WIKI WORK AS COLLABORATIVE WORK: EXPLORING ASPECTS OF COLLABORATION

The present paper presents our experiences with a wiki implementation in undergraduate education. More specifically, the paper address the issue of collaboration and examines it in the context of collaborative hypertext creation by students. Fifty students participated in an undergraduate course on learning with ICT in which one of the assignments involved the collaborative construction of understanding through a wiki. The paper aims to describe in both quantitative and qualitative terms aspects of the collaborative hypertext creation. More specifically, the paper examines (a) the rate of student collaboration, (b) the patterns of collaboration, and (c) meaning-making in terms of dialogue. Results indicated that the levels of student collaboration on the creation of pages were low and that in the few instances of collaboration the predominant pattern was a cumulative one. The texts the students created were essentially monological. The implications of the study for technology and pedagogy are discussed.