This document summarizes a presentation on integrating wikis for pedagogical purposes in Greece. It discusses how students used a wiki site for both social networking and collaborative learning. A study was conducted with 160 students across 3 schools who actively participated on the wiki. The wiki allowed for combination of collaboration through content creation and socializing by making personal pages. Student perspectives shifted from seeing school as solely for skill development to also being a space for collaboration, personality growth, and idea exchange. The wiki facilitated dialogue, peer learning, and student initiative. The presentation argues for connective technologies to enable educational change toward a future school that blends virtuality and actuality and reconceives student-teacher roles.

1. Toward a Radically Critical Media Education:
A Case of Wiki Pedagogical Integration in Greece
Marianna Vivitsou
PhD Scholar, Researcher
CICERO Learning, University of Helsinki
MEDEA Webinar, 18.10.2012 1

2. Networked Sociality: Virtue or Vice?
• “So what exactly are teens _doing_ on
MySpace? Simple: they're hanging out…..
This is important in the development of a
social worldview.” danah boyd, 2006
– SNSs profile grounded within the context of
offline friends & contacts (boyd, 2006; Zhao et
al., 2008)
– Social presence sustained through ‘catching-up’
technologies (comments, status updates etc)
(Miller, 2011)
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3. On the other hand…
Collaborative Learning requires
• Common goals & joint efforts toward problem
solving situations (Rochelle & Teasley 1995)
• And negotiation targeting shared meaning,
cognitive field, knowledge (Nystrand 1986,
Rogoff 1990; and others)
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4. The Challenges
• In what ways Alexandros
– student networked sociality manifests ?
– students approach collaboration ?
– Teacher blended presence develops ?
Dimitris
Marianna
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5. School BREAK migrates @Sch.I.P.
• Wiki technical functionalities allow for:
– Combination of Collaboration…
• Collaborative content development
• Editing & Commenting individually or not
– With Sociality: Creation & maintenance of pages
• personal & of general interest
– + Visual element embeddedness
• images & videos
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6. Individual + Collective = (Sum)?
188 members • 121 active (118S : 3T)
(178S : 10T) • 26 admins (20S : 6T)
• 12 parent (environment,
100 pages (52 School, Web tools etc.)
• 31 sub-topics
: 48PP, 38S) • 09 child-pages
Plethora of • images, videos, other
Media
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7. Most Visited Pages
‘If I were the
Main page
Education
(V=8094,
socialization Minister’
C=589)
(V=1709, C=83)
‘A School with a
Difference:
‘Topics’
Between Now
(V=1413, C=39)
and the Future’
(V=935, C=54). argumentation
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9. Personal Pages
From the self to the external world
Visual Arts, Music,
Flirting, Friendship,
Current news, Profiles
Obesity, Books &
reading…
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12. The Study: Participants & Methods
Male Female
School 1 23 38 61
School 2 31 43 74
School 3 10 15 25
64 96 160
• Qualitative Approach and Statistical analysis (SPSS)
of quantitative data (questionnaires)
• Content Analysis
– Questionnaire open-ended items
– Student contributions
• page edits, comments
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13. 11
/1
/2
00
9
18
/1
/2
10
00
9
185
25
/1
/2
00
9
1/
2/
102
20
09
200
8/
2/
20
09
186
15
/2
/2
00
9
175
22
/2
/2
00
9
133
1/
3/
20
09
8/
3/
107
20
09
15
Active participation/week
/3
/2
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628
00
9
427
22
/3
/2
00
9
29
/3
/2
443
00
9
5/
706
4/
553
20
09
12
/4
/2
00
9
19
343
/4
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706
00
9
13

14. Student perspective shifts
8
7
School as a Space for :
6
Collaboration
Ομάδα ζςνεπγαηών
5
Personality growth
Χώπορ ανάπηςξηρ νέων ςπεύθςνων
ανθπώπων
4
Idea exchange
Χώπορ ανηαλλαγήρ ιδεών
3 Σηήπιγμα –Enhancement
Life εθόδιο για ηο μέλλον
2
1
0 Q1 Q2
Απσικό Ύζηεπο
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15. Traditional School in Doubt
Q1 Αρχικό Q2 Ύστερο
Schooling & Skill Development Mean St. dev. Mean St. dev.
Oral Communication 8,16 2,02 3,48 2,12
Written Communication 7,75 2,09 3,59 2,16
Internet Use 6,88 2,65 4,09 2,13
Willingness to Learn 6,39 3,00 3,41 2,03
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16. @Social Virtual Space for…
• Dialogue development
• Collaboration & creativity boost; active participation (even for
less ‘sociable’ students)
• Peer learning & support; cognitive & meta-cognitive
development
• Student leadership & initiative
• Emotion expressiveness
• Real life requirements (“our parents will not always be able to
support us”): Self-efficacy, self-esteem
• Collective thinking; understanding the ‘otherness’ (“we needed
to function not only as individuals but also as a team, and we
did..”, “we managed to ‘see’ the other students’ perspective”
• Looking at reality Critically (“It would be great if the teachers
allowed more space for us…” «Agree... The majority of the
teachers… are restrictive… we can’t grow wings to fly away”»
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17. The Difference
• Networked Sociality & Content development
– Internet & services as Tools for Learning
• Global perspective of the local, the regional, the
national
– The Self, the Other, the Community
• Human relations
– Negotiation, Conflict management
• (Shared) Knowledge (Co-)Construction
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18. The School of the Future
Blends Reconsiders
• Virtuality & Actuality Student-Teacher
• Synchronous & Roles
@synchronous acts
• asymmetry reviewed
• multiple actor
involvement
Negotiates Enhances Student
curricular & Teacher
specifications Mobility
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19. Connective technologies as…
• Vehicles of educational change toward the
School of the Future. In this space, content
emerges out of the learners’ definitions of own
needs in an on-going negotiation process.
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20. Toward a Radically Critical Media Education
• founded upon the principles of
democratic, communitarian, global citizenship
20
MEDEA Webinar, 18.10.2012

21. Thank You
for Your Attention! 
Mari@nna Vivitsou
• Contact: animavit@gmail.com
Presentation based on:
Vivitsou, Μ., Konetas, D., Gkikas, Αl., Kotoulas, V. (2009). From Social Networking
to Web-based Collaborative Learning in Lower Secondary Education: A Case
Study. In Proceedings 1st Conference Educational Sciences, University of Athens.
Athens, 28-31 May 2009.
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