John Lee (North Carolina State University)
Carl Young (North Carolina State University)
Abstract:
This article describes findings from an investigation of student learning in a teacher education course using collaborative Web 2.0 technologies.
Pre-service teachers in an interdisciplinary English language arts / social studies methods course completed a selection of activities using a course
blog and a separate course wiki. The research focused on the following broadly conceived questions: How do pre-service teachers use collaborative
web-based technologies in a methods course? To what extent does the use of collaborative web-based technologies affect the preparation of pre-service
teachers? Students experienced mixed levels of success using the blog and wiki illustrating the need for careful consideration and further
investigation when using Web 2.0 technologies.
Think of passengers on your ship who got a boat of their own. The writing readers. The viewers who picked up a camera. The formerly atomized listeners
who with modest effort can connect with each other and gain the means to speak-- to the world, as it were (Rosen, 2006).
Introduction
Jay Rosen (2006) calls them "the people formerly known as the audience." They are the new users of Web 2.0 technologies (e.g. wikis and blogs) who create
and contribute alongside the traditional producers of public information such as the broadcast media. Rosen's ideas reflect what many observers and
scholars have suggested is a democratization of information and media through technologies that open spaces for people to create and share information in
ways never before possible. The impact of these technologies is not limited to just information and media, but has also infiltrated the larger social
fabric of culture in most technologically-advanced societies. In this new mass culture, technologies are enabling people to interact in ways never before
imagined or thought possible. Technologies such as wikis and blogs, as well as a wide range of other technologies, sometimes referred to collectively as
Web 2.0, seem to be shaping new social structures and facilitating all sorts of new behaviors related to creating, sharing, and using information, but what
do we really know about the educational value of Web 2.0 technologies? As with the newer technologies of previous generations, pronouncements about Web 2.0
applications have been draped in hyperbole about their potential for affecting educational progress and enhancing reform efforts. Scanning the historical
records of the 20th century, we find claims of radical changes accompanying the introduction of radio, motion pictures, television, and video. As with each
of these previous technological advances, educators seem to be at the center of much of the hype about Web 2.0.
Defined as a collection of dynamic web-based resources that enable the construction and publication of text, audio, and video products within social
networks, Web 2.0 technologies are seen as practical (Schrum & Solomon, 2007), inevitable (Thompson, 2007), and even transformational (Brown, 2006).
Glen Bull (2006) argues that Web 2.0 resources allow students to more seamlessly create and present their work. Aaron Doering, Richard Beach, and David
O'Brien (2007) assert that a major appeal of Web 2.0 tools for adolescents is that these resources allow students to "easily compose multimodal texts for
sharing with both local and worldwide audiences" (p. 41). Web 2.0 technologies focused on journaling (e.g. blogs), collaborative writing (e.g. wikis), and
social networking (e.g. MySpace) do enable people to interact around similar interests and provide opportunities for social interaction and new learning,
but little is known from a research perspective about how Web 2.0 technologies might be used in education, and even less is known about how they can be
used with pre-service teachers. While Marc Prensky (2001) refers to today's students as digital natives, the extent to which current pre-service teachers
fall into this category is uncertain. Given the range of possibilities and lack of established research, this paper describes a mixed-method study of
pre-service teachers in jointly-taught English language arts and social studies instructional methods classes using wikis and blogs as tools for supporting
work on a range of course-based activities. Prior to describing the methods used to conduct this study, we present as a context for our study a review of
the literature on using Web 2.0 technologies.
Blogs and Wikis in Culture and the Classroom
Weblogs, or blogs as they are more commonly known, emerged in 2000 as tools for web users to compose journal-like entries on subjects of personal interest.
They were quickly accepted as a means of mass communication for news media, politicians, and ordinary people. Generally speaking, blogs are not intended to
be spaces for formal writing. Rather, they are designed for compact and causal writing that concisely communicates an idea or position. Most blogs archive
postings in chronological order and allow for comments from readers. While blogs also allow for revision, this is typically not considered a major purpose
for the writing posted on blogs.
Blogs seem to have affected various communities differently. For example, in the United States, political bloggers have deeply influenced the processes for
communicating, organizing, and reflecting on public issues and political processes and personalities. Joe Trippi's (2005) account of the 2004 Howard Dean
presidential campaign is an interesting description of how blogging quickly became such a vital component of the political scene. With regard to political
blogging, Joe Strupp (2007) identified several unique characteristics related to the speed with which information is available, the insularity of blogging
communities, and the willingness to share information among bloggers. While political blogging has had a high profile effect, some of the same
characteristics described by Strupp can be observed in other areas of public interest, including education. Glen Bull, Gina Bull, and Sara Kajder (2003)
promoted the potential for the use of blogs in education arguing that, "The sharing of messages, the openness of the thinking, the accessibility of the
media ... all [add] up to a form of communication that warrants our exploration" (p. 23). However, the expanding uses of blogs do challenge educators to
consider important questions about how and why this technology can be incorporated into education.
Much like the blog, wikis emerged in rapid fashion in the late 1990s as web-based interfaces that could be set up quickly and were designed to support
writing activities. Wikis are actually open source software applications that enable web-based text editing and, by extension, collaborative writing. The
best known application of wiki technology is the massive Wikipedia project. Lotus Development Corporation founder Mitchell Kapor describes Wikipedia as
"massively distributed collaboration" (Kapor, 2005). Wikipedia includes over 1.5 million English language articles. In contrast to this massive public
wiki, more private collaborative work is actively being compiled on thousands of local and personal wikis across the Web. As wikis have emerged in the
consciousness of the general public, educators have begun to ask how wikis might be used to advance student learning. Keith McPherson (2006), for one, has
suggested that public and private (or even classroom-based) wikis provide an educational context for considering the development of information literacy
and writing skills. Beyond the notion of wikis as a laboratory for literacy and writing development, others are beginning to conceive of wikis more broadly
by suggesting collaborative and constructivist uses.
In a study of a school-based project using a wiki to support student inquiry, Mary Engstrom and Dusty Jewett (2005) found that various forms of support
were important to ensure the class wiki would be used to its fullest extent. The study involved 11 teachers and over 400 students inquiring about the
environmental impact of damning projects on the Missouri River in the 1940s. Specifically, Engstrom and Jewett (2005) found that modeling interaction on
the wiki "to prompt critical thinking and thinking from multiple perspectives," as well as providing flexible student access to the wiki and consistent
teacher support, were all important factors for student success in their inquiries.
The emergence of wikis and blogs are also facilitating the development of social spaces and communities which appear to enable unique, creative, and active
learning. Educators have been quick to take notice, but as economists will often point out, all opportunities come with associated costs. In a review of
Web 2.0 technologies such as social bookmarking, blogging, and collaborative writing, Bryan Alexander (2006) expressed concern about the "openness, ease of
entry, and social nature of these resources" (p. 34), suggesting that the depth of quality in student learning with content generated from wiki and blog
sources is questionable. Some scholarly institutions have even banned Wikipedia as a source for student research. Middlebury College's Wikipedia policy is
one high profile example of such restrictive use policies (Waters, 2007). Despite concerns such as these, an emerging prevailing view seems to suggest that
Web 2.0 content is here to stay. Don Tapscot and Anthony Williams (2006) go so far as to describe a new age of capitalism they refer to as "wikinomics"
where "new forms of mass collaboration are changing how goods and services are invented, produced, marketed, and distributed on a global basis" (p. 10).
Within the current, developing, and generally optimistic state of Web 2.0 technology in education, a host of questions are emerging: What does it mean to
collaborate using blogs and wikis? How does collaboration in blog and wiki environments differ from individual work in these environments? What are the
conventions and expectations for collaboration and individual work in blog and wiki environments? These questions and others compelled the investigation
reported here of specific uses of wikis and blogs in a middle grades teacher education methods course. As researchers and instructors in an undergraduate
teacher education course, we designed experiences for pre-service teacher education students in an interdisciplinary English language arts and social
studies methods course given existing evidence that blogs and wikis might facilitate collaboration and active learning (Engstrom & Jewett, 2005; Grant,
2006).
As we planned for the use of blogs and wikis in these related methods courses, a question emerged related to how and why these online environments might
enhance student learning experiences given the more traditional course experiences for which we had already planned. For the purposes of our course,
traditional experiences included face-to-face dialogue and explanation, email communication, word-processed assignments, and formative and summative
feedback on student work in written and word-processed formats. We planned course assignments which made use of blogs and wikis given calls for technology
to be used in context and in support of existing learning objectives (Mason, Berson, Diem, Hicks, Lee, & Dralle, 2000; Pope & Golub, 2000; Young
& Bush, 2004). In designing course experiences and this research project, we were less interested in how the blog and wiki we used in our class
transformed the class experience than in how these technologies supported and enhanced course experiences. We felt it was important to juxtapose the use of
the blog and wiki with more traditional ways of completing class assignments.
Method
In order to determine the value of the wiki and blog environments, a broad and exploratory qualitative research design was implemented to investigate the
following questions:
How do pre-service teachers use collaborative web-based technologies in a methods course? To what extent does the use of collaborative web-based
technologies affect the preparation of pre-service teachers?
This study was designed as a qualitative/interpretative action research study (Grady, 1998). The data for this study included an open-ended survey
instrument (see Appendix 1), a 24 question close-ended survey (see Appendix 2), observations of class sessions, and content from participant-produced
entries posted on a class wiki and a class blog. These four sources of data (open-ended survey, closed-ended survey, observations, and wiki/blog content)
enabled a triangulation of data as we developed findings.
We quantitatively analyzed the closed-ended survey data on course-related wiki use. Qualitative data was coded and analyzed using Erickson's analytic
induction method (1986). Coding units were developed to organize data analysis, develop categories for further analysis, and, ultimately, to generate and
warrant assertions. Assertions were revised based on disconfirming evidence as needed. The body of data was read and analyzed multiple times, and coded
according to the categories. Within each category, data were coded for confirming and disconfirming evidence that led to the development of assertions.
Finally, data were revisited yet again to link the most significant pieces of confirming and disconfirming evidence to the assertions, resulting in our
making further adjustments and revisions where appropriate. The analytic induction model allowed us to interpret participants' experiences as well as
confirm them.
We then read the open-ended survey data and developed 14 initial themes (e.g., evidence of creative and active learning, technical processes for blogs and
wikis, the construction of knowledge about how to teach, subject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, concerns about reliability of technology,
acceptance of technology, motivation to learn given the social nature of technology, benefits of technology, drawbacks of technology, suggested
improvements or changes, extension of course activities, applications for middle school, and references to other the classroom tech uses). These themes
were then collapsed into ten codes with 90% agreement on the coding. The codes were then merged for the second level of analysis. A third level of analysis
involved reviewing observation notes with regard to whether they were supportive, neutral, or contradictory of emergent findings. Finally, we conducted a
separate analysis of the content participants produced in their work on the class wiki and class blog and looked for evidence that supported or
contradicted our overall emergent findings.
Participants and Settings
This study was focused on an interdisciplinary English language arts and social studies methods course taught in the fall of 2006. The class was part of an
undergraduate middle grades teacher education program at a large southeastern university. All participants in this study were full-time students enrolled
in the methods course. In addition to this course, students were enrolled in a course on literature for adolescents as well as a variety of additional
courses in education and humanities academic content. Students also completed a 20-hour middle school practicum focused mainly on observing classroom
instruction. The semester of this study preceded a final semester in the program comprised of a full time student teaching experience. Most participants
were traditional undergraduate college age (average age 22), predominantly female (21 female and one male), and predominantly white (19 white, two black,
one Hispanic).
Research Assignments
The twenty two students in the course completed all or part of five assignments on a separate class blog and class wiki. These assignments are briefly
described below.
1. Inquiry project -- This work involved students individually conducting inquiries into a self-selected topic using one of three
approaches--historical/social inquiry, I-Search, or multigenre research/writing. Students developed their work on the inquiry project using the class wiki.
2. Instructional lesson plan -- Working individually or in pairs, students constructed instructional lesson plans using a wiki environment in part for
drafting their plan. The lesson was developed over a five-week period of time with three weeks of the work completed on the class wiki.
3. Political commentary -- Students individually posted and commented on issues and topics related to election-year politics on the class blog.
4. Collaborative instructional unit plan -- Students planned and developed an instructional unit of study using the class wiki and class blog.
5. Writing about instructional approaches to English language arts -- Students wrote on the class wiki in preparation for or in response to outside
readings on instructional strategies related to journaling and reading/writing workshop.
Limitations
A number of limitations emerged from the design of this study. The methods we chose to collect and analyze the data shaped the findings and the resulting
messages we are able to communicate. Additional data from interviews may have extended our findings. Think-aloud protocols that capture participants
thinking about their work in Web 2.0 environments might have also resulted in deeper findings. The small number of participants limited the extent to which
we could generalize from the findings, although the findings should be useful for a larger audience. While we conducted this research project to aid in our
own professional growth, findings may also benefit other teacher educators engaged in similar work. Yvonna Lincoln and Egon Guba (1985) refer to the
transfer of findings from qualitative action research studies to situations similar to the study as a process of "fittingness" (p. 124). In an effort to
demonstrate this study's potential for fittingness, we provide a detailed description of the class in which this study was situated and a detailed account
of our findings with supporting detail from the data.
Findings
We have organized our findings into two parts. The first part is focused on the 27 question closed-ended survey. Although we analyzed these survey findings
in conjunction with other text-based (rich) data from open-ended survey responses, observations, and participants' work, we felt that a separate
presentation of the survey findings would help create a context for understanding additional more detailed findings. The second part of the findings is
presented in the form of two assertions and seven sub-assertions. These assertions and sub-assertions represent common ideas and themes that emerged from
our analysis of all three data sources (e.g., the surveys, observations, and interviews).
Survey findings
Participants were asked to respond to 27 closed-ended questions about their uses of the class wiki. These questions were split into two parts focusing on
participants' uses of the class wiki in class and out of class. The first part of the survey focused on levels of agreement (low, medium, or high) with a
series of statements about the class wiki (see Table 1 for participant response rates). In general, participants indicated moderate levels of satisfaction
with the class wiki. Specifically, sixteen of twenty-two students (73%) reported a medium level of enjoyment in using the class wiki. The same percentage
was in medium agreement that the wiki helped them to learn. A similar percentage of participants (59%) responded with a medium level of agreement on the
importance of the class wiki. Participants were less enthusiastic about whether wikis helped them in their writing with 45% indicating a low level of
agreement that the wiki helped them write effectively. Three other statements resulted in a majority or more of participants having a low level of
agreement including statements about whether the class wiki facilitating leadership skills (59%), helped participants develop a sense of self-esteem (64%),
and help participants develop reading skills (64%). In contrast, participants were more enthusiastic about how the class wiki aided in collaboration and
communication with 45% and 59% respectively indicating high levels of agreement in these areas.
The second part of the survey included statements about participants' uses of the course wiki outside of class and asked participants to rank their levels
of use as rarely, a little, or a lot (see Table 2 for participant response rates). With one exception, participants indicated that they rarely or
moderately used the course wiki outside of class. Large percentages of participants rarely used the wiki to do group work (59%), complete wiki tutorials
(86%), ask their teacher questions (68%), or contribute non-class material to the wiki (100%). Participants were more likely to refer to the wiki with 59%
indicating they used or referred to the wiki outside of class often.
General Assertions
Given these survey findings about participants' uses of the class wiki, we developed assertions to represent and reflect the larger corpus of qualitative
data we collected in this study. This second set of findings is presented as two assertions with seven sub-assertions. The two assertions are focused on
active and collaborative uses of the class blog and class wiki.
Assertion One -- Using the class blog and class wiki facilitated active engagement with content.
One of the things we were most interested in discovering was the perspective of participants about wikis and blogs with regard to their class work.
Participants completed five assignments that required varying levels of class blog and class wiki use. In general, participants were eager to use the blog
and wiki, and they viewed that use as enabling their active engagement with content. This active engagement by participants with the class blog and class
wiki took form in four distinct ways: flexibility in access, the dynamic nature of the text, the public nature of text, and the ability to specifically
access other students' work.
Flexibility in access.
Across all four sources of data, evidence suggested that participants valued the flexibility that the class blog and the class wiki afforded for accessing
their work. The wiki and blog were available anytime and in any place that students could access a computer and the Internet. Participants' appreciated
this access and availed themselves to opportunities they were provided to complete assignments on their own schedule. On five occasions participants were
provided class time to start and potentially complete work on the class wiki or the class blog. In all five of these activities, a majority of participants
chose to complete the work after class at their own convenience. A specific benefit that many of participants described with the class blog and class wiki
was the manner in which these technologies extended their options for when to complete work. In commenting on the class blog, one participant summed this
view up saying, "the benefits of blogging are you can do it whenever and wherever you want. You don't have to be in class, or even in clothes to respond to
a blog" (Student 5, open-ended survey).
It was not just the ability to access the information at anytime that participants enjoyed, but also knowing that their work was still available even after
concluding an assignment. As one participant put it, "having our work archived on there is a nice perk as well" (Student 4, open-ended survey). Some
participants just liked how, as one participant put it, that "wikis...made information easier to access" (Student 11, open-ended survey). These findings
about flexible access were supported by the closed-ended survey on which more than half (12 of 22) participants indicated that they accessed the wiki "a
lot" outside of class. Although the survey responses indicated that participants were less likely to contribute new material to the wiki outside of class
(i.e. start a new wiki article or page), the survey findings suggested that a connection existed between the inside-the-classroom and
outside--the-classroom activities of participants.
Inside the classroom, participants worked on the class wiki during three class sessions. In addition, three separate class sessions were set aside for the
class to work on the class blog. During these classes, participants learned the basic operating procedures for the class blog and the class wiki. Four
participants expressed a familiarity with the general concept of blogs and wikis, but none of the participants had every used the specific blog and wiki
software featured in the class. None of the class sessions resulted in all participants completing the assignment for the given class. During the in-class
sessions, several participants indicted that they would prefer to complete their work later, outside of class. In general, participants used the in-class
time to work through technical issues and ask content- related questions about their work. For example, when participants were working on their inquiry
project wiki pages, they used class time to ask clarifying questions about the focused research questions they were developing to frame their proposed
inquiries. An analysis of participants' wiki entries supported the observed tendency of participants to complete their work outside class.
For one assignment using the class wiki, participants were asked to create a wiki page about their initial ideas for a lesson they were planning given
class discussion about specific methods of instruction. The assignment required participants to work individually or in pairs to develop a lesson topic,
two or three learning objectives, and a set of activities related to these objectives. Participants were given 30 minutes to begin their work on their
lesson plan wiki page. Fourteen wiki pages were created during this class session. None of the initial versions of these 14 wiki pages included more than
two or three sentences, although they were encouraged to write more. An analysis of these wiki pages reveled that participants edited their work over the
next two weeks on average 3.22 times for a total of 45 edits. Of these 45 edits, twenty nine were additive edits, meaning that the changes resulted in more
than just editing of existing text. In other words, students revised to include additional ideas. Participants indicated that they felt more comfortable
working out of class on this assignment and at times complained of technical problems that resulted from multiple people working on a single wiki page. As
one participant stated, "I, however, disliked when we did wiki work in class, especially when we were working on the same things" (Student 13, open-ended
survey). She extended her complaint focusing on specific technical issues: "I had to constantly redo my page I was working on one day in class, because
everyone was working at the same time" (Student 13, open-ended survey).
The tendency toward flexible work could also be seen with students' work on collaborative instructional units. This work required students to construct a
wiki page over time that outlined ideas for a two-week instructional unit. Included in this instructional unit were ideas about guiding questions for
organizing the unit, unit goals, general unit objectives, a list of possible materials and supplementary texts lists of possible learning activities, and
unit objectives correlated with state standards. Participants posted their initial ideas over a one-month period with most participants making 6-10 edits
to their page. One outlier edited her page 23 times, and another outlier only edited her page 3 times. In addition, participants were required to visit
their peer's wiki pages on instructional units to make edits and provide comments. This work was completed in a very flexible fashion. Participants not
only accessed each other's work at different times and in different places both in and out of class over the one-month period, they were also flexible in
their approach toward collaboration in the wiki environment. A small number of participants made their wiki page edits by actually changing the original
text in some substantive manner. The majority of participants instead used the wiki pages as a pace to post comments and share ideas. For example, one
participant left this comment for a peer at the bottom of the peer's social studies instructional unit wiki page:
I think that it might be easier or more focused if you broke this up into regions or topics for all the regions. There just seems to be so much information
here. Africa is huge and I'm not sure how it is taught. I think that I would have one or two items as focus items. African culture is an example and then I
might have lessons targeted toward having my students learn about these different cultures.
Comments such as these extended the wiki space in flexible ways that met the needs of participants given the requirements of the assignment for students to
provide each other formative feedback on their unit ideas.
Dynamic nature of text.
When accessing the class blog and class wiki, participants were using text-based resources that had different characteristics than typical college
classroom materials such as textbooks or journal articles. Content on the class blog and class wiki was in an almost constant state of flux. Much like a
text in progress on a word processing program, the text produced in blog and wiki environments is often less permanent than handwritten or otherwise
printed text. Gold (2000) has argued that electronic devices move printed text from "the domain of the permanent to the domain of the ephemeral" (p. 43).
Participants seemed to recognize the ephemeral and dynamic qualities of the text they were producing on the class wiki and class blog, and an analysis of
participants' work illustrated how their work was, in fact, quite dynamic. Both the class blog and class wiki tools provided participants with
opportunities to manipulate text in dynamic ways. The class wiki was particularly dynamic with regard to changes to the various pages within the wiki. The
front page of the class wiki (one of 83 pages in the wiki) had 289 edits alone. Over 150 of these edits involved additive changes to the page. The 83
articles in the class wiki were edited over 1,000 times. The class blog was a more stable environment with regard to changes when compared to the text on
the class wiki. The blog had an equally large number of entries (total of 67 original blog entries and 33 comments on existing blog entries), but these
were much less heavily edited than the class wiki. This finding was not completely unexpected given that the wiki was designed and used in this study to
facilitate collaborative writing, whereas the blog was designed and used to facilitate more static writing and commenting. Although the entries were less
heavily edited, each blog post or comment essentially reshaped the total image of the class blog.
Edits were made to all the wiki pages participants created in all four of the activities that made use of the class wiki. One of these activities required
participants to write collaboratively about Reading/Writing workshop. Participants read an initial scholarly article on Reading/Writing workshop and then
contributed to wiki pages by reviewing ideas presented in the article, as well as follow-up reading, personal experience, and field-based observations. The
wiki page was written over a nine-day period and included 33 edits from 19 participants. An analysis of the participants' work revealed that they used an
additive approach to editing the page. In none of the 33 edits was text deleted or changed in any substantive manner. A few grammatical edits were made,
but none of these edits altered the meaning of the original text. Instead, participants added new content at the bottom of the wiki page. The final wiki
page became a compendium of ideas about how to implement Reading/Writing workshop effectively.
Some participants, while recognizing the dynamic nature of the content on the class blog and class wiki, thought some changes might not be productive. One
of these participants was particularly concerned about unwanted changes writing, "I think it's a little odd that someone can come in and change another
person's wiki. That's a downside for me" (Student 25, open-ended survey). Another participant put it differently, complaining that the class wiki was
limiting, because "anyone can change anything on the page that they want and [having] the postings for everyone to see allows judgments by others" (Student
25, open-ended survey). These concerns were closely related to the third way in which the class blog and class wiki involved active engagement specifically
related to the public nature of the text composed on these resources.
Public nature of text.
Both the class blog and the class wiki made participants' work accessible in a public context. This public access enabled interested individuals the
opportunity to read as well as contribute to and even change participants' work. The class blog and class wiki were open for all to read and available for
editing to individuals who had a university system id and password (approximately 40,000 users). Although we were not able to measure the number of people
who visited and read the class wiki or class blog from outside the class, we were able to track anyone outside the class who contributed to them. We did
observe one person who added text by commenting on a participant's entry on the class wiki. The additional text was included by a professor in the
university where this study occurred and related to a specific wiki article about a controversial topic. The outside comment was made to the wiki
discussion page and did not affect or alter the actual text of the participant's main wiki page, but it did generate considerable discussion among
participants in this study. This discussion was mostly focused on surprise that the outside individual had found the participant's wiki article and some
concern about the nature of the comment, which asked why the participant chose to use certain ethnic words (German instead of Polish or Slavic) as
vocabulary words in a lesson about the Holocaust.
The instance of an outsider posting to the class blog occurred as part of the instructional lesson plan activity. For this activity, participants'developed
lesson plans over a five-week period of time, and they used the class wiki to draft initial ideas and get feedback from their peers. The instructional
plans included a thematic focus, goals, instructional objectives, procedures for implementing the lesson, and a list of materials. The student who received
the comment from the professor outside the course included in her lesson an objective that required students to "define key vocabulary words reflective of
the time period, including some words from German." The professor from outside the class then posted to the discussion page for this participant's wiki
page. Discussion pages are accessible as a link, but appear in a separate location associated with each wiki page. Discussion pages provide a location for
discussing participants' postings, in this case a response that questioned the student's proposed plan in relation to teaching The Diary of Anne Frank. The outside professor posted the following:
Why should students learn German words rather than Dutch ones? That was Anne's mothertongue (and mine). Is this a matter of prejudice against us Dutch?
A few suggestions:
bonkaart - ration card (without which people starve, Jewish ones were invalid)
achterhuis - place where Anne hid ('behind-house')
mof - 'kraut' derogatory term for German
rotmof -same but worse (can you guess?)
zes-en-een-kwart - 'six and a quarter' pun on the name of Seyss Inquart, Hilter's (Austrian) bully governor in the Netherlands
jodenvervolging - persecution of the Jews (holocaust)
NSB - the Dutch nazi party, much hated by most, but dangerous to anyone hiding Jews.
Joodsche Raad: the organization the nazi's imposed upon the Jewish community. It was manned by Jews. All Jews had to register. As soon as that was done
the deportations started
Five days later, the participant who was the main author of the page deleted the text.
Even though we only recorded this one instance of an individual from outside the class actually accessing participants' work, several participants were
concerned about the public nature of their work, particularly on the class blog. These concerns ranged from issues relating to a desire to stay in control
of their work on the class wiki to participants simply not wanting to make public their thoughts on particular issues. One class assignment on the blog
required participants to post their thoughts about the November 2006 general election. Several participants were concerned that their thoughts were being
made public. As one participant put it, "I didn't like sharing what I thought about the election, because I didn't want to offend anyone, or for people to
think of me a certain way" (Student 5, open-ended survey). Another participant spoke about her concerns in more general terms saying, "Some people do not
like to express their opinions, and it can step on toes" (Student 5, open-ended survey). Others even offered possible ways around the public nature of
class blog comments. For example, one participant suggested that "some people would put more honest answers and comments on the blog if they were allowed
to be anonymous" (Student 13, open-ended survey). Other participants even thought they might be misunderstood in their blog posting. As one participant put
it, "the drawbacks are that some people may read it and not understand you, as opposed to if you said it, and others may not feel comfortable sharing
things online" (Student 5, open-ended survey).
In all, over half of the participants were at least minimally concerned about the requirement that they share what they considered to be mostly private
thoughts in a public venue. Some participants were more enthusiastic about the public nature of the class blog and class wiki. One participant saw her work
in these venues as beneficial, because it provided, as she put it, "opportunities to voice one's opinions, a chance to view other's opinions and reply to
those opinions, and as a way to reflect on a topic" (Student 11, open-ended survey). This participant said that she "liked seeing other's opinions about
what was going on in the election" and added, "I also liked that I became aware of how I should pay more attention to what is going on in politics"
(Student 11, open-ended survey).
Access to other students' work.
Participants consistently commented on how beneficial it was to be able to access fellow students' work. One student described this access to information
as important because she could "see what everyone [was] thinking," and "[see] their reflection on a particular topic" (Student 9, open-ended survey).
Another student appreciated the ease of use as well as being able to access other's work: "[It] was not difficult to post these things [to the blog], and
by posting on the wiki, everyone can share their ideas and resources" (Student 1, open-ended survey).
The survey results supported this finding about the general importance of access to other's work. Participants more consistently indicated that they used
and referenced the class wiki than actually contributing to it. A participant who expressed her appreciation for using the wiki was much less enthusiastic
in her assessment of how she used the class blog saying, "The only benefit I see to blogging is being able to see what everyone is thinking and seeing
their reflection on a particular topic" (Student 9, open-ended survey). This participant's comment also reflected a common tradeoff participants made
between their access to each other's work as enabling collaboration and the access enabling people outside the class to see their work. At times, this
tradeoff was sometimes difficult for participants to negotiate. However, when participants worked on the class blog and class wiki as class activities,
they were more inclined toward collaboration and less concerned with the public nature of the tool and their work.
Other participants talked about being able to see their fellow students' work in terms of how they benefited. One participant described the informative
nature of her experience participating in the course blog: "The benefits I felt with the blogs were it informed me of things that I was not aware of"
(Student 12 open-ended survey). This type of positive response was common. Another participant commented that others liked seeing what their fellow
students were interested in saying: "I do not have a problem with my peers reading my work" (Student 15, open-ended survey). Still another participant was
even more direct in her view: "It was a great chance to see what our other classmates were interested in researching" (Student 15, open-ended survey).
Assertion Two -- The class blog and class wiki enabled collaboration around a set of activities that participants viewed as important to their
development as teachers.
As we analyzed the various data collected in this study, one realization that emerged was that participants often viewed their work as a collaborative
effort and saw this collaboration as beneficial. The collaborative nature of the class wiki and class blog took form in three contexts. First, this
collaboration extended participants' active engagement through communities designed to support their work. Second, activities that valued
socially-constructed knowledge encouraged and extended collaboration on the class blog and class wiki. Third, the class blog and class wiki specifically
enabled a form of collaborative discourse.
Extending participants' active engagement through communities designed to support and advance knowledge.
In assertion one, we presented findings related to the active nature of participants' access to the class blog and class wiki. Our analysis of data
revealed that participants saw themselves as part of a community that supported their own active work on the class blog and class wiki. A community ethos
emerged among participants that valued collaborative working relationships, peer feedback, and focused reflection. This community ethos was evident when we
analyzed participants' work and their patterns and processes for completing assignments. On numerous occasions participants were given the option of
working on class wiki assignments alone or working in pairs or small groups. Participants overwhelmingly chose pairs and small groups. For example,
participants were required to create a wiki article on an inquiry lesson idea in social studies. They were given the option of working alone or in pairs.
Whichever arrangement was chosen, work on the wiki article required at minimum three edits. Only three participants chose to work by themselves.
The collaborative approach extended into a larger community as participants sought out other participants' work and provided feedback and reflection. One
participant summed up her thoughts about this community collaboration on the class wiki saying, "I also liked reading everyone's inquiry ideas and seeing
where our curiosities would lead us" (Student 6, open-ended survey). Another participant echoed this thought saying, "One benefit of the methods wiki is
that it provides a site where students can interact. As students post, other classmates can read the posts. Ideas can generate from students' posts"
(Student 8, open-ended survey).
Our analysis of participants' blog postings revealed a pattern of reflection and feedback that was supportive and seemingly designed to advance knowledge.
A series of blog postings on issues relating to the local political election were evidence of this community belief. After three previous postings about
one local issue, a participant wrote,
It doesn't surprise me that majority of us are talking about [this issue]. I guess that is because most of us will be teachers in _________... Also for
those of us who are wondering how _______ county decides how to build schools, they follow certain steps. (Student 12, posted November 13, 2006)
This comment was both supportive (i.e. "It doesn't surprise me...") and focused on advancing knowledge (i.e. "for those of us wondering..."). Another student
made a similar post in which she supported a fellow student and attempted to advance the community's knowledge on an issue:
That is interesting _______. I don't know where you live, but where I live is mostly college students, and I haven't seen any flyers or anything posted
anywhere at my apartment complex. I wonder if that is because everyone thinks college students are too apathetic to vote in an election like this. I
guess college students aren't the target voting population in this election. Personally, it's not that I'm apathetic, it's just that I'm not registered
to vote in this county. It wouldn't make sense for me to vote at home for candidates whom I have no clue as to what their platform is. (Student 9,
posted November 06, 2006)
The blog was a particularly effective environment for supporting and advancing community knowledge, but the wiki to a certain extent also functioned in
this role. Participants edited each other's work and provided feedback in numerous places in such a way as to support and advance knowledge. One
participant exemplified this supportive disposition by writing the following response in an edit on a wiki entry about a unit plan written by a fellow
participant:
I can tell your students are definitely going to enjoy this! It is awesome that the students will be learning about the community around them, while
completing objectives. Being about to connect what is being taught/learned to the students personally, makes it a lot more meaningful... I want to hear
more about this once it has been implemented in the classroom! (Student 20, edited November 29, 2006)
Another participant posted a comment that typified the goal of advancing knowledge when commenting on the class wiki about a fellow participant's unit
page: "You could also use old films or propaganda from the war to allow students to see how much the war was publicized and how the media portrayed the
wars" (Student 23, edited November 29, 2006). These comments were common on wiki unit pages with some pages containing as many as five student comments
about how the unit could be enhanced. As we analyzed the data, it became apparent that certain activities such as the wiki activity on developing a unit
were more productive in encouraging and facilitating collaboration. The next sub-assertion addresses these activities.
Activities that valued social knowledge construction led to more collaboration.
Certain class wiki and class blog activities in this study facilitated collaboration more than others. These activities shared a characteristic in that
they valued social knowledge construction. The manner in which these social environments took shape was an important consideration. Class blog activities
that were narrowly focused and required specific and limited content enabled participants to collaborate. Similarly, when the class wiki work involved
participants working together on a single, well-focused page, collaboration was more successful. In general, we found that the activities that encouraged
the most collaboration and social knowledge construction made use of the class wiki, and these activities were specifically designed with collaboration in
mind.
One of the best examples of collaboration occurred when students developed wiki pages on readings relating to teaching language arts. In this activity,
participants completed a series of class wiki pages in which they contributed insights about journals and journaling, as well as defining reading and
writing workshop. In all, participants created seven collaborative pages. For each of these pages, one participant took the leadership in initiating the
page as a part of an initial class discussion, and fellow classmates / participants then added to and edited the pages over a two to three week period
outside of class. These seven pages were edited 17.2 times by a variety of participants. The pages had an average of 12.4 different participants who
contributed some original text or edits of existing text. Pages took collaborative form as individual participants added ideas related to the central
topics. Most pages developed along a similar path in which a participant posted an initial idea and was followed by other participants who posted related
ideas below the existing text. Most participants also included their name in parentheses after their addition. These expanding pages became a workspace of
sorts for individual participants to construct knowledge about the topic of the page.
The design features of the class wiki allowed for each page to be edited over time without necessarily detracting from the finished look and feel of the
article. As participants engaged the page at any given time, they used what for them was a finished page as content in the preparation of their ideas. The
final version of pages took two forms that reflected the extent to which participants took into account existing text in the page when they made their
edits and/or additions. The first type of page was what we might think of as a "content added" approach. These pages consisted of a sequence of ideas and
thoughts added sequentially with little reference to existing text resulting in a mostly uneven presentation of ideas. The second type of page was a
"blended content" approach in which participants took into account what had been written when adding their content. An example of this second approach
could be seen in the class wiki page on formats for journaling. After two participants had added text about how they used journals, a third participant
added to the page the following: "My [cooperating teacher] doesn't use a specific notebook or composition book for journaling" (Student 8, edited November
08, 2006). This participant included in her text a transition from the initial focus on more traditional approaches to journaling to open a new area of
content about what she viewed as a non-traditional approach to journaling. Another participant who made the fifth edit to this page opened another avenue
for considering journaling when she added comments about a professional journal article she had read about journaling: "My article actually talked about
some formats to use for journals" (Student 12, edited November 09, 2006). The blended content approach seemed to better facilitate collaboration.
The class blog and class wiki encouraged collaborative discourse.
Similar patterns regarding collaboration were evident when looking at participants' work on class blog activities that required them to access, comment, or
review other participants' work. One class activity required participants to post their thoughts on the upcoming 2006 general election and then comment on
other participants' blog postings. The election included several controversial local issues and contested races for the United States House of
Representative. Participants made 54 original blog entries ranging from two or three sentences to entries that were several paragraphs long. Several of
these class blog postings were actually comments on previous posts. Although participants were asked to make their comments using the comment feature on
the class blog, only six actual comments to original postings were made. The low number of comments was due, in part, to difficulties that participants had
with using the blog interface. These participants reported that they accidentally made a new posting when they meant to comment on an existing post.
Regardless of the technical difficulties, participants seemed to generally value the collaborative nature of the activity as it was facilitated on the
class blog. As one participant put it, "I feel that some of the benefits of blogging are opportunities to voice one's opinions, a chance to view other's
opinions and reply to those opinions, and as a way to reflect on a topic" (Student 11, open-ended survey).
Several participants commented on the benefits of blogging in K-12 settings such as one participant who said, "I think that wikis/blogs would be an awesome
tool to use in middle school as it could provide a link to involve parents in their child's learning. It could also provide an opportunity for student
interaction with one another" (Student 8, open-ended survey). Another participant mentioned specific features in the class blog that she thought would be
useful in schools.
I think that wikis and blogs could be used in middle schools for journaling. It could also be used to help in peer review. Students can post writings
or assignments to the web, and other students can respond through the comment feature. (Student 11, open-ended survey)
Still another participant commented on other specific uses:
In the middle school, wikis and blogs can be useful tools for creating online literature communities. It would be a great journal activity. For the
blog, the students could keep journal entries on the blog, where students would write and respond. (Student 13, open-ended survey)
Not all participants were fully convinced that blogging was effective or productive. One participant, in her comments about the class blog, emphasized the
lack of coherence among various posts and comments. As she explained it, "There was a disconnect between each students' response. However, this is
understandable since not all students will want to research the same election" (Student 8, open-ended survey). As this participant put it, "I feel that
blogging is difficult because often times the posts are one directional with a lack of student interaction" (Student 8, open-ended survey). But the
prevailing sense of the participants was that the class blog and the class wiki did facilitate collaborative discourse. As one participant put it, "It's
nice to be able to view and edit each other's work. I'm not sure that we used it as much as we should have" (Student 19, open-ended survey). This general
sense was echoed by another participant who said, "The wiki was a quick way to post what we had for each of our projects and to get feedback. Anyone from
the class could log on and comment on our postings" (Student 18, open-ended survey). Both the blog and wiki activities seemed to be enhanced as a result of
the collaboration fostered by these tools. A participant who made this connection said that she "felt like it was a secure place to post ideas and to get
feedback. I think the wiki helped to connect our methods class even more outside of class" (Student 21, open-ended survey). In general, the data supports
the notion that participants viewed the class blog and the class wiki as facilitating collaborative discourse.
Conclusions
This study was designed to determine how a specific class blog and separate class wiki could be used in a methods course given practical considerations
about how Web 2.0 technologies can complement existing practices. The findings of this study contribute to an emerging body of knowledge about technology
integration in teacher education. One particular area of emphasis is the area of new literacies. Research focused on the extent to which a new literacies
approach, including the application of emerging technologies, might affect teacher education and preparation is needed. As Peggy Albers and Jerome Harste
(2007) assert, "[E]ducators must be prepared to work with how messages are sent, received, and interpreted, as well as how media and technology position us
as viewers and users of multimedia texts in the world" (6). A better understanding of how emerging Web 2.0 collaborative technologies might be used in
teacher education is a crucial step in the adoption of such technologies, as well as the preparation of teachers who are skilled with new literacies. We
believe that our findings suggest a particular need for teacher educators to focus on new literacies as they manifest in students' and teachers' uses of
new media. >Henry Jenkins, Katie Clinton, Ravi Purushotma, Alice J. Robinson, and Margaret Weigel (2006) developed one particularly innovative set of
new literacies that they argue emerge from using various new technologies and media. These new literacies include
play, performance, simulation, appropriation, multitasking, distributed cognition, collective intelligence, judgment, transmedia navigation,
networking,
and negotiation. We believe that our findings support six of these new literacies, specifically the following:
Multitasking
-- the ability to scan one's environment and shift focusas needed to salient details.
Distributed Cognition
-- the ability to interact meaningfully with tools that expand mental capacities
Collective Intelligence
-- the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal
Judgment
-- the ability to evaluate the reliability and credibility of different information sources
Networking
-- the ability to search for, synthesize, and disseminate information
Negotiation
-- the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms
(Jenkins, et al., 2006, p. 4)
While none of our findings are in direct alignment with the Jenkins, et al. (2006) model of new literacies, we did find certain areas of overlap. For
example, in our findings we found that as participants navigated dynamic and public text, they were also multitasking and utilizing distributed cognition.
When participants engaged in collaborative discourse, they were likewise engaging in collective intelligence and judgment. Finally, participants' efforts
which resulted in socially constructed knowledge seemed to overlap with networking and negotiation directed towards developing commonly held beliefs and
understandings of content.
In a similar effort to Jenkins, et. al. (2006), Donald Leu, Charles Kinzer, Julie Coiro, Dana Cammack (2004) described new literacies using the following
emergent description:
The new literacies of the Internet and other ICTs include the skills, strategies, and dispositions necessary to successfully use and adapt to the rapidly
changing information and communication technologies and contexts that continuously emerge in our world and influence all areas of our personal and
professional lives. These new literacies allow us to use the Internet and other ICTs to identify important questions, locate information, critically
evaluate the usefulness of that information, synthesize information to answer those questions, and then communicate the answers to others. (p. 1570)
Leu, at al. (2004) supported their definition with ten principles on which a theory of new literacies might be built:
1. The Internet and other ICTs are central technologies for literacy within a global community in an information age.
2. The Internet and other ICTs require new literacies to fully access their potential.
3. New literacies are deictic.
4. The relationship between literacy and technology is transactional.
5. New literacies are multiple in nature.
6. Critical literacies are central to the new literacies.
7. New forms of strategic knowledge are central to the new literacies.
8. Speed counts in important ways within the new literacies.
9. Learning often is socially constructed within new literacies.
10. Teachers become more important, though their role changes, within new literacy classrooms. (p. 1583)
We would argue that this study supports a number of these principles, specifically the ideas that the Internet requires new literacies (#2), the
relationship between new literacies and technology is transactional (#3), new literacies are multiple (#5), learning is often a social construction within
new literacies (#9), and teachers' roles change within new literacy classrooms (#10). While the relationship between our findings and Leu et al's framework
(2004) does not confirm to these principles with a perfect fit, the findings do suggests that wikis and blogs, when used with pre-service teachers, might
be broadly conceived of as eliciting transactional change, promoting multiplicity with regard to literacy, enhancing social learning, and expanding the
role teachers play in a new literacy classroom.
In particular, the social nature of learning in new literacy environments is important with regard to learners using wikis and blogs. C. K. Chang, G. D.
Chen, & L. Y. Li, (2007) developed a situated learning environment on the Web that they called a Coursework Journal and presented it as a tool to
support collaborative knowledge construction. The tool was modeled on the journal publishing protocol and involved students submitting their writing to a
group of editors, including their teacher. These collaborative groups were designed to function within the framework of Wenger's (1998) theory of
communities of practice. We see wiki and blog environments as potential communities of practice in which novice learners can construct knowledge by sharing
ideas, modeling expert knowledge, reflecting on new thoughts, and engaging in discourse about a variety of new learning topics.
Implications
Given our findings and the work of others in the area of new literacies (Jenkins, et. al., 2006; Leu, et. al., 2004), we believe that wikis and blogs can
support collaborative and active learning through a community of practice by taking the following steps:
1. Providing a safe, open and easily accessible environment to try out new ideas.
2. Enabling a process of knowledge construction around dynamic and fluid text.
3. Situating knowledge construction in public contexts where risks and rewards are evident and explicit, but also carefully managed, monitored, supported,
and scaffolded.
To accomplish these outcomes, we believe that educators must carefully craft collaborative environments for producing and using texts on blogs and wikis.
By nurturing classroom contexts that compliment the technical environments of blogs and wikis, educators can tap into the collaborative potential of wikis
and blogs. This means educators may need to take a more constructivist stance toward learning by viewing learning as an open process with multiple aims.
Likewise, we think that blogs and wikis can also support collaborative and active learning through a community of practice by the following:
1. Enabling the valuing of multiple ideas in civic contexts.
2. Encouraging discourse on emerging ideas.
3. Modeling ways of thinking about new ideas.
Democratic civic thought and action requires that students engage ideas in public forums. Through the use of public blogs and wikis, traditional
face-to-face contexts for civic discourse are extended and in some ways enhanced. Students may be exposed to a wider array of opinions and ideas in online
environments. With this expanded body of ideas in online environments come the possibilities for more differences in opinion. Students need to understand
how to engage ideas that are different than their own and how to formulate new ideas that will extend public discourse. In our research, at least one
participant was resistant to such discourse when someone outside the class questioned the participant's pedagogical focus on German language in an activity
on the Holocaust. The public nature of the participant's pedagogical ideas shifted the obligations for interaction. Instead of just engaging her professor,
this participant engaged a larger public. The same shift in audience and interaction occurred with participants' blog posts. Several of the participants'
were upset or disrupted by the pubic nature of their work. Going forward we see a need for more support and critical analysis as students enter the public
forums enabled by wikis and blogs. We further think that this critical work should be situated in the context of democratic life.
As new teachers enter the education profession, they are encountering both personal and professional web-based environments that value and depend upon Web
2.0 tools. As the findings of this study demonstrate, pre-service teachers working in wiki and blog environments were able to engage in active, dynamic,
and collaborative learning. This learning took shape through communities of practice that were supportive and directed towards the social construction of
knowledge. We see this process as beneficial to preparing teachers to work with students in similar environments. Given the rapid proliferation of Web 2.0
tools such as blogs and wikis, teachers will need these skills and dispositions to actively engage their students in meaningful learning. We believe that
if teacher educators apply the findings and the related theoretical ideas reported here, along with findings that are emerging in similarly structured
studies of Web 2.0 technologies, they will be better able to make the transition from digital immigrant to digital native, as well as facilitate their
students' development as teachers who are empowered, engaged, and on board in these technologically invigorating and challenging times.
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Appendix 1
Extended-response written interview
1. How would you characterize the use of technology in the 430 and 435 methods courses (by the instructors and by you and your fellow students)?
2. What do you see as some of the benefits of blogging? Drawbacks?
3. What did you like about the blogging activity on the election? Dislike?
4. What were some of the benefits of the methods wiki? What worked well? What were some of the limitations? (As you respond to c, consider some of the
specific parts of the wiki: e.g., Lesson ideas; Unit Ideas
/ Themes;Inquiry Project Questions / Ideas;The Known World; Insights on Journals / Journaling;
Defining Reading / Writing Workshop
; North Carolina Native Indians Resources, Links, and Files)
5. How do you think wikis and blogs can be used in middle school?
Appendix 2
Wiki Survey
Part One: Questions about your class wiki
Please rate the importance of each item in relation to your use of the wiki in your course work.
Use the following scale as appropriate for each question
Low ------- medium --------- high
1. What is your enjoyment level for using the wiki in this class?
2. How well do you think the wiki helps you to learn?
3. In your opinion, how important is the purpose of wiki in the class?
4. Rate how useful the wiki is in helping you to write effectively.
5. Rate how useful the wiki is in helping you to collaborate with other students.
6. Rate how useful the wiki is in helping you to communicate information to the class.
7. Rate how flexible the wiki is.
8. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your positive impressions of this course.
9. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your leadership skills.
10. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your organizational skills.
11. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your self-esteem/self-confidence.
12. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your analytical skills.
13. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your learning of information in this course.
14. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your ability to synthesize and integrate information and ideas.
15. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your improved reading skills.
16. Rate how well the wiki has contributed to your study skills, strategies, and habits.
Other aspects of the wiki you would like to rate:
Part Two: Out-of-class learning activities
How often do you:
Use the following scale as appropriate for each question
Rarely -------- a little --------- a lot
1. contribute to the wiki?
2. use or refer to the wiki?
3. work in groups on the wiki?
4. participate in tutorials about the wiki?
5. creat new wiki pages?
6. edit existing wiki pages?
7. ask the teacher questions using the wiki?
8. post non-pertinent information to the wiki?
other:
Attachments:
Table 1
(image format), 98 K.
Table 2
(image format), 77 K.