THE WIKI FACTOR: HOW STUDENTS LEARN TO LOVE GROUP WORK

Charlotte Brack
Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Monash University
Australia

Marie-Paule Van Damme
Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
Monash University
Australia

We explore the use of social software to enhance online collaboration of undergraduate students in higher education. This was implemented within Leapfrog Biology, an intensive 4-week online program developed for students who have not completed year 12 biology and who are entering first year medical studies. We used wikis to facilitate both the process and the product of collaboration. We consider the educational design of the online environment, the underlying pedagogy and student activity, and the ways in which the design influences student satisfaction, motivation and learning outcomes.

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