I’m posting my application fo the e-learning fellowship. I would really appreciate any comments anyone can make.
Project Title
Developing Student Communities of Practice: A student-centred approach to engaging with knowledge creation using Wiki Wiki Web.
Project Summary
State the teaching problem
The course Mobile Workforce Technologies is an interdisciplinary and (potentially) cross faculty course. Students entering the course have multiple levels of understanding about technology, working and mobility. Because of this, the course focuses on sources concerning computing technology, human computer interaction, wireless technology, human resources and organisational structure. The melding of these diverse disciplinary topics is problematic in a traditional linearly structured course. To overcome this, the project embeds hypertextuality into the course allowing students to develop inter-linkages between topics. Collaborative construction of knowledge allows students to bring prior knowledge to new contexts working with a diverse group.
The Griffith Academic Plan 2 states “Technology will continue to offer new opportunities to engage with students and to enrich their educational experience.” This project speaks directly to these opportunities.
The project will engage students and teachers as collaborators and co-constructors of disciplinary knowledge. This is a student-centred project investigating learning, teaching, assessment and evaluation processes in a participative online (e-learning) environment.
• It incorporates the philosophy of community of practice based on the work of Lave and Wegner (1991), specifically: Legitimate Peripheral Participation.
• This philosophy posits learners as increasingly more competent members of the community of practice as the learners engage within the peripheries of practice and brings students from the periphery to the centre of learning
• Within the project, students engage as ‘designers’ of knowledge which incorporates the acts of ‘pausing, reflecting and designing multimodal representations of knowledge’ within a digital environment (Kimber & Wyatt-Smith, 2006, 25)
The project is based on the concept of students-as-designers of their “own representations of their knowledge”, using design as a value-adding process to educational interaction (Kimber & Wyatt-Smith, 2006)
• It engages students in ‘ecologies of practice’ which “comprise the accumulation of individual and collective experiences … through which people lay claim to being ‘professional’” (Stronach et al, 2002, 122)
• It allows for multiple forms of collaboration and interaction which can be tailored to students’ preferred style of interaction, particularly the ‘vicarious’ interactor (Ruth, 2004) who tends to sit on the sidelines, while also providing opportunities to engage in deeper participative practices, thus moving students from the peripheries of practice to more central positions.
The purpose of the project is to develop and disseminate techniques for using collaborative web tools for co-construction of knowledge by students. Specifically the project is designed to
• investigate WikiWikiWeb for learning and teaching
• to develop a publishable guide for using Wiki technologies in teaching
• to create a Community of Practice for investigating Web2.0 technologies in teaching (Web 2.0 refers to a second generation web services that facilitate collaboration and information sharing online. It moves the World Wide Web beyond static pages of information (Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0)).
Within the above framework, the project specifically aims to engage students in processes which will develop socially situated knowledge through collaborative practice facilitated by technology (eg Wiki) while allowing teachers to:
• embed opportunities for students to collaborate in technology facilitated learning environments and
• constructively align learning processes with course outcomes, that is, engaging with disciplinary knowledge construction that is also assessable work.
The anticipated outcomes of the project will encompass multiple levels including:
• Wiki Teaching Community of Practice (WTCoP) for engagement of teachers.
• Wiki for student developed content on mobile workforce technologies (extractable as a student developed ‘text book’)
• An evaluation of an implemented Wiki for collaborative learning
• A Guide incorporating a process for developing the use of Wiki technologies in learning and teaching beyond technical courses
• Documented techniques for assessing participation in collaborative environments.
The strategies for sharing and disseminating the projects outcomes include, but are not limited to, the following potential avenues:
• Seminar in the ‘Celebrating Teaching’ Series
• Presentation and workshop as part of the Griffith E-Learning Showcase
• Presentation at (at least) one National Conference (To be decided)
• Presentation at (at least) one International Conference (To be decided)
• Papers in Journals (To be decided)
• Collaborative workspace for developing teaching, learning and working practice within collaborative workspaces
• Development of information pages about the process in Wikipedia, the online global encyclopaedia.
• Community of Practice (starting with local Griffith University people then expanding)
Project Description
The Plan
The project consists of four ‘stages’.
1. Development and Implementation of CourseWiki framework (Stage 1)
2. Development of Teaching Wiki (Wiki Teaching Community of Practice Stage 2)
3. Evaluation by Students (Stage 3)
4. Dissemination (?)
Stage 1 Development of CourseWiki.
Purpose:
• To implement a Wiki for coursework. The initial set up includes constructing the framework of the disciplinary knowledge in the Wiki and developing basic instructional pages. Weekly topics for the course will be developed as a series of topic ‘stubs’ within the Wiki which students use for course/assessment work.
Process and Products
• Guidelines for setting up Wikis for coursework including information for the use of Wikis in Learning and Teaching
• Assessment criteria for WikiWork which aligns students learning processes with course outcomes
Stage 2 Development of Wiki Teaching Community of Practice (WTCoP).
Purpose:
• To build a Wiki Teaching Community of Practice with the foundation members being the proposed reference group
Process and Products
• Implementation of Wiki technology to facilitate interaction within the proposed reference group and expanding to interested individuals within the wider University community (with further opportunities to engage across universities).
• Guidelines for establishment of Communities of Practice using Wiki Technology.
Stages 1 and 2 will occur concurrently providing opportunities for reflective practice by participants.
Stage 3
This will be ongoing during the project with students having access to and being required to engage in reflective practice on the project.
Purpose:
• To engage students in reflective learning using TiddlyWiki to maintain a ‘history’ of their practice. TiddlyWiki (http://www.tiddlywiki.com/) is a micro content Wiki. It can be used for journaling and the creation of a personalised, self-contained hypertext documents.
• To encourage students to engage in reflective practice that will form part of their assessment. Students will be required to submit an annotated log of their participation which points to their contributions to the Community of Practice within the course.
• To provide opportunities for students to evaluate the project both through their ‘log’ and anonymously via Course Evaluation
Stage 4 Dissemination
• The outcomes, successes and disappointments of the project will be disseminated in the manner outlined above.