Abstract
Information and Communication Technologies facilitate the emergence of
new contexts and practices of learning that educational institutions have to
adapt to their pedagogical discourse. This paper presents an application of
wikis for mediated collaborative learning of Spanish as a second language
("Spanish L2"). We employed the off-the-shelf wiki environment provided by
wikispaces in this pilot project. Students were asked to create a set of pages
in Spanish about topics of their interest, with the aim of creating a
complete cross-linked wiki. At the end of the project, the students answered
25 open questions related with their experiences in improving their language
skills, technical use, and collaborative writing with wikis; working
collaboratively in small groups; and searching and reading available
information in Spanish on the Internet. Our results indicate that students can
quickly appropriate wikis as a tool for learning Spanish L2. Moreover, the
wiki supported the shift from individual to collaborative writing effectively
as indicated by a change from (a) personal to collective responsibility; (b)
fragmentary and individual comprehension to general and collective knowledge;
and (c) monocontextuality to polycontextuality. Notably, the wiki was a
catalyst in language skill development and proved a good tool for cultural
knowledge acquisition.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications (EuroIMSA 2008) |
Editors | M. Roccetti |
Publisher | Acta Press |
Pages | 39-44 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 978-0-88986-728-4 |
ISBN (Print) | 978-0-88986-727-7 |
Publication status | Published - 2008 |
MoE publication type | A4 Article in a conference publication |
Event | Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications (EuroIMSA 2008) - Innsbruck, Austria Duration: 17 Mar 2008 → 19 Mar 2008 |
Conference
Conference | Internet and Multimedia Systems and Applications (EuroIMSA 2008) |
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Country/Territory | Austria |
City | Innsbruck |
Period | 17/03/08 → 19/03/08 |
Keywords
- Wikis
- Spanish L2
- Web-based Education
- Collaborative E-Learning
- Sociocultural Theories of Learning