Affordances and Constraints of a Wiki for Primary-school Students' Group Projects

This study examined a wiki as a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment at upper primary level. A total of 388 Hong Kong Primary-five (P5) students in four Chinese primary schools used a wiki platform within the context of their group projects in General Studies (GS) classes. Ad...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inEducational technology & society Vol. 16; no. 4; pp. 85 - 96
Main Authors Fu, Huijuan, Chu, Samuel, Kang, Wenxia
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Palmerston North International Forum of Educational Technology & Society 01.10.2013
Subjects
CAI
Collaborative learning
Computer assisted instruction
Cooperative learning
Education
Educational aspects
Educational technology
Elementary School Students
Elementary schools
Environmental technology
Focus Groups
Foreign Countries
Full Length Articles
Group Activities
Hong Kong
Information management
Information resources
Interviews
Management
Mixed Methods Research
Online learning
Performance Factors
Program Effectiveness
Qualitative analysis
Questionnaires
Scaffolding
Search engines
Student Attitudes
Student Surveys
Students
Teacher Collaboration
Teachers
Technology
Technology application
Technology Uses in Education
Transcripts (Written Records)
Usability
Web 2.0 Technologies
Wikis
Hong Kong
China
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Summary:This study examined a wiki as a computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) environment at upper primary level. A total of 388 Hong Kong Primary-five (P5) students in four Chinese primary schools used a wiki platform within the context of their group projects in General Studies (GS) classes. Adopting a mixed-methods design, qualitative and quantitative data were collected from focus group interviews, survey and wiki entries. Findings showed that the wiki platform provided educational, technological, and social affordances for the P5 students' collaborative learning. At the same time, constraints were found to be related to technological factors and users' dispositions, which may be counterbalanced by providing scaffolding and selecting wiki variants. Students' attitudes towards the pedagogical value of the wiki were found to be strongly positive after the group project implementation. Overall, this research contributes to the literature on the use of wikis in primary education.
ISSN:1176-3647
1436-4522
1436-4522