Doing academic assignments : whether to use a wiki or an alternative platform

Abstract

Using a wiki in a group project can be a valuable experience, particularly when students are able to learn about collaboration between group members. Because they are not given a defined structure, students can flexibly design content with multimodality through the use of a wiki. However, students commonly experience some form of technical difficulty when using a wiki. A pilot study of two courses explored what preferred applications students used when preparing group wiki-based projects in one course, and it examined why some students preferred to use platforms other than a wiki in the other course. Results from the end-of-course survey suggest that while students were aware of features available in wikis, they preferred to use web tools that they were already familiar with to develop web-based products. Many students remarked that there was a lack of technical preparation for this learning platform, or they did not see the value in continuing to use wikis after completing the course. Also, some indicated that they favoured email applications such as Hotmail for collaboration and feedback purposes. Suggestions are offered to educators on how to improve student reception of wikis and other Web 2.0 e-learning tools.