Developing transferable digital literacy skills with wiki-based learning activities

1. Developing transferable digital literacy skills with wiki-based learning activities Marija Cubric University of Hertfordshire

2. Problem Axioms: retention <= students’ satisfaction <= sense of community, employability, perception of increased learning … What kind of skills should we foster in order to increase sense of community, employability, etc? How should we help students in developing the skills ?

3. Collaborative writing • Collaborative development of one or more wiki pages concurrently i.e. at the same time (as for example in wikipedia) • “Constructing a text” through a group work

4. Digital skills for collaborative writing (Jenkins, 2008*) • Appropriation — the ability to meaningfully sample and remix media content • Collective Intelligence — the ability to pool knowledge and compare notes with others toward a common goal • Negotiation — the ability to travel across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms. *Jenkins at el. (2006) Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. MacArthur.

5. ITMB* Degree Learning Outcomes • present, argument, explain using different media • use knowledge to more effectively complete challenging business assignments • gain insight into the preferences, motivations, strengths and weaknesses of other people • influencing and persuading others constructively • develop self-reliance and ability to self-start • giving and receiving direct feedback constructively *ITMB (2006) Information Technology Management for Business Honours Degree Learning Outcomes & Skills Requirements, e-skills UK

6. UH BS wikis: Overview (2006-2009*)

7. Wiki learning activities

8. Benefits**Quotes from UH BS students • Through this piece of coursework, I have learnt that I do not know as much as I thought I did regarding economics as a whole • Looking at my input on Wiki made me feel quite good, because I could see my input to the whole course. • I learnt a lot from other people's input, whenever I got stuck alone, I would hop onto Wiki page and get the answers I needed… • I also learned how to reach to a single conclusion or decision…. • The Wiki page is a good part of learning because it encourages class members to integrate • Knowledge and skill I gained from using Wi-ki page will be useful for me in the future because Wi-ki page can be used for business purpose • It encouraged me to look into specific areas in greater depths and learn from the contribution of others and my own research

9. Importance of learning *Cubric M,, Luz S. (2009) An econometric study on the benefits of using wikis as a tool for blended learning. Draft

10. Challenges**Quotes from UH BS students • The most obvious difficulty was the non existence of communication within the group. • I was faced with the difficulty with the members of my group do not contributing • sometimes the work carried out does not flow like an essay, and this is due to some members not reading other people's parts… • that a lot of information can get repeated easily

11. Conclusions Collaborative writing, is an important “digital literacy” skill, increasingly required by the new businesses models, where “collaboration is the expectation rather than exception” *Richardson W. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts and other powerful web tools for the classroom. Corwin Press,, 2006) Students report benefits that range from gaining deeper subject knowledge, and enhancing their learning to gaining non-cognitive skills such as leadership, team working, and others The main issues are related to lack of sustainable and “spontaneous” engagement (“playful creation”*leading to the learning activities that are tied to formal assessment *Ebersbach A. et al Wiki : Web Collaboration, Springer, 2005 The main challenge is designing a fair assessment strategy that promotes and awards collaboration and provide “participatory incentives”