Introduction
Technology has brought massive changes in the field of education as the stakeholders try to develop an improved learning environment. According to the research by West & West (2009), there has been an effort by the stakeholders to come up with an interactive communication system in the field of education that would allow learners to share ideas through online means. The learning environment has been changing rapidly over the years as the stakeholders try to come up with virtual classrooms.
Albadri (2013) says that, in the current society, the physical learning environment is fast losing its relevance as people try to eliminate the geographic barriers. It is now common for Harvard University to admit students from various countries in Africa, Asia, Europe, and other parts of the world without the need to have them in a physical classroom on the campuses of this university. This has been enabled by some of the modern interactive technologies that are currently in use in some of the learning institutions.
However, the fact that students can learn from different parts of the world through an online platform does not mean that the need for collaborative work among students has been eliminated. Collaboration among students has become even more necessary than before, as students struggle to learn and share new ideas. It means that there is a need for interactive platforms that would allow learners in different geographic locations to share their ideas without the need to converge in a physical classroom setting. Wikis have been considered as some of the most appropriate interactive platforms that can be used by students to encourage collaborative work in online classes. In this research, the focus is to determine the importance of using wikis to encourage collaborative work in online classes.
Justification of the research
The use of wikis among learners has gained popularity in the recent past as stakeholders try to develop interactive platforms for online students. Online learning eliminates the physical classroom that was traditionally used to pass knowledge. In its place, it is introducing a platform where learners can attend their lectures online, get the notes and assignments online, and even do their assignments through online means.
The problem is that the entire process seems to ignore the relevance of enabling students to interact and share their ideas in the learning environment. This explains the reason why the use of interactive platforms has been regarded as being useful for online students to enable them to share ideas and build a strong base of knowledge. According to Folio and Kreinberg (2010), wikis have been considered the most important interactive platforms that can be used by online learners to promote collaborative work. Although this field has attracted a number of researchers, it is worrying that there is yet to be a consensus on this issue.
While a section of the scholars argues that wikis have enabled learners to share their ideas and critique the works of their peers, another section believes that the impact of this technology is almost negligible as far as the promotion of collaborative work is concerned. It is important to have a clear path that should be taken to promote collaborative work among online learners. These contradictory opinions affect the development of this aspect of learning. For this reason, this research seeks to determine the relevance of wikis in encouraging collaborative work in online classes. Using both secondary and primary data collected through observations and sharing with the relevant stakeholders, the research seeks to give a position on the relevance of the wikis to the learners.
Current status of research in the field
The field of online education has attracted the attention of many scholars who have conducted massive researches on various aspects of this field. Online learning has received attention in the recent past as people try to balance their work-life and education. However, the scholar notes that the use of wikis in the learning environment is yet to receive adequate attention from the researchers. Most of the researches have been concentrated on online learning and the relevance of the emerging technologies on education (Allwardt, 2011). When some of the interactive platforms such as Facebook and Tweeter were introduced into the global society, many educationists complained that it would kill the culture of learning. This was so because people used the sites to share issues about their own life. Learners who had access to the World Wide Web no longer had time for study because most of their free time would be spent on social media.
When the wiki was finally introduced, many people did not expect that it would play an important role in promoting a healthy learning environment. In fact, others thought that it would have negative consequences on the learners. It is because of this reason that the field has not received adequate attention from the relevant scholars. It would be vital to appreciate the current works that are underway in this field, but many of them are yet to be published. This is why there is yet to be a consensus on this issue. This makes this research an important source of information that can be used by the policymakers, learners, educators, and other relevant stakeholders to define their opinion towards the use of wikis to promote collaborative working environments.
The Relevance of Using Wikis to Encourage Collaborative Work in Online Classes
The field of online classes has experienced massive transformations over the past decade. At first, online learning was very popular among the working class individuals who were interested in advancing their education but had limited time to attend classes. However, the stakeholders realized that it could be very useful even for other learners. Currently, online learning is very popular, especially in the social sciences. According to recent researches, it is a fact that online classes will define the future of the classrooms not only for the social sciences classes but also for the pure sciences (Wagner & Majchrzak, 2007).
There has been a concern among the stakeholders that online classes are eliminating the collaborative works that exist in a physical classroom setting. The best way of making learners understand different concepts is to allow them to share amongst themselves. Such interactive forums allow these learners to give an output of their own understanding of what is taught. These forums help in correcting any misconceptions and in coming up with new ideas that would advance their knowledge. This would be easily executed in a physical classroom setting where learners can form learning groups. It has widely been believed that it may not be possible to develop such groups in online settings (Koopman, 2011). However, the interactive online platforms have confirmed that even in online classes, forming collaborative groups is possible.
Wikis have been widely used as online interactive platforms by the learners to promote collaborative learning environment.
Wikis can support audio visuals, which makes it possible to share knowledge among learners. A student can conduct research, make a presentation, record the presentation, and then post it online for members of his or her group to review. He or she will also be able to review the presentation of other learners through these wikis. The learners can then settle down and share their views about the presentation of others and what their opinions are over a given topic (Kissel, Hathaway & Wood, 2010). In such forums, students will easily correct one another, share some new knowledge that could have been learnt in the process of conducting research, or ask other classmates the relevant questions that one could not get valid answers to during the research process. The audio-visuals are very effective when it comes to the issue of demonstrating an issue to the colleagues.
Wikis offer learners a rare opportunity to develop collaborative study notes that they think can be of benefit to other learners in the same field. In fact, the Wikipedia offers learners the opportunity to publish their ideas about a given field or topic to the entire world. They are provided with a framework that they should follow, and then allowed to develop information over that topic. Peers are given the opportunity to review the information provided by the previous author and make the relevant amendments whenever this is necessary. It means that the original author will get to know about the points that were missed in his or her presentation. According to McLeod & Lehmann (2012), learners have greatly benefitted from the collaborative notes found in the wikis. Most learners would rush to Wikipedia whenever they want to learn a new concept or topic in a given field. The notes would help offer them the basic knowledge upon which they can advance their researches.
Wikis provide the discussion forums to learners where they can debate over different topics and arrive at a consensus. These debates are always initiated after giving an overview over a given issue. Through these discussions, one can easily get to learn of new information about the topic under discussion. They also get to share new knowledge they have on the topic. This knowledge sharing approach in handling a topic makes it easy for learners to advance their knowledge on a given field. Such processes are always very successful when they are guided by the educators who may act as regulators.
The educators will act as observers who allow learners to share their views, but only comes in when the discussion gets off the track. In such forums, the educators will be able to determine the level of understanding of a topic that was taught previously. This will help the educator understand the effectiveness of his or her teaching techniques. Wikis have been lauded for their simplicity and availability for the learners whenever they need them. Once posted on the wikis, the information will always be available for individuals who are interested in them at any time (Reich, Murnane & Willett, 2012). Learners heavily rely on them, especially when there is a need to conduct a mini-research on a given topic within a short period. They are also easy to use because they do not require any special skills from users. Whenever there is a debate on a given topic made on the wikis, scholars can always make follow-ups, to understand the views of different people over the topic.
Challenges of using wikis to encourage collaborative work in online classes
A large section of the stakeholders in the education industry now believes that wikis have the potential to encourage collaborative work in online classes. However, a number of problems have reduced this potential, making the wikis highly unreliable, hence inappropriate for the learners (Albadri, 2013). The freedom offered in this platform gives the opportunity for unscrupulous individuals to give a misleading information about the topic under discussion. This is always common in cases where the debates are not closely regulated by someone in authority. The constant editing of these sites creates a scenario where the information that one finds in these platforms today may be very different from what will be found tomorrow. This makes it almost impossible to verify the information in these sites. Most learners rarely look for educative information when they get to the website.
The massive sources of entertainment easily sway them from educative forums, making it difficult for them to engage in online discussions. In some cases, a learner may post information on the wikis, expecting the peers to review it and give their feedback on time so that the research may proceed (Qian & Johnston, 2012). However, some are forced to wait for very long as these peers rarely get to read the materials. Some may not receive the reviews at all. These issues should be addressed amicably for the wikis to be relevant in the promotion of collaborative work, in online classes.
Research gaps
It was mentioned previously that this is a relatively new field that is yet to receive adequate attention from the relevant researchers. Although there is a general agreement among the current scholars that wikis have the potential of promoting collaborative work among the learners, a consensus still lacks on the current status of this technology in promoting an interactive academic relationship among the leaders. There is a gap in the knowledge about specific issues that need to be addressed in order to solve some of the problems that have been identified in this area of online education. This is what this research seeks to address so that wikis can be turned into an integral part of online education.
Conclusion
Online education has gained popularity in the recent past because people have realized the importance of education, but lacks the time to attend classes, or learners have been barred from attending classes because of the geographical factors. However, there has been a claim that online classes have eliminated collaborative work among the learners that may boost their understanding on various issues. Wikis seek to address this problem by introducing an interactive online platform where learners can share information and new concepts. Although some stakeholders have identified a number of issues that may make wikis be inappropriate platform for creating a positive collaborative environment for learners, there is a consensus among the stakeholders that this platform has a potential that is yet to be fully exploited. It is important, therefore, to find a way of addressing these issues in order to make this platform support the collaborative work in online classes.
References
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