Using Wikis And Weblogs To Support Reflective Learning In An Introductory Engineering Design Course

Helen L. Chen, David Cannon, Jonathan Gabrio, Larry Leifer, George Toye, and Tori Bailey Stanford University, USA Abstract An observation and a pedagogical challenge often found in project-based design courses is that students see what they have produced but they do not see what they have learned. This paper presents preliminary findings from an NSF-sponsored research project which experiments with the use of weblogs and wiki environments, two open source tools, to facilitate student integration and synthesis of learning in Designing the Human Experience, an introductory freshman seminar on design engineering at Stanford University. Coupled with Folio Thinking, a coached process of creating learning portfolios and supporting reflection, this study explores how the combination of this innovative pedagogy along with these new forms of social software can positively influence students’ knowledge, awareness, and skills in design engineering. Weblogs and Wikis Social software designed to support group interaction has evolved, since the appearance in the 1960s of multi-user computers and networks, in a variety of forms including multi-player games, chat rooms, instant messaging, and bulletin boards. More recently, weblogs (or blogs) and wikis (web pages that any user can edit) have captured the imagination of members of both the corporate world and higher education community as valuable knowledge management and group communication. Schofield (2003) suggests that the rapid rise in interest in software to support group interaction can be attributed to an emerging web-based platform based on blogs, wikis, and RSS feeds (a format for syndicating news and content), ease of use, and the ubiquity of web access.