A design for integration of Web 2.0 and an online learning community: A pilot study for IWiLL 2.0

I-Fan Liua,*

, Meng Chang Chen b

, Yeali Sun a, David Wible

c, Chin-Hwa Kuo

d

a Department of Information Management, National Taiwan University, No.1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt

Rd., Taipei City 106, Taiwan b Institute of Information Science, Academic Sinica, Taiwan

c Graduate Institute of Learning and Instruction, National Central University, Taiwan

d Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering, Tamkang University, Taiwan

E-mail: D93725006@ntu.edu.tw

Abstract

With the birth of Web 2.0, the development of the

Internet has entered a new age. In addition to constant changes in information technology, Internet user behavior is radically different than in the past. However, as an educational tool, the application of Web 2.0 is still in its infancy. In this paper, we develop IWiLL 2.0, an online learning community based around the core concepts of Web 2.0. According to our research results, we find that learners experience more interaction from IWiLL 2.0 than IWiLL 1.0, with significant differences. We also present the future work for further study. 1. Introduction

With the birth of Web 2.0, the development of the Internet entered a new age. In addition to constant changes in information technology, Internet user behavior is radically different than in the past. According to the FIND Report [1] in 2007, one-third of the world’s population uses applications such as Facebook, Flickr, and Youtube to share user-created content. Meanwhile, there are an increasing number of individuals and organizations operating blogs.

Clearly, the interactive style of Web 2.0 strongly appeals to the public, as more and more individuals are taking advantage of interactive websites to share and connect with family, friends, and coworkers. According to one source, nearly 50% of American adults share personal content on the internet. Likewise, in 2009 Youtube recorded housing 4.5 billion videos and Wikipedia 12 million user-created

items, while Facebook in 2007 contained 8.5 million photos. In some cases, it is likely that as the volume of user-created content increases, its quality will increase as well. Quinn [2] argues that as knowledge is aggressively shared within learning communities, the higher its quality becomes. From the point of view of the learner, however, the concept of online learning through Web 2.0 is still in its infancy. In this paper, we propose an online learning structure, IWill 2.0, and evaluate whether or not the perception of interaction experienced by its participants is better than IWill 1.0. 2. Online learning community and Web 2.0

Through the Internet, people from different backgrounds can study, discuss and share knowledge with each other in centralized virtual locations. Then, an online learning community is established. Learners create their knowledge with peers, instructors, and digital learning materials.

In these communities, individuals can be categorized as both givers and receivers of knowledge. Knowledge is gradually constructed through interactions between individuals with different specializations, materializing into a learning community. By sharing both common learning goals and social interactions over a period of time, learners discuss the learning details and share learning experiences with each other in an online learning community.

Before Web 2.0, the depth of a website’s content—its richness, comprehension, aesthetic appeal—largely determined its success. However, with the advent of Web 2.0 as illustrated by O’Reilly [3], trends in

2010 10th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies

978-0-7695-4055-9/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE

DOI 10.1109/ICALT.2010.14

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economics, society, and technology now play a much stronger role. As a result, Web 2.0 is a better-developed medium, and a better facilitator of networking between users. Quinn [2] also emphasized that facilitating such a strong connection, users have a greater number of channels for interaction and sharing. The more actively users share information, the more valuable that shared knowledge becomes.

To summarize the research above, the core concepts of Web 2.0 are focused on interaction and sharing, meaning users must be willing to share knowledge at the beginning of a website in order to first generate valuable content. Through the strong connection of an online community, users can then share and extend their existing body of knowledge. 3. Interaction and Sharing

From the perspective of interaction, Liu et al. [4] stressed Web 2.0 helps evolve the learning process from a one-way human-system information exchange to a two-way instructor-learner interaction.

Previous scholars have suggested that knowledge is created through a series of processes whereby individuals interact with each other to share, recreate, and amplify knowledge. If learners are willing to increase their degree of interaction with their instructors or peers, they will not only have an opportunity to get to know each other, but also build upon their existing knowledge base. Such interactions also affect the learner’s motivations behind using e-learning. Moreover, Cantoni et al. [5] stressed that interaction between learners could be improved by using games, quizzes, chat rooms, discussion boards, instant messenger and email during online learning.

In this study, interaction is defined as follows. When learners join an online learning community, they perceive two types of interactions: human-system interactions and interpersonal interactions. The former derives from the operating environment of the online learning community, whereas the latter is the result of interactions with peers and instructors. This paper carefully examines the manifestations of these different types of interactions within the online community case study. 4. IWiLL 1.0 and IWiLL 2.0

Intelligent Web-based Interactive Language Learning (IWiLL, http://www.iwillnow.org) is a Taiwanese online learning community for people who wish to learn a foreign language. In order to take full

advantage of the functions and features of Web 2.0, IWiLL has been upgraded from its original version. Now users are encouraged to develop their own diverse and personalized content through active participation. IWiLL 2.0 members now have their own learning blogs, called My Cube, which allow the users to track their own language progress and share their accomplishments with others. IWiLL 2.0 was created to highly focus the learning process on information sharing and interaction with others. 5. The framework of IWiLL 2.0

Since the purpose of IWiLL 2.0 is to improve the interactive experience of its members by utilizing the networking features found within Web 2.0, the framework behind this site is best described as a combination of both human and system elements. The human portion of this framework is illustrated in Fig. 1.

Learner This is a learner-centric design that emphasizes learner-instructor interactions.

Instructor IWiLL 2.0 instructors are teachers in high schools nationwide. They play a supporting role in this community.

Community members Community members are simply high school students from Taiwan who chose to participate within the community. They play the role of learning peers.

The biggest difference between IWiLL 2.0 and the previous version is that IWiLL 2.0 offers My Cube for each learner as their own personal blog. Here, the system elements of this framework are outlined below.

My story This feature allows learners to express their thoughts and emotions. They may share what happens in their daily life or express their thoughts in terms of a specific topic.

Book comments Here, learners are encouraged to share their thoughts and comments on any book they are currently reading. These comments are accessible by all other members.

Bookcase This feature allows learners to openly display their preferred books list and recommend books to others.

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Figure 1. The framework of IWiLL 2.0

Friends list

This feature helps establish clear social links between community members. Whenever a learner adds a friend to their list, they have one more partner with whom they can share. Friends can also share links to each other’s My Cube on their own My Cube page.

Graffiti area This feature acts as a message board, where individual users who visit a member’s My Cube page can leave messages.

Multimedia files sharing This space allows members to share their own creative works on their blogs, including photos, and audio or video files.

Management system Through the system management feature, learners can add, delete, edit, or search personal learning files from the database. 6. Conclusion and future work

In this paper, we discussed the Web 2.0-influenced changes made to the IWiLL online learning community, and their reception by the community’s participants. In the future, we will develop a more rigid Perceived Interaction Scale for IWiLL 2.0 for further research, and explore casual relationships between other variables.

7. Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Science Council of Taiwan under contract numbers NSC- 97-2631-S-008-004. 8. References [1] FIND, Foreseeing Innovative New Digiservices Report. (2007). Retrieved from http://www.find.org.tw/find/home.aspx [2] Quinn, J. B., Anderson, P., & Finkelstein, S. (1996). Management professional intellect marketing the most of the best. Havard Business Review, 71-80. [3] O’Reilly, T. (Ed.). (2005). What is Web 2.0: Design Patterns & Business Model for the Next Generation of Software, O’Reilly Media. [4] Liu, I. F., Chen, M. C., Sun, Y. S., Wible, D., & Kuo, C. H. (2010). Extending TAM model to explore the factors that affect the intention to use an online learning community. Computers & Education, 54, 600-610. [5] Cantoni, V., Cellario, M., & Porta, M. (2004). Perspectives and challenges in e-learning: towards natural interaction paradigms. Journal of Visual Languages & Computing, 15(5), 333-345.

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