Learning: Learners in Online First-Year Writing

In response to the growing presence of online first-year writing courses, this paper describes a case study of two online first-year writing courses and addresses the questions: What do students in an online first-year writing course perceive as good study habits, and what helps them succeed? Data includes surveys, online discussions, course management statistics, and selected interviews. The study is supported by social cognitive theory described by psychologist Albert Bandura; this methodology allows for examination of internal, external, and behavioral characteristics of participating students. Results of the study indicate that students who rated themselves as making good use of study time also succeeded in the course. Insights from students include information about study activities, management of study time, access to technology, and attitudes about online courses. A surprising result of the study was that students did not consider communication with peers as a productive study activity, despite a deliberate attempt by instructors to build peer interaction into the course. Yet students also reported high levels of engagement and positive attitudes about online learning. The social cognitive lens provides helpful insights about these complex findings by examining the external, internal, and behavioral aspects of online first-year writing students in this study.     

A web based collaborative testing environment

This paper presents a computer supported collaborative testing system built upon the Siette web-based assessment environment. The application poses the same set of questions to a group of students. Each student in the group should answer the same question twice. An initial response is given individually, without knowing the answers of others. Then the system provides some tools to show the other partners' responses, to support distance collaboration. Finally a second individual answer is requested. In this way assessment and collaboration activities are interlaced. At the end of a collaborative testing session, each student will have two scores: the initial score and the final score. Three sets of experiments have been carried out: (1) a set of experiments designed to evaluate and fine tune the application, improve usability, and to collect users' feelings and opinions about the system; (2) a second set of experiments to analyze the impact of collaboration in test results, comparing individual and group performance, and analyzing the factors that correlate to those results; and (3) a set of experiments designed to measure individual short-term learning directly related to the collaborative testing activity. We study whether the use of the system is associated with actual learning, and whether this learning is directly related to collaboration between students. Our studies confirm previous results and provide the following evidence (1) the performance increase is directly related to the access to other partners' answers; (2) a student tends to reach a common answer in most cases; and (3) the consensus is highly correlated with the correct response. Moreover, we have found evidence indicating that most of the students really do learn from collaborative testing. High-performing students improve by self-reflection, regardless the composition of the group, but low-performing students need to be in a group with higher-performing students in order to improve.     

Do students need teacher’s initiation in online collaborative learning?

As more and more people use computers to complete their work and solve problems in the workplace, computing education is emphasized for students of all levels and disciplines in Taiwan. However, the computing education in Taiwan can hardly be recognized as effective and satisfactory. Many inappropriate examples that lack context are used in teaching and textbooks that may result in employees with low competence and insufficient ability for collaborative working. Students who grow up in this learning context usually lack the ability to seek information and solve problems by themselves. In this regard, the author redesigned a course and adopted online collaborative learning with initiation to establish the essential knowledge for students’ collaboration in the initial stage of a course. This study conducted an experiment that included 169 undergraduates from three class sections – the first two from an academic university (Case 1, n = 68; Case 2, n = 68) and the last one from a university of science and technology (Case 3, n = 33) – taught by the same teacher under the same course name and the same course website. The results show that students who received online collaborative learning with initiation had higher grades than those without. The author further discusses the implications for teachers, schools, and scholars who plan to provide online courses for their students, particularly computing courses.     

A case study-based investigation of students’ experiences with social software tools

The term “social software” covers a range of tools which allow users to interact and share data with other users, primarily via the web. Blogs, wikis, podcasts and social networking websites are some of the tools that are being used in educational, social and business contexts. We have examined the use of social software in the UK further and higher education to collect evidence of the effective use of social software in student learning and engagement. We applied case study methodology involving educators and students from 26 initiatives. In this paper, we focus on the student experience: educational goals of using social software; benefits to the students; and the challenges they experience. Our investigations have shown that social software supports a variety of ways of learning: sharing of resources; collaborative learning; problem-based and inquiry-based learning; and reflective learning. Students gain transferable skills of team working, negotiation, communication and managing digital identities. Although these tools enhance a student's sense of community, the need to share and collaborate brings in additional responsibility and workload, which some students find inflexible and “forced”. Our findings show that students have concerns about usability, privacy and the public nature of social software tools for academic activities.