Wiki as a collaborative writing tool in teacher education: Evaluation and suggestions for effective use

Wiki technology provides new opportunities to foster collaborative writing in teacher education. To empirically evaluate the level of collaborative writing in a wiki-based environment, this article used three methods and their combination. The first method was the history function that records all students' actions, enabling to trace all changes made in the wikis. The actions were analyzed in terms of number and percentage of contribution using a taxonomy categorized by 10 editorial types. The second method examined comments posted on the wiki discussion page to evaluate the level of collaboration. The third method provided feedback on the level of collaboration by means of peer assessment. The results show important differences in the types of contributions across the categories investigated. The results also reveal that the level of collaborative writing was lower than expected. Possible factors that may influence wiki-based collaborative writing are discussed. Finally, suggestions for effective use of wikis as collaborative writing tools in teacher education conclude the article.