Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' Perspectives

The purpose of this action research was to explore students’ perspectives regarding using Web 2.0 technologies to develop a community of learners. The course described in this study was a fully online course in an Educational Learning Technologies master’s program at a medium-sized university in the...

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Main Author: Mariam Mousa Matta Abdelmalak
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Online Learning Consortium 2014-12-01
Series:Online Learning
Subjects:
Online Access:https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/413
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author Mariam Mousa Matta Abdelmalak
author_facet Mariam Mousa Matta Abdelmalak
author_sort Mariam Mousa Matta Abdelmalak
collection DOAJ
description The purpose of this action research was to explore students’ perspectives regarding using Web 2.0 technologies to develop a community of learners. The course described in this study was a fully online course in an Educational Learning Technologies master’s program at a medium-sized university in the U.S. Southwest. A variety of Web 2.0 tools (Twitter, Google Docs, Skype, blogs, and wikis) were used throughout the course to enhance students’ sense of community. The methods of data collection in this study included students’ reflective journaling activities, the researcher’s journal and field notes, and students’ comments on each other’s reflections. Students indicated that using Google Docs, wikis, blogs, and Twitter gave them a sense of a learning community while using Skype did not. Google Docs and wikis had the most impact on students’ sense of a learning community in the course. Findings suggest that faculty interested in building learning communities in online environments need to use variety of Web 2.0 technologies in order to make students aware of those technologies’ promise for supporting communication.
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spelling doaj.art-9e0eb759aaf64b0096730fcb9813b88f2024-02-03T11:47:43ZengOnline Learning ConsortiumOnline Learning2472-57492472-57302014-12-0119210.24059/olj.v19i2.413Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' PerspectivesMariam Mousa Matta Abdelmalak0New Valley College of Education. Assiut UniversityThe purpose of this action research was to explore students’ perspectives regarding using Web 2.0 technologies to develop a community of learners. The course described in this study was a fully online course in an Educational Learning Technologies master’s program at a medium-sized university in the U.S. Southwest. A variety of Web 2.0 tools (Twitter, Google Docs, Skype, blogs, and wikis) were used throughout the course to enhance students’ sense of community. The methods of data collection in this study included students’ reflective journaling activities, the researcher’s journal and field notes, and students’ comments on each other’s reflections. Students indicated that using Google Docs, wikis, blogs, and Twitter gave them a sense of a learning community while using Skype did not. Google Docs and wikis had the most impact on students’ sense of a learning community in the course. Findings suggest that faculty interested in building learning communities in online environments need to use variety of Web 2.0 technologies in order to make students aware of those technologies’ promise for supporting communication.https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/413Online Learning CommunitiesWeb 2.0 TechnologiesGoogle DocumentsTwitterSkypeWikis
spellingShingle Mariam Mousa Matta Abdelmalak
Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' Perspectives
Online Learning
Online Learning Communities
Web 2.0 Technologies
Google Documents
Twitter
Skype
Wikis
title Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' Perspectives
title_full Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' Perspectives
title_fullStr Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' Perspectives
title_full_unstemmed Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' Perspectives
title_short Web 2.0 Technologies and Building Online Learning Communities: Students' Perspectives
title_sort web 2 0 technologies and building online learning communities students perspectives
topic Online Learning Communities
Web 2.0 Technologies
Google Documents
Twitter
Skype
Wikis
url https://olj.onlinelearningconsortium.org/index.php/olj/article/view/413
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