Collaborative learning in a wiki environment

notes:

• the creation of explicit knowledge from tacit understanding of course concepts;
• learning through discussion, disagreement, and consensus building;
• team working; and
• effective communication of ideas to others through networked knowledge environments; articulation, analysis and synthesis of ideas and knowledge-sharing.

Leadbeater (2000) states that:
We do not need more information, we need more understanding.
Learners build on their knowledge by interacting with each other, their educators, and their learning materials. This learning process requires social interaction that can foster a shared sense of belonging and purpose.


Bruns and Humphreys (2005) suggest that the pedagogical models need to change from the traditional linear learning paradigms to a social constructivist pedagogical model which includes problem-solving in a collaborative environment that requires students to enact knowledge through a process of shared understanding.


The key learning outcomes of this course are:

·         to identify the stakeholders of a business problem and its solution, and understand how to interact with stakeholders and to manage any stakeholder conflicts;

·         to solve conflicts, duplicates and ambiguities in the gathered requirements; and

·         to deal with the varying perspectives and views of different requirements engineers in a project-team.

The ice-breaker activity has two objectives: students are able to familiarize themselves with the wiki environment, and the activity gives them an opportunity to introduce themselves to their fellow group members.


The marking is based on both the student's own contribution to the activity as well as on the product of the activity. A significant advantage of the wiki is that it records each and every change to the document, which means that there is evidence of each student's contribution.


We had responses from 117 students. Of these responses, we have analysed a random sample of 40 (34%). In this sample there were 9 (22.5%) females and 31 (77.5%) males compared with 20 (17%) females and 97 males in the full data set. All students on the course are adults studying part-time and, in our sample, 23 (57.5%) were studying other OU courses simultaneously with our course.


The students' accounts show that collaboration enhanced their learning on the course through clarification, re-interpretation and re-assessment, and reflection.
Students raised a number of positive reasons why they felt that a wiki is a good medium for collaborative work when they are remote from one another. There were four major themes that emerged: the continual availability of the wiki, its facilitative qualities, cost savings, and traceability.


The students noted a number of disadvantages of collaborative authoring, some of which were ameliorated by the use of the wiki and some that were exacerbated. In the part-time distance-learning environment of the OU, students have the expectation of studying in their own time, and any collaborative activity is considered to be a burden because it imposes additional synchronization points.


In an institution such as the OU where flexibility in studying patterns is one of the main advantages that it offers, collaborative work can seem inflexible - Same experience in H800 when arranging Elluminate sessions


There has been some discussion in the literature of the need to ensure that student engagement in the use of wikis is dependent on their confidence with the tool (de Pedro et al. 2006, Britcliffe and Walker 2007). However, our students were generally unaware of wikis at the start of the course and certainly could not be said to be proficient in their use, and did not comment upon any difficulties in using the wiki. Nevertheless, we found that a lack of robustness of the software can be demotivating (Chen et al. 2005). our students were sometimes hesitant to change the contributions of others or comment on one another's contributions