This presentation is part of the WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 program.

Michele Notari; Sonja Schär; Martin Schellenberg; Samuel Kai Wah Chu

In this article we describe how we developed and how we use a tool for teachers enhancing inter-group collaboration of learners using wikis in project-based learning settings with over 100 participants, where different groups of students de- velop similar projects and each project has an own wiki page. To achieve our goal we extended typical wiki functionality by using web widgets, mini applications embedded anywhere in the wiki environment using the iframe tag. Two different evaluation widgets (rating widget and ‘working progress‘ widget) are placed on each of the project pages. The project groups use the ‘working progress‘ widget to de- clare the amount of work done. The teacher and the rest of the learning community use the ‘rating‘ widget to rate the ongoing project work. A so called ‘meta widget‘ show- ing a summary of the results of the ‘rating‘ and ‘working progress‘ widget can be displayed on the start page of the learning community or if a project is divided in different milestones, on the page describing the goals and timeline for the milestone. Evaluation widgets and meta widget, which easily can be embedded by the teacher potentially all over the wiki pages, enhances visibility of quality and termina- tion degree of a project and enhance so the self, the tutor and the peer review opportunities in such large scale project based learning settings. The created evaluation widgets and meta widgets have been embedded in the wiki of a three months curriculum. The evaluation of utility and usability of the widgets is ongoing. The educational value of rating and reflecting about the working progress of a given task is discussed.

A PDF file will be made available on August 5, 2013, through the WikiSym + OpenSym 2013 conference proceedings.