After doing a Web 2.0 unit in 2008, I launched enthusiastically into the world of wikis. My students weren’t as enthusiastic. The classroom experience did not achieve the level of student communication and peer feedback I had hoped for. A few students discovered these types of online tools have a management system that prevents inappropriate comments from being published and in a school network the comments are traceable. Important lessons for the fledgling troll but not necessarily the intent of that part of the curriculum unit. Now in a remote context I am again considering incorporating Web 2.0 tools into the classroom but I am more aware of what is needed for successful implementation.
One of the reasons educators are attracted to Web 2.0 tools is that they provide a space for students to work together and maximize each other’s learning. Through collaboration, students build knowledge more effectively than as individuals and they increase their social awareness, communication skills and language learning (Ismail and Al Allaq, 2019, p.2).
The tool itself doesn’t create collaboration that is the role of the educator and their lesson design. My students work well together outside the classroom. They organize and teach each other games, and work together to hunt. Inside the classroom they prefer to work on their own and I wonder if it is the imposed traditional teacher-centric and Eurocentric learning environment that has them feel in competition with other students and therefore unsafe working in a group. To incorporate Web 2.0 tools into the classroom I must consider how I can provide a safe space and explicitly teach the skills required.
Many of my students have transgenerational trauma and recent trauma and have irregular attendance. According to Karahan and Roehrig (2016, p274), Web 2.0 tools enhance collaborative strategies by providing a safe space to practise social skills and a sense of community which has been shown to improve motivation, engagement and academic achievement in at risk students and may provide my students with agency and security to effectively learn collaboratively.
Each Web 2.0 tool has specific skills the students need to master: keyboard and mouse skills, uploading, downloading, cutting, pasting, filing, inserting, and following information hierarchies. These skills need to be pre-taught and practised. Low literacy levels impact resilience to failure and students often need one to one coaching. Consequently, to incorporate Web 2.0 tools into a unit of work it may be necessary to introduce the skills a term or so beforehand to gain the necessary practice. Over this year I have incorporated technology into a number of units so my students have been doing a free typing program, making Word documents and PowerPoints to practise the skill sets needed for online tools.
Collaboration and feedback must also be explicitly taught and practised. Studies have shown that students are reluctant to give feedback if they do not know what to say (Bower, 2017, p.185). To teach my students about effective feedback I used “Austin’s butterfly’, which is a video about children giving feedback to a peer about how to copy a drawing of a butterfly. The feedback is effective because the students can see the original and so know what the drawing should look like and they are given parameters in which to provide feedback. The first was the shape of the wings and the second was the colouring. Their feedback is honest and positive. I had all my students draw the butterfly then give feedback on Austin’s attempt and then listen to the videoed class give feedback. With my support they followed the feedback suggestions for their own attempts.
For Indigenous students the classroom is often not culturally safe as the education model is Eurocentric so they automatically compare themselves unfavourably with what they perceive is the correct way. This makes students feel vulnerable when faced with feedback and they can become paralyzed with shame. Students can get so upset that they will go home and not return to school for days. To create an environment where mistakes are normal and positive I have been introducing drafting and making mistakes for the whole year. I can now ask, ‘What happens when we draft?’ My students chorus, ‘We make mistakes’.
At the start of the lesson on ‘Austin’s Butterfly’ I gave them the lesson intention of ‘We are learning to give effective feedback”. At the end, as a class, we discussed the success criteria for effective feedback. Students came up with straight, nice and one thing only (specific). We also discussed how Austin felt. Providing parameters (rubrics) for feedback, modelling it and providing lesson intentions and success criteria will support students to acquire the necessary skills for constructive and effective feedback.
Collaboration strategies must be scaffolded and practised too. The questions and actions for each role must be explicitly taught. I elicit possible questions in their own language and in Standard Australian English. We have been practising pair sharing and organizing pictures and sentences in pairs using specific questions in class. Another common strategy is assigning specific roles to members of the group (Bower, 2017, p. 202).
My class is still practising giving and receiving effective feedback and collaborating. It has given me some time to experiment and learn about various Web 2.0 tools. I am going to introduce a wiki and hopefully this time I have prepared my students in advance and it will be more effective than my first sojourn into the Web 2.0 world.
References
Berger, R., (2012) Austin’s Butterfly Retrieved on 8th August, 2019 from https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=hqh1MRWZjms
Bower, M. (2017). Design of technology-enhanced learning – Integrating research and practice. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Group
Dohn, N. B. (2009). Web 2.0: Inherent tensions and evident challenges for education. International journal of computer-supported collaborative learning, 4(3), 343-363 Retrieved 1st October 2019 from Springer Standard Collection database.
Ismail, S.A.A. & Al Allaq, K., (2019). The Nature of Cooperative Learning and Differentiated Instruction Practices in English Classes, SAGE Open, 9(2), pp.1-17. Retrieved 1st October 2019 from SAGE Open database,
Karahan, E., & Roehrig, G. (2016). Use of Web 2.0 Technologies to Enhance Learning Experiences in Alternative School Settings. International Journal of Education in Mathematics, Science and Technology, 4(4), 272-283. Retrieved 1st October 2019 from ROAD: Directory of Open Access Scholarly Resources database.
Technology in the remote classroom 
Thanks for sharing your experiences on using Web 2.0 tools for collaborative learning in your classroom! You showcased that even if educators are highly motivated to use technologies like wikis to enhance students’ learning it does not mean that they succeed at the first try. As you stated well ‘the tool itself doesn’t create collaboration that is the role of the educator and their lesson design‘. I think the learning design is one of the most important issues for educators to consider when they aim to provide their students with meaningful learning opportunities. The challenge is to understand all the various possibilities of Web 2.0 tools (Bower, 2017, p. 160) and relate that to a certain context.
On the other hand, your examples illustrate how educators should not be deterred from trying to implement technology because of that fact. The successful implementation of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom as such can be a learning process for educators as well. Although there might be failures at the beginning, it will probably lead to even greater teaching and learning success if educators reflect on their practical experiences thoroughly. Thereby, it can help to consider research evidence concerning the use of Web 2.0 tools for teaching (ibid.).
In general, I agree with you that we should not forget to help students to develop basic digital literacy in the first place. Bower (2017) emphasises that educators can not assume that all students have the necessary skills to use digital tools, however, this is crucial to set optimal learning conditions (p. 200 f.).
Furthermore, you referred to the issue that your indigenous students showed good collaboration skills outside the classroom while showing opposite behaviour during lessons. Even though the contexts are not directly comparable, I think that I can use your insights for my own future teaching practice. My former workplace was a school with a high proportion of refugee students. Due to language difficulties and traumatising experiences those students were very restrained and sensitive. Other students often did not know how to interact with them. If I try to imagine that those students would have to work collaboratively on a wiki this seems to be a difficult task.
That is why I really liked your approach to a learning environment in which students feel comfortable and safe and are encouraged to try new ways to collaborate which each other:
‚What happens when we draft?‘
‚We make mistakes‘!
Making students understand that it is normal to make mistakes is important to dismantle possible barriers. Moreover, you taught your students how to give feedback to each other and gave them thorough instructions on how to collaborate. And you also seem to have a positive attitude towards the use of Web 2.0 technologies, as Bower (2017) suggested educators should function as role models to motivate their students as well (p. 201). All this demonstrates how important it is to create the necessary preconditions and to offer guidance as an educator so that Web 2.0 tools can be capitalised fully for enhanced learning.
Lastly, I think a wiki is a good choice to facilitate your students’ knowledge building in a collaborative way (Bower, 2017, p. 167). Hsu et al. (2014) indicate that wikis are not only good tools but at the same time ‘artifacts of the co-constructed knowledge‘ that ‘make collaborative processes visible‘ for both, students and educators (p. 751). I am curious to know how the actual implementation of a wiki worked out for you!
Stefanie
References:
Bower, M. (2017). Design of technology-enhanced learning – Integrating research and practice. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Group.
Hsu, Y. C., Ching, Y. H., & Grabowski, B. L. (2014). Web 2.0 applications and practices for learning through collaboration. In Handbook of Research on Educational Communications and Technology: Fourth Edition (pp. 747-758). Springer New York.
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Stefanie Thank you so much for such an in-depth and thoughtful reply. Introducing new ideas into class can be disheartening and daunting. Your response has given me encouragement. Thank you.
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