Knowledge Construction

Three subthemes of the emergent theme of knowledge construction were drawn from the analysis of the students’ interviews comprising the sharing of information and ideas, fostering and facilitating sharing and collaboration, and help with organising and presenting information.

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Sharing information and ideas

The students perceived that the SLTs facilitated their learning experience by providing a dynamic and effective way to help them construct their knowledge by sharing and discussing their knowledge and ideas with ease and speedy access. Some students said that they “… can share significant information and thoughts in a very smart way through the online medium” (PS#03), and that “the beauty of online interaction is the speedy exchange of information from remote locations without physical presence” (PS#04). Such sharing of information and ideas was also related to the improvement of their understanding and cognition. They indicated that they were able to obtain information and generate ideas, and share and discuss them with their peers in a meaningful way. For example, PS#02 perceived he had gained valuable ideas from his SLTs experience by getting “another additional clue and thought with each post or comment. We can have inter-related ideas, we can build on each other's ideas as my ideas can reflect my classmates’ thoughts and their ideas might reflect mine...”, which he believed “…helps to construct and improve our knowledge".

Students similarly stated, “by reading other's posts or comments, I have acquired and improved my knowledge” (PS#06), that “… you can get and share many ideas from different perspectives in a meaningful reflection way” (PS#09), and that “you can easily realise the thoughts of other colleagues' when they share their ideas and experience through these learning technologies tools” (PS#10).

A further benefit frequently mentioned by the participants was the accessibility and convenience of accessing updated records of their learning activities and tasks, and frequently and easily retrieving postings. This view was exemplified by PS#01 who said:

These tools facilitated online communications and discussion which allowed the gathering of the varied opinions and ideas of group members ... we can simply retrieve and access our blogs and discussion in a constant and convenient way depending upon our requirements. We can remain informed about the latest aspects of learning activities, materials, and lectures.

In summary, the students believed that their use of SLTs gave them new experiences, exposed them to various viewpoints, and they acquired many new perspectives of knowledge development from the online discussions.

Fostering and facilitating sharing and collaboration

Some interviewees believed that the SLTs used in this study fostered and facilitated collaboration and sharing between them in ways that helped to promote their acquisition and construction of knowledge. The students emphasised the production of clear and expressive words while discussing their views and thoughts with others, and some believed that the SLTs encouraged them to consider the clarity and worth of their contributions and posts. For example, PS#03 pointed out that “I was encouraged to describe the most relevant and striking words for me, my class fellows, and other readers by expressing them in a clear and concise way”. Likewise, PS#01 said, “my aspiration to contribute clear and helpful posts for my class fellows was improved by performing the SLTs activity, which proved to be useful, and accordingly my interpretation and talent to express the key thoughts from the critique have been enhanced.” Students appreciated that the features of SLTs fostered collaboration and their group work based activities occurred easily and smoothly, which aided their discussions. PS#06 said, “our discussions about topics and subjects got more focused and reflected due to the collaboration with our colleagues, so we were able to present

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information in an appropriate and attractive manner.” Similarly, PS#02 explained,

“there was some discussion on the blog from my group along with some consecutive messages and posts, however we remained mostly at our site, updated our group page, and we commented, discussed and reviewed for each other.” Some students, such as PS#10, also believed that SLTs promoted collaboration which supported their knowledge construction; “learning and knowledge may be enhanced by this practice as there can be multiple individuals which means more than one brain, more than one head... It is a common saying that two heads think and do better than one head.”

Further, PS#04 described, “while working together as groups performing joint tasks, we have presented an integrated picture from the collected information”.

These results are consistent with the study by Johnson, Johnson, and Holubec (2008) who showed that best practices of sharing ideas and group work are essential to increase students' interaction and collaboration that contribute to their knowledge construction.

Help with information organisation and presentation

The interviews revealed that knowledge construction was aided by the activities, including sharing, organisation, and visual presentation of their ideas and information when using SLTs. For example, PS#01 said their “learning was improved from this activity since we sometimes were encouraged to examine and compare the important information and explore the best and easiest way to present it to group members”, while PS#02 believed that “… the interactive shared activities enabled us to search for useful readings, and identify and summarise the important information to present and share them with peers". Others said that “it was helpful to produce textual information into blogs or wiki pages, as these tools encouraged me to think about my words and information and how to condense it and structure it in a sensible way for the readers”

(PS#06), and that “… it facilitated sharing my ideas and expanding my knowledge through much searching, reading, discussion, which helped to enhance my learning”

(PS#04). Another student felt that “these tools helped to develop our knowledge, especially during the effective and dynamic interactions” (PS#03).

Students were directed to incorporate images, videos, slides or documents as non-textual material in addition to the writing tasks. By exposing students to this activity, their capacity to identify significant information was likely to be developed along with their presentation skills. It seems that the features and functions of including visual descriptions, such as videos or graphics into blogs or wiki pages helped promote their engagement and knowledge construction. For instance, PS#09 stated that “the learning tasks and activities were improved by the supplementary resources and the ability to use visual features and additional graphics”, while another student believed that “the ability to provide visual and graphical aids … made my learning and knowledge curve improve, whether I used them or observed how my peers used them”

(PS#10).

In summary, students perceived that the SLTs helped make their knowledge construction productive and efficient by assisting their organisation and presentation of the information. The tools enabled them to obtain information, share and discuss their ideas and opinions, and discover new knowledge. However, it is worthwhile remembering that the Phase 2 results of the analysis of the interactions showed that most occurred in a lower level of knowledge construction, and there was a corresponding lack of presence of the higher phases of knowledge construction in this study. This will be further discussed in the discussion chapter.