Presentation at IV WorldCall in Glasgow

1. WIKI: The
complexity
of online
collaborative
work
Vera Paiva
Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG)
National Counsel of Technological and Scientific
Development (CNPq)
Minas Gerais State Research Foundation (FAPEMIG)

2. A wiki is a Web page that
users can modify.
(Cummings, 2008: 5)

3. “Collaborative practices are increasingly
seen as keys to going beyond what we
know and developing the capacity to solve
complex problems that are typical of the
knowledge society but beyond the
capacity of the individual.” (Lund, 2008:36)

4. Wiki writing as a complex system
People writing together in a
A wiki platform make up a
complex adaptive learning
system and their joint
interactions produce
texts of higher qualities
than the sum of their
individual texts because
of the emergence of
a “collective intelligence”.

5. Some characteristics of a complex
system
ynamic
daptive
pen
onlinear
elf-organizing
ensitive to feedback

6. Dynamic
The writing process through dynamic interactions
is always in flux.
Wiki is “…an environment that to a great extent relies on
learner interdependence.” (Lund, 2008: 36)

7. Open
The system is far from
equilibrium because
new content comes and
others are deleted.
The system keeps
adapting.

8. Adaptive
“It would probably be wrong to ever see a wiki
implementation as "finished", because the
contexts in which it is used are always prone to
change.
People adapt. Wiki adapts.” (Bo and
Cunningham, 2001: 392)

9. Non-linear
ystems change and the
emergent behavior is not
proportional do the causes.
mall contributions can lead

10. Self-organizing
• The system evolves and adapts
in different ways and in
different paces.
• According to the sociocultural
theory, “people working jointly
are able to co-construct contexts in which expertise
emerges as a feature of the group” (Lantolf, 2000:17)

11. Sensitive to feedback
• Members learn from each other.
• They react to feedback. They change and adapt.

12. “However, the broader, collective assignment requires that learners seek to link
individual production to the dynamic and collective potential of the wiki. This
involves trusting others to contribute productively and developing sensitivity
towards the totality by relating one’s own contribution to those of others, that is,
we see the emergence of a collective ZPD.” (Lund, 2008:47)

13. But do students collaborate as
expected?
Participants: five groups of six undergraduate students enrolled in an online
course - Introduction to digital tools for language teaching – in a Brazilian
university in 2011.
Task: write essays in English about “the integration of technology in the English
Language classroom” using any wiki tool. Each student should use a different
color for his/her contribution so that the teacher could identify the dynamicity of
each group.
Duration: 2 weeks
Instructions: It was emphasized that they should not only add content, but also
edit their classmates’ contributions by correcting mistakes and adding further
information, exemplifications and new references.
Evaluation: content, quality of collaboration and participation.

14. “When working collaboratively, learners
realized that the analysis and critique of their ideas
enhanced not only the content but also the overall
quality of their essays. Learners became aware that
everybody brought to the projects a unique set of
skills and that often they could learn more from
correcting their partner’s grammar and critiquing
their ideas than from their own work. In addition,
structure and organization improved because the
discussions allowed learners to concentrate on a
thesis for their essays and support that thesis in a
more organized manner.” (Elola and Oskos, 2010)
My expectation

15. • The wiki tools did not attract the expected
collaboration.
• Although students had two weeks to develop a good
text, most of them did not invest enough time to write
a real collaborative essay.
• Most students limited themselves to their individual
contributions without any commitment to the final
product.
• One student sent her part by email, without revising
what others had written.
• Content was usually poor.
RESULTS

16. • In spite of using a tool that affords interaction
and collaboration, most groups just produced
patchworks as a result of juxtaposition of
individual texts.
• Real collaboration by means of editing,
corrections, and addition of relevant information
was detected in one group only.
RESULTS

17. • Expertise did not emerge as a feature of the
other groups.
• Visual representations of the pages showed a
sequence of paragraphs in different colors
instead of multi-colored paragraphs which
would represent real collaboration.
RESULTS

18. Example 1

19. Example 2

20. Example 2 (p. 1 & 2)

21. Example 2 (p.3 & 4)

22. Example
3

23. Example 3 (p.1 & 2)

24. Example 3 (p.2 & 3)

25. “It is essential to state here that while
the use of social technology tools can
reinforce student learning, they do not
always lead to positive learning results
(Lindblom-Ylänne & Pihlajamäki, 2003).
In any educational setting it is
important to evaluate carefully the
relationship between the properties of
these tools and how they are used to
assist learners (Kirschner, 2002).”
(Elola & Oskoz, 2010: 64)
Conclusions

26. Human complex adaptive systems can
exhibit unexpected behaviors and the wiki
technology was not enough to change habitual
group behaviors or enable the emergence of a
collective intelligence.
Wiki tools may mislead one into thinking that they
facilitate the emergence of wholes which are
greater than the sum of the individual
productions.
Conclusions

27. Some students do not like to
work in groups.
Some students do not want to have their
contributions edited, deleted or corrected.
Digital tools alone do not change students’
behavior
Mindsets must also change.
Conclusions

28. Limitation of the study
One limitation of the study was that, after
feedback, the students did not write
another essay in a wiki platform. Therefore,
we could not evaluate if the group, viewed
as a complex system, had learned through
teacher feedback.

29. Referências
Bo, Leuf and Ward Cunningham. The Wiki Way: Collaboration and Sharing on the Internet.
London: Addison Wesley, 2001.
Cummings, Robert E., and Matt Barton, eds. Wiki Writing: Collaborative Writing in the College
Classroom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan P, 2008.
Cummings, Robert E. What Was a Wiki, and Why Do I Care? A Short and Usable History of
Wikis. In: Cummings, Robert E., and Matt Barton, eds. Wiki Writing: Collaborative Writing in
the College Classroom. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan P, 2008. p.1-16
Cunningham, Ward. Wiki Design Principles. Available at http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?
WikiDesignPrinciples. Access 04 May 2012.
Elola, Idoia, and Ana Oskoz. Collaborative Writing: Fostering Foreign Language and Writing
Conventions Development. Language Learning & Technology. v.14, n. 3. p.51-71. Oct, 2010.
Available at http://llt.msu.edu/issues/october2010/elolaoskoz.pdf . Access 15 May 2012
Lakeman, Will. Content and Commentary: Parallel Structures of Organization and
Interaction on Wikis. In: Cummings, Robert E., and Matt Barton, eds. Wiki
Writing: Collaborative Writing in the College Classroom. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan P, 2008. p.144-159