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Constructing text:: Wiki as a toolkit for (collaborative?) learning

Published: 21 October 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Writing a book from which others can learn is itself a powerful learning experience. Based on this proposition, we have launched Science Online, a wiki to support learning in high school science classrooms through the collaborative production of an online science resource. Our approach to designing educational uses of technology is based on an approach to education called constructionism, which advocates learning by working on personally meaningful projects. Our research examines the ways that constructionism connects to collective models of knowledge production and learning such as Knowledge Building. In this paper, we explore ways that collaboration using wiki tools fits into the constructionist approach, we examine learning goals for youth growing up in a read-write culture, and we discuss preliminary findings in an ongoing year-long study of Science Online in the classroom. Despite the radically open collaboration afforded by wiki, we observe that many factors conspired to stymie collaborative writing on the site. We expected to find cultural barriers to wiki adoption in schools. Unexpectedly, we are also finding that the design of the wiki tool itself contributed barriers to collaborative writing in the classroom.

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  1. Constructing text:: Wiki as a toolkit for (collaborative?) learning

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    cover image ACM Conferences
    WikiSym '07: Proceedings of the 2007 international symposium on Wikis
    October 2007
    190 pages
    ISBN:9781595938619
    DOI:10.1145/1296951
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    Published: 21 October 2007

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    Author Tags

    1. collaboration
    2. constructionism
    3. education
    4. knowledge building
    5. open content
    6. wiki

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    WikiSym07
    WikiSym07: International Symposium on Wikis
    October 21 - 25, 2007
    Quebec, Montreal, Canada

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    • (2017)A more reflective form of joint problem solvingInternational Journal of Computer-Supported Collaborative Learning10.1007/s11412-017-9250-112:1(9-33)Online publication date: 7-Mar-2017
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