E-Learning with Wikis, Weblogs and Discussion Forums

Introduction

One major task of higher education is to train students for the requirements of their future work in order to apply and adapt their knowledge to specific workplace-related requirements and settings. Due to the ongoing pressure on enterprises to cut costs, the periods of vocational adjustment in a company will become shorter and shorter.

On the one hand the rising pressure of innovation and the fast-paced development in the economy results in increased demand for continuous employee training. On the other, growing global competition forces enterprises to use available resources very economically, so that employee training is considered to be necessary and desired even though it is conducted under considerable time and cost pressure (Köllinger, 2002).

According to these goals, the settings of the education must be changed adequately. “While most of higher education still ascribes to traditional models of instruction and learning, the workplace is characterized by rapid changes and emergent demands that require individuals to learn and adapt in situ and on the job without the guidance of educational authorities“ (Sharma & Fiedler, 2004, p. 543).

In the field of higher education, it has become an important goal to develop “digital literacy” and educate learners as competent users and participants in a knowledge based society (Kerres, 2007), but it can be assumed that there is a new generation of students, the “digital natives”, who are accustomed to the digital and internet technology (Prenksy, 2001).

Oblinger and Oblinger (2005) characterise next generation students (called “n-gen”, for Net-Generation) as digitally literate, highly internet savvy, connected via networked media, used to immediate responses, preferring experiential learning, highly social, preferring to work in teams, craving interactivity in image rich environments and having a preference for structure rather than ambiguity.

According to a study conducted by Lenhart and Madden (2005), half of all teens in the USA may be considered as “content creators” by using applications that provide easy-to-use templates to create personal web spaces.

Classical face-to-face learning is seen as rigid and synchronous and it promotes one-way (teacher-to-student) communication. Thus it is not surprising that more and more students are opting for web-based education, as a more flexible and asynchronous mode (Aggarwal & Legon, 2006).

The higher education system should provide answers to this new generation of students who enter the system with different background and skills. They are highly influenced by social networking experiences and able to create and publish on the internet (Resnick, 2002).

Educators and teachers therefore have to consider the implications of these developments for the future design of their courses and lectures.

In 2002 a new term, “Social Software”, entered the stage to refer to a new generation of internet applications. One focus of this new generation is the collaboration of people in sharing information in new ways such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools and folksonomies (Richter & Koch, 2007).

Wikis, weblogs and discussion forums will play a central role in the new context so the areas of application and possibilities will enlarge enormously. It can be assumed that this will also have considerable influence on learning and the usage of these instruments as learning tools.