Wiki...A collaboration tool

I remember my eldest son coming home from school sometime in the first half of the year and asked if I knew what a Wiki was...back then I had to say "no"! Now I can officially say I know what a wiki is, have been and am learning how it can support learning.  My first introduction to a wiki was in the subject The Arts in Term one.  The Wiki was used as a collaborative communicating tool for our Floating Land Underwater Culture workshop.  There were 12 students in our group and we were from all over the Sunshine Coast so it was difficult to meet face to face.  This tool was fantastic for everyone to contribute their research, thoughts and ideas for our workshop.  It also gave us a permanent record of discussions so we were all up to date with the progress of our preparations.  I learnt about wikis by participating in on-line collaboration, this is a feature of constructivism way of learning - learning by experience.

For this subject we were asked to contribute to the group wiki, which was debating the use of mobile phones in classrooms.  This was interesting as my eldest son came home with the same topic for his persuasive text homework only a few weeks ago.  At the time, both my husband and I had the opinion that they should not be in classrooms for certain reasons and my son...well of course being a digital native, argued well that they should have mobiles in the classroom.

The mobile phone wiki was scaffolded by using de Bono's Six Thinking Hats.  To participate, I put on different "thinking" hats and read other student's perspectives, which made me analyse and evaluate my stance on this issue.  I am not sure whether it has changed my opinion but it certainly built up my knowledge about mobile phone issues, that I do value other student's perspectives and that using a interactive scaffolding tool such as a wiki and thinking routine engaged me in higher order thinking.  

Therefore from my two experiences above, I believe this ICT tool fits appropriately in the Social Constructivism learning theory.  Social interaction has a large influence on learning, especially through the process such as scaffolding (Vygotsky, 1962).

Reference:

Weekly materials Week 1 : Learning theory and e-learning in the course FAHE11001