Edu Media Salzburg 2008

open content

and self organisation: how do students use social software for collaborative

learning?

steve wheeleruniversity of plymouth

EduMedia Conference, Salzburg: June, 2008

• students should take responsibility for their own learning• collaborative activities create opportunities for deeper learning • social software promotes reflective practice

3 assumptions:


Reflective practice is a form of learning through questioning and feedback. It forces us to question what it is that we know and how we come to know it.

reflective practice

Source: http://www.ukcle.ac.uk/resources/reflection/what.html


reflection and reasoning

Claxton argued that: "learning to learn, or the development of learning power, is getting better at knowing when, how and what to do when you don't know what to do"


Socrates and learningSocratic learning is based on the idea that human beings have faculties that can be awakened through questioning, exploration, and self-examination.

"Anamnesis" in Greek referred to the ability to draw on or recollect, bring to mind, deeper resources within the individual for use in daily life.

Education (from ‘Educare’)

‘To draw out from within’


WikiLit project

MentorBlog project Using Blogger: n=12

Using Wikispaces: n=237


• to connect students and mentors using blogs• to compare blogs with traditional mentoring methods• to ascertain benefits of mentoring using blogs

MentorBlog project aims


• to enable students learn collaboratively in a shared online space• to encourage students to create and share their own knowledge• to create new learning environments

WikiLit project aims


data were collected through:• online discussion group postings• posted questions• questionnaires (WikiLit)• post-experience interview (MentorBlog)


research method

results: MentorBlog

one f2f student preferred to communicate face to face with her mentor. she stated: “the quality of contact is not at all effective in e-mails.”

another f2f student found close proximity to her mentor a problem: she said: “it is difficult to stay composed in such close proximity” and would have preferred to have used an electronic communication method because it would ‘give her space’.


six months into the project, one blog student and his mentor have so far failed to initiate a mentoring relationship, possibly due to unfamiliarity with the system, time limitations, or perhaps due to perceptions that the blog is more impersonal or removed from the face-to-face mentoring experience.


results: MentorBlog

results: MentorBlog

two of the blog students changed the settings, ‘look and feel’ of their blogs early on in their usage to reflect their individual preferences.

one student has used the blog on a regular basis (weekly) with his mentor and said: “I find the blog extremely useful.” he said that he found one of the most valuable features was the ability to revisit his postings as a recorded archive whenever he needed to.


one factor to be considered is that blog mentors need to be proactive in seeking out their student’s posts online, whilst face-to-face mentors must respond to their students’ reflections in the meetings.

overall, the distance group were more mixed in their responses to the use of blogs.

significantly, the majority of comments have been provided by the mentor and most posts by the student.


Results: MentorBlog

Students reported they were more critically aware as a result of using the wiki.

Generally students enjoyed using the wiki and engaged as a group as well as individually

65,000 transactions within first 6 months, including over 3000 page edits and more than 1000 discussion posts.


Results: WikiLit

atudents were very reluctant to edit the content created by other students and agreed in most cases to discuss rather than change the work of others.

the hidden audience effect encouraged students to write more accurately and correctly on the public wiki spaces.

as above, students reported that they took more care to reference the sources of their content.


results: WikiLit

future researchextend project to larger groups next year

extend project to include mobile phones (moblogging) so that nomadic students (e.g. military, health care workers) can participate in mentor blogging.

possible incorporation of micro blogging (e.g. Twitter) into the mentorial tool kit.


future research

reflecting on practice through photos – using an image blog?

...or through a video diary….?

reflecting on practice using audio archives – a voice blog...

use of wikis in other contexts to encourage further collaborative learning for distance students

development of more wiki activities to scaffold learning for groups


www2.plymouth.ac.uk/distancelearning

thank you