Task Two: Complexities emerge

In the second online group discussion, Katie was so excited by the posting on Wikipedia that she decided to pre-post some headings for writing in Task Two on Good Language

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Learners. She did this on the English as a second or foreign language page on Wikipedia. Although it was a relatively small post, it was influential in terms of the course of innovation and the outcome of Task Two.

4.2.3.1 Online group discussion for collaborative writing

All three learner participants suggested an online group discussion was needed for an essay outline before their actual writing. They reasoned a work plan like the one in Task One would not be effective at this stage for Task Two. This can be seen as an early indication of a shift in role on their part towards assuming responsibilities for the way they would move forward together, thus affecting the way the innovative environment developed.

In this online group discussion, a few issues of complexity emerged, relating to the encyclopaedic genre required, the proposed site on Wikipedia, the focus of the writing, and the degree to which a personal voice would be appropriate in this case. Negotiation of the issues can be seen in:

i, the priority for the writing, Pbworks or Wikipedia, or process or product: A: The suggestion is that on Pbworks you can write as freely as you like, whether it is personal or scholarly, but on Wikipedia, since Good Language Learners is a huge area, we are going to mention just a few aspects of this topic. What do you think?

F: I think if we write freely on Pbworks like we did in Hue People it will be difficult to edit for a Wikipedia post, because we are influenced by the personal style. So if possible, I think from the beginning we should write the way we can use for both Wikipedia and Pbworks. […]

A: This area is huge, and I think it’s difficult for our essay to cover this area. […] So don’t worry much for Wikipedia, because we just simply summarise our writings on Pbworks and put headings and subheadings on Wikipedia.

ii, the suitable site on Wikipedia for the essay:

A: The editor messaged me saying that this topic suited more with Language aptitude, so he suggested us to put it on Language aptitude, not English as a second or foreign language. So Katie’s pre-posts were removed. […]

94 A: That one

K: It’s more about psychology […]

E: Ah, they mention Language learning disabilityhere too. […]

iii, the focus of the essay:

A: What factors help you to be good language learners? K: Motivation […]

K: Educational background […]

K & E: Just background, general background. F: How about influence of teachers and friends. […] K: Learning strategies […]

F: We should say about how to build learning strategies K: Self study methods

F: I mean how each person builds up their personal strategies and how the strategies work […]

K: Does it have anything to do with styles? F: Multiple intelligences

and iv, the appropriateness of personal voice in the essay:

A: I think in the end there should be a section like personal definition of Good language learners.

K: Is this section academic?

A: This section will be on Pbworks only.

The group discussion finished with an outline for the essay Good Language Learners

and a division for each learner to contribute writing based on the outline.

4.2.3.2 The second twist: “Rewrite”

When the three learner participants finished their writing on Pbworks, each person posted her part of the article on Wikipedia under the page Good Language Learner Studies, which had been discussed and approved by us as the new page for the article. However, the whole article was soon removed and all the four of us were messaged by

95 the editors regarding the removal. Part of the messages headed “Rewrite” is shown in Figure 4.8.

Figure 4.8: Wikipedia editors’ messages for Good Language Learners

The messages for us were an unexpected twist in events concerning the complexity of the task. Firstly, we as participants were confused. What was disclosed in the two editors’ messages was to our reading conflictual and at times in opposition to each other (as shown in Figure 4.8, editor A said the entire writing was unsourced, while editor B said it appears to be well-sourced, but it is not written like an encyclopaedic entry). This brought about initial negative feeling to the learners, as Emily expressed:

I think the fact that we put something we wrote online and anyone can comment on it makes it even more vulnerable […] well I was talking about the first comment when that person said the article didn’t have a quotation or even after it had a quotation it still didn’t make it any more academic or any more encyclopaedic or something, yes, so that’s the one that hurts (Emily, Interview Four).

The challenge grew bigger when it came to an issue of the genre of encyclopaedic writing, as this comment referred to:

96 The entire “A good language learners” section reads more like a how-to than an encyclopedia article. […] It is not written like an encyclopedia entry, it reads like a good academic essay. [Wikipedia editors’ feedback]

Although the message about Task One had included this issue, during our extensive reflections on it, we concentrated on the other issue, the question of subjectivity. Therefore, we overlooked this aspect. This time, while they told us the article was not written in an encyclopaedic genre, they did not give clues about what the encyclopaedic genre was.

In reflection, the feedbacks posed many challenging questions for us, which proved far more complex than anything we had encountered in setting Pbworks. This event revealed for us that the complexity of an innovation is multilayered in that it concerned both cognitive understanding of the genre and affective responses to criticism.

Finally, the focus of the essay, which emerged as a problem in the group discussion, had contributed to the scope of the challenge. As commented by the editors, some parts of the essay could belong to Motivation in second language learning, and some other parts read more like “how-to”.

All in all, the scope of the challenge and level of complexity in this task had outgrown our control, and fixing the entry on Wikipedia exceeded the goal of the study tasks. However, this experience had unfolded a new dimension of my mentor role, being the mediator between the editors and the learners.

While the innovation result of Task One was an official entry on Wikipedia, Task Two did not make it onto Wikipedia. However, the experience and lesson of failure were huge in terms of their scope, and the affective and cognitive challenges posed to all participants were proportional to the level of complexity.