Using SocialCognitive Theory to Predict Students Use of SelfRegulated Learning Strategies in an Onli

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University of Connecticut
Neag School of Education
Incorporating Wikis in an Educational Technology
Course Ideas, Reflections and Lessons Learned
Andri Ioannou Anthony Artino Department of
Educational Psychology
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Wikis

• Help publish and exchange ideas over the web
  (Dalke, Cassidy, Grobstein, Blank, 2007).
• Authorized users become editors of a given topic
  at any time and from any location.
• Vary in terms of access (public or private).
• Simple to learn and use.
• Record and tracking facilities.
• Notification features.
• e.g., Wikipedia, CoWeb (see Guzdial, Rick,
  Kehoe, 2001).

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Theorizing Wikis

• Wikis appear to be powerful tools for
• promoting collaboration (e.g., Rick Guzdial,
  2006),
• knowledge creation (e.g., Richardson, 2006),
• knowledge sharing (e.g., Bruns Humphreys,
  2005).
• Consistent with social constructivist theories.
• Deeper understanding is achieved through social
  interaction and when multiple perspectives are
  considered (e.g., Brown, Collins, Duguid, 1989
  Bruner, 1986 Pea, 1994 Vygotsky, 1978).

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The Course Design

• Introductory course on educational technology.
• 90-minute lab-sessions of 12 students each.
• Wiki for two lab-sessions (24 students).
• Free wiki software PBwiki.
• Private wiki students login to edit the wiki.
• Other technologies in addition to the wiki (e.g.,
  WebCT, GoogleDocs, IM)

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Wiki Activities and Observations

• (1) Wiki as an icebreaker
• Students were encouraged to edit their profiles -
  wiki page initiated by the tutor.
• photos, email, paragraphs
• Observations
• All 24 students participated.
• Learned about their classmates.
• Familiarized themselves with editing wiki pages.

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Wiki Activities and Observations

• (2) Wiki as a collaborative writing tool
• Groups of 3-4 students researched the National
  Educational Technology Standards (NETS) for
  teachers.
• Worked collaboratively to compose
• explanation paragraphs for each standard,
• concrete examples of how teachers may demonstrate
  their understanding of these standards in their
  teaching practices.
• Observations
• Students were cooperative rather than
  collaborative (e.g., Dillenbourg, 1999 Smith,
  1996).
• crafted paragraphs independently.
• none edited each others postings.
• All groups completed the activity successfully.

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Wiki Activities and Observations

• (3) Wiki as a knowledge database
• Collaborated as a class to build a database of
  knowledge on emerging technologies.
• identify emerging technologies.
• provide examples of how they can facilitate
  learning.
• work together on each wiki entry to edit and to
  improve it together.
• Observations
• Higher degree of collaboration (e.g., Lund
  Smørdal, 2006 Rick Guzdial, 2006).
• Some students initiated definitions of
  technologies, when others created extensions of
  definitions and provided examples.
• Students more often identified new technologies
  than they extended their classmates
  contributions.

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Wiki Activities and Observations

• (4) Wiki as communication tool (student-initiated)
  
• Shared interesting resources about class topics.
• Asked questions.
• Observations
• Students preferred to use the wiki for
  communication over the WebCT Vista threaded
  discussions or announcement feature.
• quick / easy editing electronic notification.
• Tutor set a Frequently Asked Questions and
  Announcements page.

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Wiki Activities and Observations

• (5) Wiki for feedback/ exchange of ideas
• Shared the URLs to their in-progress websites to
  get feedback from each other and from the tutor.
• Shared resources
• freely-available website templates,
• links to previous students websites and
  TaskStream e-folios.
• ideas for things to include on their personal
  websites and e-folios.
• Observations
• 90 of the students actively participated in this
  activity
• posted general comments (e.g., your site is very
  rich in outside resources).
• suggested revisions (e.g., text color does not
  read well on the chosen background color).
• asked questions (e.g., how did you do the flash
  button?).

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Wiki Activities and Observations

• (6) Wiki for project planning
• Each group (4-6 students) shared a wiki page to
  facilitate their collaboration on the video
  project.
• The tutor provided skeletal notes of the things
  students needed to consider, such as title of the
  video, cameraman, actors/actress, place for each
  scene, script of the dialog, video editing and
  music.
• Observations
• Students posted a clean script of and other
  details on their wiki pages.
• The interaction on the wiki pages was minimal.
• Personal communication with students revealed
  that all the groups met face to face to plan for
  the movie activity then, a member of the team
  posted the details on the wiki page (see Carr,
  Morrison, Cox, Deacon, 2007).

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Wiki Activities and Observations

• (7) Wiki as collection and reflection tool
• Wiki for note sharing and reflection on action.
• Type and edit each others notes and reflections
  on the wiki.
• Tutor responsible for addressing misconceptions.
• Shared knowledge of the learning group (e.g.,
  Augar, Raitman, Zhou, 2004).
• Wiki as class archive for students to revisit
  later (e.g., ONeill, 2005).

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Wiki Activities and Observations

• (8) Wikis for games
• Collaborative online games, such as crosswords,
  puzzles, or quests.
• e.g., a crossword related to emerging
  technologies would challenge students to identify
  technologies based on a description of a set of
  attributes and characteristics.
• Wiki as a construction kit to allow students to
  built a database of fun game-activities.
• e.g., built crosswords, puzzles, quests, or other
  activities related to the course, for the future
  students.

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Reflections and Lessons-learned

• The activities discussed highlight the social
  nature of wikis and their ability to facilitate
  knowledge sharing, communication, and
  collaboration.
• Wikis allow quick and easy self-creation of
  content.
• However, observations support that working
  together was not necessarily collaborative in
  nature, but rather cooperative.
• It is essential that the instructor fosters
  collaboration by encouraging students to edit
  texts created by others (e.g., Dillenbourg, 1999
  Lund Smørdal, 2006 Smith, 1996).
• A wiki might be more suited for inclusion in an
  e-learning course.

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Other Thoughts

• The lack of credit strictly associated with wiki
  activities might be a reason for limited
  collaboration.
• To increase collaboration weight should be given
  to the collaboration level in grading the wiki
  activities (Tal-Elhasid Meishar-Tal, 2007).
• Technical difficulties may have impacted student
  use of the wiki.
• The wiki ran quite slow at times, and saving the
  edits on a page took a few minutes.
• Possible frustration made students reluctant to
  invest more time on the wiki activities.

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Concluding Points

• The manuscript was intended to
• provide ideas for using wikis in college courses,
• describe observations, reflections, and lessons
  learned.
• For better understanding of the affordances of
  wikis examine
• content of written wiki pages.
• history of wiki pages (patterns of use and
  workflow).
• data from student evaluation surveys and
  interviews.

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Our Current Work

• Used a wiki in an online teacher education
  course.
• 15 graduate students (teacher-learners).
• WebCT Vista was the main communication tool.
• Wiki for two weeks to facilitate collaborative
  writing.
• Topic Kozma and Clark media debate.
• Groups of 3-4 students.
• Rich data set
• Qualitative and quantitative analysis to be
  completed.
• Student surveys.
• WebCT discussion thread about the wiki experience
  (anonymous).
• Wiki pages and history record.

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Thank You !