Abstract:

The scope of applications of computer supported collaborative learning (CSCL) has grown exponentially in recent years. This group of techniques have been found to be extremely effective in web learning as a collaborative tool to inspire scaffolding between students. It is also useful when several academic supervisors wish to view the same project work.
This paper describes the first implementation of a campus pack-based project in Year 3 of Dublin Institute of Technology's (DIT) BSc. in Product Design programme. The paper describes the process and the motivation behind the implementation of this collaborative learning approach. It focuses initially on resolving the issues which have been encountered in previous years with this cross-faculty managed project but quickly grows into a desire to harness the use of technology to unlock the true learning potential of collaborative work at undergraduate level.

The project described in this paper consists of an open-ended design brief to which third year Product Design students are expected to apply design, engineering and business skills in order to produce a viable and marketable product. Given the multi-disciplinary nature of this brief, a lecturing team which is spread across multiple sites and Faculties is required. Of particular concern to the lecturing team was the concept of supporting students to use group work to encourage deeper learning rather than the traditional individually based 'cut and paste' approach of the past.
The specific tool of Wikis was chosen as it was felt that this would best provide the students with a platform which would allow the necessary collaboration and would provide the lecturing team with the ability to monitor the progress of the teams involved. This was particularly useful as the lecturing team are located in two different sites in Dublin city and do not have any regular forum in which to meet to discuss progress. As the course is delivered in a single semester, the use of a Wiki would circumvent the necessity to devote valuable class-time to monitoring group progress, as it could be done on-line by the lecturing team. In addition, due to the existence of an Evaluation tool within the technology, the Wiki potentially provided a valuable conflict resolution tool for groups where work was not progressing or individual team members were not fully contributing. The paper details the initial hurdles encountered, approaches taken to resolving the issues, learning about the process of using Wikis for collaborative work and conclusions for future implementations.

Keywords:

Computer Supported Collaborative Learning, Problem Based Learning, Group Work, New Product Development, Innovation.