Abstract:

Competency-based learning appears as the key piece of the renovation process that means the European Space for Higher Education. Within this new framework the student becomes more responsible of his/her own learning process (Jonassen, 1993; Ramsden, 1992), and the focus is on offering him/her greater possibilities for achieving the competences that would need to be a more competitive and valuable candidate for accessing to a better job in the labor market (García, 2007).

In order to support this transforming effort, information and communication technologies (ICT) represent key resources for improving the teaching-learning process. In this competency-based learning model the Web 2.0 technologies are considered especially useful because they make possible and easier collaborative learning (Dillenbourg, 1999). The differentiating factor of social software technologies is that users become publishers rather than merely consumers of information. Within Web 2.0 technologies wikis play a key role for achieving collaborative learning, because anyone or at least anyone with permission can collaboratively create and edit online documents (Fichter, 2005; Goodnoe, 2005).

In this paper we investigate the perception of the students about the usefulness of wikis as an educational tool for acquiring and improving instrumental, interpersonal, and systemic competences. The aim of this research is to explore which competences can be more fostered by using wikis as a collaborative learning tool, through the point of view of the students who have used it, presenting a descriptive analysis of the results by competences. Also, the same questionnaire has been administered to students who have not used wikis in learning activities, to observe if we could find significant differences in the usefulness perception of wikis to achieve and to improve competences. Thus, the results show that some competences are easier and more likely to be developed and improved through the collaborative learning wikis allow.

Dillenbourg, P., 1999, “What do you mean buy collaborate learning?” In P. Dillenbourg (ed). Collaborative-learning: Cognitive and Computational Approaches, Oxford: Elsevier.

Fichter, D., 2005, “The many forms of e-collaboration: Blogs, wikis, portals, groupware, discussion boards, and instant messaging”, Online, 29(4), 48-50.
García, F., 2007, “El Espacio Europeo de Educación Superior”, I Congreso Europeo de Inserción Laboral Universitaria, 7 y 8 de Noviembre, Universidad de Sevilla.
Goodnoe, E., 2005, “Wikis make collaboration easier”, Information Week, August, 54-56.
Jonassen, D.H., 1993, “Thinking technology: context is everything”, Educational Technology, 31 (6), 35–37.
Ramsden, P., 1992, Learning to teach in higher education, London: Routledge.

Keywords:

Wiki, collaborative learning, competences, European Space for Higher Education.