Social learning networks are increasingly being used in classrooms to further student learning. Online discussion boards and wikis are two of the most common tools for academic purposes, however advantages and disadvantages arise with using each of these tools. As part of an assignment for ETEC 565, we were asked to explore the advantages and challenges related to group collaboration using these these learning tools.
Online discussion boards, such as the version in WebCT Vista, promotes social collaboration in the form of individual messages. In other words, a teacher can post a message (i.e. a question), students can respond to those questions by creating their own messages, and then students can respond to each other’s posts with even more messages. The messages are pre-organized into sections, called threads, based on topics. Similar to a newspaper format, one can read entire sections all the way through or skip to a particular thread that interests them. One key benefit of this format is that entire threads can be skipped to save time and posts changed from highlighted to un-highlighted after they have been read. One challenge to this format is that sets of messages can only be viewed by each thread or conversation topics, meaning that conversations cannot be viewed across topics.
In wikis, conversations are written on a message board and are viewed in their entirety. The format is similar to having students write linear messages on a chalkboard, however messages can be added inbetween already added ones. One difference between a wiki and a discussion board is that a wiki can also be a group workspace which can include or not include names. A history feature on wikis also allows readers to track who wrote a particular comment in order to track a group’s progress and individual contributions over time. A color coding feature is also available on wikis to help better designate individual contributions. Another advantage of wikis is that one group member can post an entire essay on the wiki and another group member can turn on an editing feature and edit and save the document. One disadvantage of wikis is that it is currently impossible to designate which comments have been previously read, unlike a discussion board which unhighlights read comments.
Overall, I would contend that the debate on whether to use an online discussion board or a wiki depends on the overarching purpose. In my own experience, I prefer the organization of discussion boards for entire class discussions. The fact that discussion boards unhighlight read messages saves a lot of time compared to skimming an entire wiki for unread messages, which can be time consuming. In contrast, I prefer wikis for small group projects because our essay or project can be read easily in entirety and then individual contributions can be read color-coded.
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