Abstract:
Web technologies (especially social media technologies) are known to be appropriate for collaborative content sharing and editing. Thus, they have been increasingly used in education for supporting students’ group work. Despite their usefulness, they seem not to be welcomed by students. Possible reasons include lack of time, information overload, unfamiliarity of technology, misuse of technology, and social obstacles. This project therefore aims at improving students’ ability in using web technology for conducting their group work. Of all the available online technologies, the wiki is chosen for the project. Pertaining to education, a wiki is able to help students work on a collaborative environment and track work in progress, and to assist teachers to check how much each student in a group has contributed. In this project, students will learn how to use the technology and demonstrate their understanding by applying it in a target group assignment. They will be assessed with the Kirkpatrick’s training evaluation framework. In this framework, four levels of assessment (i.e., reaction, learning, behavior, and results) will be conducted. Based on the assessment results, insights can be drawn for improving teaching and learning (in particular, e-learning in this project) and the provision of the technology.
Code:
T0148
Principal Project Supervisors:
Keywords provided by authors:
Subjects:
Start Date:
01 Aug 2014
End Date:
31 Oct 2015
Status:
Completed
Result:
Survey questionnaires, interviews, and the online record data are collected to analyse the project effectiveness. A brief of conclusion is provided below:
First, simply the provision of a technology is not suficient. Students must be trained to use the technology. The findings from the questionnaire survey have indicated that when students have more knowledge about the wiki, their self-efficacy in using the wiki would be improved.
Second, the project team has studied several freely available wikis. Their functions and other concerns have been carefully considered. Finally, the wiki in Moodle was selected. A pilot test was initiated for understanding the pedagogical value of the wiki. This helped to understand the pedagogical value of the technology (here is the wiki in Moodle).
Third, a personal wiki was set up for each student. Students were encouraged to experience the use of the wiki by attempting the functions in it. After a week, students were told to comment on the wiki by completing a survey, On the basis of the findings from the first and second surveys, students were shown to have significantly improved in their skills of using the wiki.
Fourth, a group wiki was set up for each group. A group assignment has been assigned to students for them to have hands—on experience in using the wiki. The experiential learning approach to e-learning has been adopted because students learned to use the wiki, experienced the functions of it, and applied what they had learned of using the wiki in a group assignment. Moreover, students using the wiki in terms of quantity and quality was recorded. The records generally indicate that if more members used the wiki and more quality discussion was undertaken in the wiki, their group performance would be higher. This provides evidence to support the application of the wiki can be enhanced.
Fifth, the findings from the questionnaires and the interviews suggested that the wiki was appropriate for doing group assignments. This study further reveals the factors affecting the use of the wiki for group work. The findings enable the teachers to develop ways for facilitating the use of the wiki for group work.
Impact:
The project makes impact on the following aspects:
Intended performance outcomes — Students have been examined of (1) their ability in using the wiki by use of their records in Moodle, (2) their experience in using web technology in their group assignment, and (3) their performance in group assignment with the use of web technology.
A total of 192 students have participated in this project. These students separately studied six courses in three semesters (the first and second semester of 2014-15 and the summer semester of 2015).
This project has been successfully completed. All students have learned how to use the wiki. They used the wiki to complete their group assignments. Data have been collected for the study. The findings from the study will be useful for other courses.
Financial Year:
2013-14
Type:
TDG