Using Wikis to support the Net Generation in improving knowledge acquisition in capstone projects

Students have to cope with new technologies, changing environments, and conflicting changes in capstone projects. They often lack practical experience, which might lead to failing to achieve a project’s learning goals. In addition, the Net Generation students put new requirements upon software engineering education because they are digitally literate, always connected to the Internet and their social networks. They react fast and multitask, prefer an experimental working approach, are communicative, and need personalized learning and working environments. Reusing experiences from other students provides a first step towards building up practical knowledge and implementing experiential learning in higher education. In order to further improve knowledge acquisition during experience reuse, we present an approach based on Web 2.0 technologies that generates so-called learning spaces. This approach automatically enriches experiences with additional learning content and contextual information. To evaluate our approach, we conducted a controlled experiment, which showed a statistically significant improvement for knowledge acquisition of 204% compared to conventional experience descriptions. From a technical perspective, the approach provides a good basis for future applications that support learning at the workplace in academia and industry for the Net Generation.