Wikis, Hoorah! Wait. How does this work?

In the M.Ed program at UOIT, we spend a lot of time examining the efficacy of digital tools for achieving favorable learning outcomes. Exploring technologies is a core mandate of our program and is so for several very good reasons. Digital tools and Web 2.0 technologies present an unlimited amount of possibilities to deliver engaging and efficacious instructional content, a plethora of methods for connecting to local and global communities, and numerous avenues of communication to foster collaboration. However, recently, a fellow classmate and I lamented on, what we thought to be, an unsatisfactory focus on educational theory and in-depth (instructor led) discussion. In lieu of this, it seems, we often go on to explore educational tools first, and then later justify their use with theory. In this way, it could be argued that we are contributing to a movement of theory led by practice rather than theory leading practice. Albeit, this may not be an entirely fair accusation of our program since students are usually afforded the autonomy to explore their own personal or professional interests. Thus, if a students interest is largely situated in educational theory, they will have every opportunity to explore that interest and share what they have learned within the communities of practice that we have established in each of our classes- which is precisely how I ended up here, right now, imminently writing about the use of educational theory as an educational technology. This reliance on knowledge-sharing practice among students reinforces the need for community development in our program and strategies to ensure that students do not resort to individualistic modes of learning. Otherwise, we may miss out on crucial and novel learning experiences that may be a given (though not necessarily effective) in a more linear or traditional learning environment. Social-constructivist learning becomes almost an all-or-nothing practice, where to learn, you have to become actively involved, and when you don't, the entire group suffers as a consequence.

Nevertheless, in my experiences, collaboration hasn't come naturally, unless of course, an assigned grade was on the line. Students, from my own observations (myself included), tend to be resistant to collaborative activities that are initiated solely for the purpose of knowledge-construction. One such experience was in the EDUC 5001G: Principles of Learning (PoL) Collaborative Wiki assignment. In this project, students were instructed to create, edit, and remove erroneous content in PoL wiki that had become an ongoing "collaborative" resource for students in the M.Ed program since 2012 (Hunter,). Although the purpose of the assignment was to engage students in the social-constructivist activity of constructing a wiki, little direct collaboration occurred. This was especially evident from myself- Even though I spent a lot of time editing a previous student's wiki page, I did not participate in any kind of discourse or direct collaboration with my own classmates. Consequently, I largely only observed the pages that I had created or contributed to. Nevertheless, some would argue that editing a previous students page and the construction of the wiki over time does indeed qualify as collaboration (Hunter, 2015). But, one of the central tenets of social-constructivist theory is missing from this model- the role of discussion in shared-meaning making.

Ultimately, it has been contended that the benefits and the potential transformative learning that may occur while using wikis is largely contingent on the collaboration that transpires among its participants (Ertmer et al,, 2011). But fortunately for us, students avoiding direct collaboration in such assignments isn't unique to the PoL cohorts. Thus, we can examine the problem objectively. In fact, similar observations to my own have been recorded and published (see for example, Wheeler, 2008; Elgort, Smith, & Toland, 2008) Karasavvidis (2010), offered an promising explanation. Essentially, students are more accustomed to traditional instructional practices and the differentiated nature of work required in wiki assignments may present salient challenges for them. From this standpoint, certain measures must be taken to ameliorate students' lack ability to contribute to such collaborative tasks.

So, we have a great Web 2.0 digital tool to foster collaborative knowledge construction. The question is how do we get students out of individualistic modes of work to make it possible? 

References:

Elgort, I., Smith, A. G., & Toland, J. (2008). Is wiki an effective platform for group course work? Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 24, 195–210.

Ertmer, P. A., Newby, T. J., Liu, W., Tomory, A., Yu, J. H., & Lee, Y. M. (2011). Students’ confidence and perceived value for participating in cross-cultural wiki-based collaborations. Education Tech Research Dev, 59, 213-228.

Hunter, B., & Austin, R. (2015). Wiki’d transformations: technology supporting collaborative learning. Higher Education in Transformation Conference, Dublin, Ireland, 2015, pp. 522-534. 

Karasavvidis, I. (2010). Wiki uses in higher education: Exploring barriers to successful implementation. Interactive Learning Environments, 18(3), 219-231. doi:10.1080/10494820.2010.500514

Wheeler, S., Yeomans, P., & Wheeler, D. (2008). The good, the bad, and the wiki: Evaluating student-generated content for collaborative learning. British Journal of Educational Technology, 39(6), 987-995.