Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534

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Computers & Education

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/compedu

Implementing Web 2.0 technologies in higher education: A collective case study

Sue Bennett a, *, Andrea Bishop b, Barney Dalgarno b, Jenny Waycott c, Gregor Kennedy c
a
University of Wollongong, Australia
b
Charles Sturt University, Australia
c
University of Melbourne, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Web 2.0 technologies are becoming more popular in the everyday lives of students. As a result, teachers
Received 23 May 2011 and designers have begun to explore their use in formal education. This paper presents evaluation
Received in revised form findings from a collective case study of six Web 2.0 implementations in Australian higher education. The
16 September 2011
research was undertaken as part of a larger study that sought to understand how today’s students use
Accepted 17 December 2011
information and communication technologies to support their learning. Conducted across three
universities, the research included a range of disciplines, class sizes and year levels. A common evalu-
Keywords:
ation strategy was used in order to collect comparable data from which commonalities and differences
Web 2.0
Higher education could be identified. This paper provides an overview of the study, describes the methodology used,
University summarises the implementation experiences of staff and students involved and presents the key find-
Educational technology ings. The results suggest that most students had little prior experience with relevant technologies and
Technology integration that many struggled to see the value of using Web 2.0 technologies for learning and teaching, both of
Social media which have important implications for the design of appropriate learning tasks. While the argument can
Online learning be made for improving the design through better task-technology alignment, this study also highlights
E-learning inherent tensions between Web 2.0 and educational practices.
Crown Copyright Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

The emergence of Web 2.0 technologies has provided new opportunities for creating and sharing content and interacting with others.
Also called ‘social media’, Web 2.0 encompasses tools that allow individual and collective publishing; sharing of images, audio and video;
and the creation and maintenance of online social networks. And, it is argued, with these new tools have come new practices and attitudes:
Constantly connected to information and each other, students don’t just consume information. They createdand re-createdit. With
a do-it-yourself, open source approach to material, students often take existing material, add their own touches, and republish it.
Bypassing traditional authority channels, self-publishingdin print, image, video, or audiodis common (Lorenzo, Oblinger, & Dziuban,
2007, p. 2).
Students’ apparent engagement with these tools in their everyday lives has sparked interest within education because of potential new
ways of engaging students in individual and collaborative learning activities (e.g., Alexander, 2006; Armstrong & Franklin, 2008; Barnes,
Marateo, & Ferris, 2007; Committee of Inquiry into the Changing Learner Experience, 2009; Hartman, Charles, & James, 2007; Hughes,
2009; Thompson, 2007). It has been assumed that students who are already using Web 2.0 technologies voluntarily in their everyday
lives would be similarly motivated to use them in an academic context and would already possess the necessary technical skills (Dohn,
2009). Effective use of Web 2.0 might also be considered a required competence for the contemporary world, and a ‘lifelong, life-wide’
set of skills that weaken boundaries between formal and informal learning (Dohn, 2009).
The instructional potential for Web 2.0 has led to many recent applications in higher education including: social networking (Arnold &
Paulus, 2010; Hung & Yuen, 2010; Mason & Rennie, 2008), microblogging (Ebner, Lienhardt, Rohs, & Meyer, 2010; Grosseck & Holotescu,
2009; Schroeder, Minocha, & Schneider, 2010), wikis (Bonk, Lee, Kim, & Lin, 2009; Vratulis & Dobson, 2008), and blogging (Churchill,
2009; Ducate & Lomicka, 2008; Ellison & Wu, 2008; Halic, Lee, Paulus, & Spence, 2010; Kerawalla, Minocha, Kirkup, & Conole, 2009).

* Corresponding author. Faculty of Education, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, NSW, 2522, Australia. Tel.: þ61 2 4221 5738; fax: þ61 2 4221 4657.
E-mail address: [email protected] (S. Bennett).

0360-1315/$ – see front matter Crown Copyright Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2011.12.022
 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534 525

Despite this high level of activity there is limited empirical evidence and few critical accounts that reveal the effectiveness of imple-
mentations (Carmichael & Burchmore, 2010; Hung & Yuen, 2010; Schroeder et al., 2010).
This paper reports on findings from a large cross-institutional study that sought to investigate how emerging Web 2.0 technologies could
be successfully used in higher education to facilitate and enhance student learning. The paper details six Web 2.0 implementations that
were followed from inception through to completion. The research was conducted across a range of disciplines, class sizes and year levels at
the three participating institutions. A common strategy was used to collect comparable data from each case from which similarities and
differences could be identified. The following sections describe the methodology used, summarise the implementation experiences of staff
and students involved in each case, and discuss the key findings.

2. Methodology

2.1. Research design

The study described in this paper comes from the second stage of a larger two-stage research project. The preceding stage had collected
survey and interview data to determine the extent to which students and staff at three Australian universities engaged in particular types of
technology-based activities and why (for full results see Kennedy et al., 2009). A key finding was that, at the time data was collected, only
a minority of the 2588 students surveyed were frequent users of Web 2.0 technologies. For example, 14% of students surveyed had produced
a podcast, 15% contributed to a wiki, 27% had kept their own blog, 43% downloaded a podcast and 45% had read someone else’s blog (see also
Kennedy et al., 2007). Student interviews further confirmed this lack of familiarity. This background data was used to inform the second
stage of the project. Specifically, the results suggested the need for resources and supports to introduce students to the new tools.
The purpose of the second stage was to advance understanding of how Web 2.0 technologies might be successfully used in higher
education. The research was guided by two key questions:

1.How does use of Web 2.0 tools influence student engagement and learning outcomes?
2.What contextual factors affect the integration of Web 2.0 technologies?

A qualitative approach was chosen based on the premise that the ways in which students and staff think about technology-supported
learning and teaching are likely to be context-specific and, therefore, the development and implementation of technology-based tools to
enhance learning must, in the first instance, be carried out in context. Only by acknowledging differences among learning and teaching
cultures can teaching practice and curriculum be changed, and strategies for improvement be shared (Becher & Trowler, 2001; Lueddeke,
2003). A collective case study design using qualitative methods was chosen as the best means to collect in-depth data about imple-
mentations of Web 2.0 in naturalistic settings. Key to the design also was that each case could be understood independently, but also that
some comparisons could be across the cases.

2.2. Participants

The project was a collaboration between staff at The University of Melbourne, the University of Wollongong and Charles Sturt University
– institutions that in many ways represent the diversity of the Australian higher education sector. Potential case studies at each university
were identified with the assistance of the teaching staff who had been involved in the earlier stage of the study, and from responses to
general invitations emailed to staff mailing lists. Further information was collected from potential participants to document preliminary
project ideas. These were collated and critically evaluated in terms of their educational rationale, potential pedagogical benefits, and their
logistical and administrative implications.
A sub-set of projects was chosen through purposive sampling to achieve maximum variation across disciplines and institutions, and to
include subjects across a range of undergraduate year levels and with a range of class sizes. The aim was to achieve a set of cases that would
be broadly representative of Australian higher education, and so allow readers to relate to cases in various ways, for example as being from
a similar discipline or having the same learning objectives. Of the eight projects undertaken as part of the project, six provided sufficient
data to be included in the analysis presented in this paper, and are summarised in Table 1. These projects fell into two broad categories –
image-sharing and publishing/writing.

2.3. Project design

Members of the research team worked with teaching staff at their institutions to modify curricula, assessment and activities to integrate
appropriate Web 2.0 tools. At Charles Sturt University, suitable tools were available within the institution’s learning management system,
but in the other cases externally hosted tools were chosen because Web 2.0 tools were not yet available as part of the institutional IT

Table 1
Overview of Web 2.0 implementation projects.

Project focus Activity Discipline & level Institution Tool selected

Image sharing Student-generated digital photo archive Chemistry, 1st year University of Melbourne Flickr
Student-generated digital photo archive Biology, 2nd year Charles Sturt University Sakai Resources tool
Student-generated digital photo archive Education, 3rd year University of Wollongong Flickr
Publishing/writing Student publishing Journalism, 1st year University of Wollongong WordPress
Student reflective journal writing Education, 3rd & 4th year Charles Sturt University Sakai BlogWow
Collaborative publishing through wikis Psychology, 1st year University of Melbourne PBwiki
526 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534

infrastructure. As part of the design process the researchers supported teaching staff by providing educational and technical advice, and
administrative support where needed. The participating teaching staff also received a small honorarium in recognition of their efforts.
Beyond this, the implementation projects received no additional funding or support, leaving the teaching teams reliant on whatever
resources were available within the institutions or could be freely obtained. In most cases that meant that the implementations were carried
out without additional significant funds.

2.4. Data collection

A combination of qualitative and quantitative data collection methods was used. To document the design and development phase, the
researchers collected relevant documents, maintained field notes (including records of implementation project team discussions during the
development phase), and completed summary templates to obtain consistent data across all projects.
Towards the end of each implementation project, students were invited to complete an evaluation questionnaire which included
a combination of scale items and open-ended questions asking them to: rate their experience of the activity (confusing, difficult, irrelevant,
interesting, easy to use, useful, boring, and enjoyable); indicate how effective the activity was in supporting their learning (e.g., helped them
understand the material they were studying, improved their ability to work in a group, improved their access to teacher feedback); identify
any technical or other problems they had; identify the best and worst aspects about the activity; suggest how it could be improved; and
indicate whether they would like to see that type of activity used in other aspects of their studies. The items were developed from Reeves
and Hedberg’s (2003) guidelines for effectiveness evaluation and included questions about knowledge, skills, attitude, appeal and imple-
mentation. The wording of the questionnaires was customised slightly to reflect the particular nature of the implementation and terms used
at the local institution; however the items were as consistent as possible.
The questionnaires were made available either online or in a printed form and administered either in class time or out of class for on-
campus students, in accordance with the ethics requirements of the institution. In some cases the optional nature of the questionnaire and
its administration online and/or outside of class time resulted in a low response rate. For off-campus distance education students at Charles
Sturt University the questionnaire was administered and returned by post.
Students were also invited to provide further feedback by participating in focus group interviews of between 20 and 70 min. These were
guided by a semi-structured protocol, which was tailored slightly to suit the specifics of each implementation. These interviews were
intended to provide explanatory data which would complement the data collected by the questionnaire, with questions designed to
encourage students to communicate their understandings of the activity, their experiences of it, and their opinions about how effective they
found it to be and why. Off-campus distance education students at Charles Sturt University were individually interviewed over the
telephone.
Key teaching staff involved in the project were interviewed at least once at the end of the project, but sometimes several times during the
project. They were asked to share their reflections on the progress and outcomes of the project and provide an assessment of student
engagement and learning outcomes in comparison to their past teaching experiences.
Like all research, this study has limitations that must be acknowledged. One lies in the nature of the data collected, which emphasises
self-reports from students and staff as indicators of engagement and learning outcomes. It was beyond the scope of this study to undertake
a detailed analysis of the work produced by students, which would also have provided insights into aspects of the learning outcomes
achieved. This suggests an avenue to extend this work and that of similar studies. Also, in some cases the survey response rates as
a percentage of the actual numbers of participants is low and so may not be representative of the overall student experience. Furthermore,
the focus groups participants were volunteers and likewise may not represent the full range of views across all students.

2.5. Data analysis and presentation

The data for each case was first transcribed and assembled as a set. A common reporting template was developed and a case report was
written for each case (based on strategies described by Merriam, 1998). This enabled the researchers to construct a descriptive case report
based on uncontested data and containing minimal interpretation. The following section of this paper provides summaries of those case
reports (for further details see Kennedy et al., 2009). These descriptions invite readers to become familiar with the cases and make their own
interpretations.
To facilitate a cross-case analysis for the purposes of this paper an analytical perspective based on the work of Dohn (2009) was adopted.
Dohn argues for a conceptualisation of Web 2.0 that focuses on characterising types of Web 2.0 practices rather than on identifying specific
features of Web 2.0 tools. This way of thinking about Web 2.0 sees technology as embedded in human social practices that both reflect the
design of tools but which also shape them, and encompasses the possibility of change over time. From this perspective, to be considered
Web 2.0 all or most of the following criteria must be met:

 collaboration and/or distributed authorship

 active, open-access, “bottom-up” participation and interactive multi-way communication
 continuous production, reproduction, and transformation of material in use and reuse across contexts
 openness of content, renunciation of copyright, distributed ownership
 lack of finality, “awareness-in-practice” of the “open-endedness” of the activity
 taking place on the WWW, or to a large extent utilising Web-mediated resources and activities (Dohn, 2009, p. 345).

Importantly, being considered ‘Web 2.0’ is based on the degree of resemblance to the above criteria, thus allowing for a high degree of
diversity while at the same time attempting to capture the essence of the phenomenon. This then allows us to consider the discrepancies
between Web 2.0 practices and educational practices which arise from differences between the basic goals of each. Specifically, Web 2.0
practices are underpinned by participation as a goal in itself and this carries through to the ways knowledge is produced and shared within
a community of interest individuals. By contrast, the basic goal of education is to equip graduates with knowledge and skills that are
 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534 527

accredited through a qualification. This does not preclude collaboration and knowledge sharing as being important to the educational
process, but participation is not an end in itself. These ideas have been used to frame the discussion section of this paper, which considers
the degree of alignment between the educational and Web 2.0 practices across this set of cases.

3. Case studies – image-sharing focus

3.1. Image-sharing focus 1: student-generated digital photo archive in chemistry

In a large first-year chemistry class, a photo-sharing activity was implemented to encourage students to relate their formal learning
about chemistry to their experiences in the everyday world (see Waycott & Kennedy, 2009). This was one of four independent learning tasks
(ILTs) that were introduced as part of an overhaul of the first-year chemistry curriculum (the other ILTs involved students completing short
tasks using the course1’s learning management system). Each ILT was a hurdle requirement: that is, students were expected to complete the
task in order to pass the course, but were not given a grade, or mark, for their work. For this task, students were asked to take digital photos
of everyday occurrences that illustrated two chemical principles that had been covered in class (e.g., a photograph of a birthday candle to
illustrate oxidation). Each student was allocated two topics to focus on. Students posted their photos to a private Flickr group created for the
project, added a caption in the style of a textbook to describe the chemical principle illustrated and tagged their photo with relevant
keywords. Finally, students were asked to review the images for one topic and to nominate the two best student photos in that set.
When designing this activity, project team members reviewed a number of photo sharing sites and chose Flickr because it allowed
control over individual and group access, and was backed by a large company. Students used their own cameras and mobile phones to take
the photographs. The Chemistry Department purchased a small number of digital cameras that were made available on loan to ensure equity
of access to necessary equipment, but none of them were borrowed.
After the private group on Flickr had been set up, students were sent an email inviting them to join the group. The process was time-
consuming because Flickr’s anti-spam measures limited the number of invitation emails that could be sent at one time. Students were
given detailed written instructions explaining the processes they needed to follow to satisfactorily complete the activity, and a Web site with
further information about the project and a list of answers to frequently asked questions was established. Students could also email an
assistant employed by the Chemistry Department whose part-time job was dedicated to supporting the project.
Of the 920 students enrolled in the course, 799 students completed the activity. A total of 1894 photos were posted to which 4262 tags
were added. Only 45 photos lacked descriptions. The online evaluation survey had a low response rate, with only 44 students completing the
survey. As noted above, this may have been due to the fact that completing the questionnaire was optional and it was administered outside
of class time. Given this poor response rate, the findings are interpreted with caution. However, it should be noted that the chemistry
department administered a follow-up questionnaire as part of its review of the curriculum and while more students responded (N ¼ 465),
the results were similar to our evaluation (Abrahams, Harvey, Chang, Kennedy, & Tregloan, 2009). In addition, ten students took part in
a focus group discussion and four staff members were interviewed as part of the evaluation.
The student survey results suggested that most of the respondents felt the activity did not enhance their learning. For example, 68%
disagreed with the statement “The activity helped me better understand the material I was studying”, and 62% disagreed with the statement
“The activity improved my ability to reflect on what I was learning”. There were only a small proportion of favourable responses to the
statements, “The activity improved my ability to share my knowledge and/or opinions with other students” (26% agreed) and it “helped me
develop my thinking skills by writing or producing study related material” (26% agreed).
Qualitative data from the survey provided further evidence of student disenchantment with the activity. Some students said they found it
difficult to navigate around the Flickr website, some did not like having to sign up to Yahoo (“creating another email address that I didn’t
want”), and some experienced problems receiving the invitation email and joining the Flickr group. These problems were reiterated by
students in the focus group interviews. Furthermore, some survey respondents felt the activity was time-consuming and did not have
a practical purpose, offering comments such as, “It wasted time that could have been spent revising important relevant topics” and, “It
seems an unnecessary and unhelpful hurdle that will not actually teach us anything practical”.
The students who took part in the focus group discussion were generally more positive. They said they found the activity enjoyable, it
broadened their learning experience and provided an opportunity to view other students’ work. In particular, they felt the activity enabled
them to build connections between their formal learning and their everyday experiences, as evidenced in the following comments:

 “look[ing] at how some people interpreted it different to you and just reading the captions, you learn a lot about how chemistry
influences everyday life.”
 “With chemistry and probably other sciences as well [they] can be quite abstract at times. It was good to actually put it into reality.”

The teaching staff interviewed considered the activity a success and were intending to continue implementing it in future. One staff member
said, “[it] made me feel good about the students in this class. I think they put in effort and I was tremendously impressed”. The teachers felt that
the quality of students’ work was high and that there was evidence that the learning objective – to encourage students to make connections
between their formal learning and the world around them – had been achieved. One lecturer noted: “I like the connection that they are making.
I am seeing it”. While this comment aligns with the feedback students provided in the focus group discussion, it was apparent from the survey
responses that many students did not believe this activity added significant value to their learning in first-year chemistry.
Despite the clear educational rationale of situating students’ formal learning about chemistry within their everyday experiences, for
many of the students who responded to the evaluation survey this activity appeared to be an irrelevant and unhelpful task. It appears that
the blending of social and formal spaces for learning through the use of Web 2.0 technologies may not always be desired or welcomed by
students. In addition, as noted in Waycott and Kennedy (2009), this case study highlights the challenges involved in implementing a social

1
‘Course’ is used throughout to denote a part of a degree program usually studied over a single semester or year.
528 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534

web-based activity in a very large class. These challenges included the difficulties that students experienced reviewing their peers’ work
(students expressed concern about the quality and repetition of the photos published on the Flickr website), as well as the administrative
challenges outlined above.

3.2. Image-sharing focus 2: student-generated digital photo archive in biology

An assignment that required students to individually collect and describe the observable, morphological characteristics of beetles was
adapted to incorporate an online, shared exercise. The class comprised 25 on-campus students and 19 distance education students in the
second or later year of study.
Students were required to collect a total of six beetles from at least three different habitats, to prepare the beetles for display and to
document their morphological features. The online component of the activity required students to upload photographic images of each,
taken from at least two angles to emphasise morphological features. Students were also required to upload a document containing
descriptive information, including a categorisation of various beetle characteristics, according to requirements set by the teacher. Audio
recordings of the beetles and/or video footage could also be uploaded. These files were uploaded to the Beetle Gallery which was housed
within the resource sharing area within the university’s Sakai-based learning management system. Additional detail about the activity and
associated evaluation data collection can be found in Waycott, Dalgarno, Kennedy and Bishop (in press).
The activity, which served as an introduction to entomological taxonomy and was weighted as 30% of the total mark for the course,
required students to:

 Summarise the taxonomic characteristics of the six beetles that they had collected;
 Compare and contrast their specimens with beetles in the Beetle Gallery, both to develop greater familiarity with the diverse array of
species within the Coleoptera family and to accentuate the ecological basis for these physical traits; and
 Sketch three of the beetles.

The Resources tool available within Sakai was determined to be adequate for this activity. The tool was recognized to have limited
capacity in searching for resources and for attaching meta-tags to resources; however these capabilities were not considered essential to the
activity. Counter to these limitations, the tool provided advantages with administration and initial setup requirements by virtue of being
embedded within a learning management system.
Students received detailed written instructions about how to create and name folders, use appropriate file formats, and how to upload
files. These instructions were made available through the online course forum early in the semester plus optional workshops were also
scheduled in a computer laboratory at the residential school to support distance education students to upload their beetle photographs and
add descriptions. The course coordinator provided support by fielding phone and email enquiries, although reported that these were not
excessive. Some requests were for advice about how best to capture suitable images and queries about how to transfer images from cameras.
Technical support was also available from central IT services.
The survey had a 57% response rate, with 17 on-campus and 8 distance students responding. Four on-campus students also participated
in a focus group discussion and four distance education students were interviewed individually, by phone. Overall, students evaluated the
exercise positively. On average, most indicated in survey responses that they did not find it confusing (88%), difficult (84%), irrelevant (84%)
or boring (68%), with high ratings for interesting (64%), easy to use (72%), useful (60%) and enjoyable (76%). The majority of respondents
(72%) reported that completion of the activity had assisted with their studies, and 40% also indicated that they would like to see this kind of
activity used in other areas of their studies (although another 52% were undecided about this).
An indication of student engagement with the activity could be seen through the number of student ‘actions’ (which included posting,
reading and revising). Both the on-campus and distance cohorts demonstrated engagement beyond the requirements, with distance
students demonstrating higher levels of activity than on-campus students. Comments also suggested that many students felt a greater sense
of involvement as a result of the collaborative aspects of the activity. For example, an on-campus student identified the best thing about the
activity as, “Being able to share and network that information, which I think is very important in learning”, and a distance education student
said during the interview:
I think as a DE student the more interactive the course gets the more you get out of it . it makes you actually work for it and think about
stuff that you wouldn’t normally do when you’re just reading a book.
A number of students commented on the value of collaborative learning for providing a “broader view”. The access to other students’
images and their classifications facilitated deeper reflection on the course content:
Going through everyone’s photos and saying well that’s the same as my beetle but I’ve actually labelled it differently was actually
interesting . it was interesting to see how different people interpreted those slight differences in those characteristics.
The sharing of images also served as an informal feedback or self-assessment mechanism for students, for example:
[Looking at other students’ work] gives you a reference point with other people, where you are at and maybe where you should be at.
Roughly the same fraction of students from each cohort reported technical problems (36% overall). The utility of the Sakai-based platform
emerged as a key issue. Students were frustrated by needing to upload files one at a time, by the upload and download speeds and by system
outages during the semester. One student noted that the slow pace imposed by both the file structure and server speed ‘de-motivated’
further exploration of other students’ images in the gallery.
Students’ access to appropriate cameras and software to modify their images also emerged as problematic because of the small size of the
specimens combined with the requirement to emphasise specific morphological characteristics. Poor image quality was commented on by
several students who found it difficult to obtain good images or felt frustrated by looking at poor images in the gallery.
 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534 529

Despite initial reservations about the potential workload associated with the online version of this assessment, the teacher reflected that
minimal extra work was ultimately required. “Slightly more” marking time was needed to drill in and out of the file structure in order to
assess each student, however the benefits were considered to far outweigh this drawback.
Overall, the project was a clear success in that it turned an individual activity into one where additional learning appeared to occur due to
the ability of students to view each other’s work, contrast it to their own, and develop a sense of collective ownership of the shared Beetle
Gallery resource created by the group. The technological skills in working with digital images and in online file-sharing, which students were
required to demonstrate as part of the activity, is likely to be an additional side-benefit of the activity. Comments from some distance
students also suggest that the activity made them feel as though they were part of a learning community rather than isolated individual
learners.

3.3. Image-sharing focus 3: student-generated digital photo archive in environmental education

As part of a small, third year Bachelor of Education elective, students designed and prepared an environmental education activity to run
with children at a local primary school. They took photographs and recorded notes during the lesson activities to document their expe-
riences. They later uploaded a selection of images to a group space in Flickr created for the class, added text descriptions and tags, and then
reviewed the full set of images. Finally, the students voted on which of the images should be included in a presentation to be provided back
to the school as a record of the activities.
The activity was part of the students’ final assessment task for which they had to produce a report of their group’s activities, worth 25% of
their overall mark for the course. Each group had to select at least two images per team member from those they had taken to integrate into
their final report.
Flickr was chosen because it allowed the creation of a private group for sharing the photos. This was essential because the images might
include school children and it was important that their identities be protected. The teacher moderated the content of the group, allowing
any photos that included the faces of children to be removed.
Prior to the first class, a private Flickr group was established and all of the students in the class were invited to join via an email sent to
their university email accounts. The students then created their own Flickr accounts during a tutorial early in the semester. The teaching
team also scheduled two tutorial classes in the computer labs, one for the practice session prior to the school visit and another to enable
students to upload their images from the school visit and construct their reports. Students were advised to bring their own cameras or book
a camera from the university’s central audio-visual unit for the school visit.
Seven students took part in focus group interviews, and one staff member was interviewed. In addition, 11 of the 13 students enrolled in
the course completed the evaluation questionnaire. Overall, none of students had difficulty completing the activity, but a majority indicated
they did not find it relevant (63%) or useful (54%). The respondents were also neutral about the learning benefits, with just over half the
students indicating they had improved their technology skills and knowledge, but only three to four feeling their topic knowledge or
academic skills has improved. Only three students felt that the activity assisted them with their studies, and only two indicated they would
like it to be integrated into other areas of their studies.
Only one student had used Flickr prior to the class, but in the focus groups some students indicated that they had previously uploaded
and commented on photos using social networking tools. Students also said that they found the practice exercise useful and straightforward,
helping them to prepare for what they would have to do on the school visit. One student commented that the process was “a lot easier” than
she imagined.
In contrast to the neutral ratings students gave the activity on the evaluation survey, several commented positively on the value of being
able to see other groups’ photos:

 “It was good to see what other people did and get like a full scope, rather than just what we did.”
 “I was shocked at the diversity actually in the school because when you first walk into a school you just sort of see some trees and a few
gardens, but when I actually saw the individual photos of the other students it actually opened my eyes.”

Another common observation in focus groups was that the activity had given the students some ideas for their own future teaching.
Several commented specifically on how they could use a similar image sharing activity with their own classes in future.
The discussions also revealed a number of practical problems with the overall task which impacted on the image collection and sharing.
Almost all students felt they did not have enough time to complete the lesson, although some admitted to not being well enough prepared.
There was also some confusion about the task requirements, and a reflection by the students that they lacked the scientific knowledge that
would have improved their descriptions of the plants and animals recorded during the lesson.
In sum, the value of this activity is apparent in the way it supported collaboration beyond the small groups by making all students’
contributions visible to the whole class. The evaluation responses indicate the activity improved students’ technology skills as none had
engaged in photo sharing in this way before, but there were further benefits because engaging in the activity enabled students to see the
potential for adapting the activity themselves as future primary school teachers.

4. Case studies – publishing/writing focus

4.1. Publishing/writing focus 1: student publishing using blogging in journalism

In this activity first-year journalism students created a collection of news stories using a blog. The activity introduced students to
blogging as a form of journalism and provided a context for developing their research and writing skills. Each student developed a news and
resource blog for their local area that included: three current news stories; two short profiles of local people; a set of links to local resources;
a description of the local area that included a brief history and description of local attractions and/or problems; and images to enhance blog
entries. Students were encouraged to go beyond these minimum requirements to give their blog a sense of identity using whatever design
530 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534

features they wanted. The blog comprised 50% of the overall assessment for the course. WordPress was chosen because it had been
successfully used in the course during the previous year and was judged by the teacher to be most appropriate. Students were introduced to
the blogging tools in tutorial classes with the support of their teacher.
Survey responses were received from 42 of the 52 students enrolled in the course. Thirty-one (31) students took part in focus groups and
one staff member (the teacher/designer) was interviewed. Most of the survey respondents (79%) had little or no prior experience in creating
their own blogs. Overall, all but three students found the activity relevant, and a majority rated it as useful, interesting and enjoyable.
However, just under half the respondents found the blog tool moderately to very difficult to use. Nearly 60% said they had experienced some
technical problems, mainly associated with formatting the postings. Despite these challenges, respondents were positive about how the
activity helped them in their studies: 76% indicated it helped improve their understanding, 93% that it improved their knowledge of using
technology for their studies, 79% that it improved their thinking and writing skills, and 92% that it improved their independent research
skills. Students were also reasonably positive about how the activity helped them get feedback from the teacher, but more neutral about its
effect on enabling them to share their ideas. This was supported by comments in the focus groups that suggested few students took the
opportunity to read each other’s blogs even though they were readily available. Overall, 91% felt the activity helped them with their studies
that semester, although only 53% were positive they wanted to use blogging in other areas of their studies.
Comments elicited from focus groups revealed students found the activity interesting, but challenging. One reason was that it challenged
their assumptions about journalism. For example, one student commented, “I had never really considered doing any online work like
blogging”. Another reason was that the type of assignment was unfamiliar and students had difficulty understanding the requirements.
Despite this, most students interviewed said that the activity was a positive and useful experience in developing contemporary journalistic
skills. In the words of one student, “I think it was relevant to the age we’re in at the moment, everything’s just technologically driven”. And
some liked sharing their work, as one put it, “I enjoyed that you could show other people what you’ve done. A lot of my interview subjects
asked to see the blog and it was nice to see them sort of approve it”. Even students who commented that at first they found the idea of
sharing their work publicly intimidating were ultimately positive about having their writing published.
When reflecting on the blogs produced, the teacher commented that the students had exceeded his expectations, with about 80% of the
class going beyond the basic requirements by including extra multimedia elements like audio and video and creating their own unique
designs. He also commented the idea of blogging as a legitimate journalistic genre was challenging for many first-year students, and his aim
was to help students achieve an appropriate style. He also described needing to assist the students with technical problems because the tool
they were using was still developing and problems often occurred when trying to use some of the more advanced functions. When
considering how the activity could be improved the teacher reflected that he could place more emphasis on the practice blog activity early in
the semester as a way to reduce the confusion about the requirements. It is worth noting here that because this teacher had run a version of
the activity the year before he had the benefit of those reflections on which to improve the design of the activity.
In this case, blogging was the focus of the whole course. The aim was to develop students’ own blogging skills as part of becoming
a journalist, rather than using blogging as a means to reflect on or learn something else. Most students had little prior experience with
blogging and so developed new technical skills in addition to improving their writing. There was a high level of engagement in this activity,
evidenced by the many students who went beyond the requirements of the task. The positive evaluations suggest that this implementation
was highly successful.

4.2. Publishing/writing focus 2: student reflective journal writing using blogs in education

In this activity, teacher education students were required to maintain an individual blog while undertaking a five-week school-based
professional experience placement. The students, who were in their third or fourth year of study, were asked to reflect in their blog postings
on the applicability of their theoretical position on classroom management, which they had described in an earlier assignment, to their
experiences while on their placement. Students were required to post blog entries and respond to other students’ blog postings at specific
intervals during the placement and this was assessed as part of a larger assignment in which they were required to reflect on their classroom
management experiences while on placement, which comprised 50% of the course assessment. Additional detail about the activity and the
evaluation data collected can be found in Reupert and Dalgarno (2011).
The BlogWow tool was chosen because its integration into the university’s Sakai-based LMS simplified the administrative process and
because it allowed the blogs to be made private within the class group, an important consideration given the need for maintaining confi-
dentiality when working with school students. A workshop on using the blog tool was provided during class time prior to the placement.
At the end of the project, 40 of the 91 students in the class completed the questionnaire, and 22 students participated in four focus group
interviews. Of the students who completed the questionnaire, 53% rated the BlogWow tool as easy to use, with 18% undecided. Only 30%
indicated that the blogging task was useful, with 18% neutral, and only 28% indicated that it was enjoyable, again with 18% neutral. Despite
this, 45% of these students agreed that the task had improved their ability to reflect on what they were learning with 33% undecided, and
40% agreed that the task had improved their ability to share their knowledge or opinions with other students with 38% undecided.
Focus group comments and open-ended responses in the questionnaire suggested that students who found the task valuable did so
because it allowed them to receive support and advice from their peers, to find out about the experiences of other students, and to reflect on
their own practice. In the words of one student:
I just like reading what’s going on in other people’s classrooms and how everybody else is going, ‘You can try this, or you can try that’ and
then getting that person’s feedback on, ‘Oh, I’ve tried this. This is really good’. And then I thought, well, I’ve heard somebody else say it.
Maybe I could see if I could use that in my classroom.
However, a number of students indicated that they thought the task was an unwanted additional burden during their placement. For
example, one student commented that:
It wasn’t something that was an easy thing that I’m going to get something out of it. It’s something that I had to put a lot of work into to
get anything out of . it was a very poor choice of time to be making us do it.
 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534 531

Technical problems made the activity difficult or inconvenient for some students, with 43% indicating that they encountered technical
problems at some stage during the activity. The unavailability of the blog system due to downtime of the LMS was the most commonly
reported problem. A subtle usability issue that emerged during the focus group interviews was that it was difficult to identify new blog
postings or comments. Students had to open each blog to see if it had been updated.
Some students said that they would have preferred that the task was not assessable, although in an earlier trial of an optional blog with
another cohort only a small proportion of students chose to participate. Some also suggested that they would have liked greater flexibility in
the number and frequency of postings. Some students would have welcomed feedback from the lecturer, as one put it, “I think many other
people’s opinion is good but getting our lecturers’ opinions, just because of their experience, would have been more valuable”. Some
students were disappointed by the limited number of comments they received from other students, although one student explained, “I’d
mainly comment on my friends and people that I knew . I didn’t want to get on to someone that I’ve barely talked to and say, ‘I think you
should do this’ and sound like a real know-it-all.”
The lecturer was also interviewed at stages during the semester. In the final interview, the lecturer commented that the activity
provided a way for students to stay connected to the university during their placement and many supported each other and shared
ideas about classroom management. The lecturer acknowledged, however, that some students put minimal effort into the task,
completing it only because it was assessable, and many students felt they were being asked to do too much while on professional
placement.
Students were clearly split on their views about this activity. A sizeable group within the cohort found it valuable and were able to
articulate specific aspects of the task which they felt helped to support them while on placement and helped with their reflective learning
about classroom management. However, another sizeable group found it time consuming and of little value and in particular were opposed
to its inclusion as a compulsory requirement. One reason for this diversity may be the fact that some students’ postings received extensive
comments, while other students’ postings were apparently ignored by their peers. However, the diversity may also reflect differences in
students’ interest in and preparedness to undertake this type of Web 2.0 technology-based activity.

4.3. Publishing/writing focus 3: collaborative writing through wikis in psychology

A collaborative writing exercise in a large first-year psychology course was supported using a wiki (see Judd, Kennedy, & Cropper, 2010). A
subscription version of PBwiki was chosen because it offered RSS feeds and group access control. Students were given access to the wiki
through a shared password, which meant that individual accounts were not needed.
This offering of the course included 772 students from faculties including Arts, Science, and Commerce who were divided into lab classes
of up to 30 students for the semester. The wiki task was scheduled for the middle of semester and required students to work in teams in and
after their lab classes to create a wiki on the week’s lecture topic. Students received 4% towards their final mark if they made at least two
contributions to the wiki.
Students were given information about the wiki activity, support and advice before and during the task in the following ways:

 The lecturer included advice and encouragement at the beginning and at the end of lectures.
 Notes about how to create a rich, Wikipedia-style entry and tips on how to use the wiki effectively (including basic functions and
etiquette) were provided in lab classes and as a PDF download on the learning management system.
 The wiki itself contained detailed notes and help files for students.
 The course coordinator responded to student queries, supported by the implementation team where necessary.

Of the students enrolled in the course, 692 (90%) participated in the task, contributing a total of 2715 page edits. Of the participating
students, 626 (81%) satisfied the task requirements by making at least two page edits. On closer examination, 18% of all edits were found to
be cosmetic, resulting in no change to the content of the page, and a further 11% involved changes to only one sentence.
A total of 65 students completed the online evaluation questionnaire, around 9% of all participants. Generally, the respondents were
positive about their learning experiences, with a majority of students (65%) indicating the activity improved their ability to share knowledge
and opinions with others. Similar proportions felt the activity improved their ability to reflect on what they were learning (60%) and helped
them develop their thinking skills by writing or producing study related material (60%). While many students felt the activity helped them
understand the material they were studying (47%), around one quarter (26%) did not. A slim majority of students (53%) responded that they
would like to use this technology again in other areas of their studies.
Two focus groups were conducted, each with 10 students. On the whole students in the focus group were more critical of the collab-
orative writing activity than the survey responses indicated. Students felt that the activity needed more structure and direction. Some
expressed a desire for more information about the task earlier in the course, a need for more specific guidelines on what was required, and to
have more class time devoted to the task, preferably in a computer lab so that students could work on the wiki in class time.
Some students did not experience the wiki as a collaborative or coordinated team-based activity and had concerns about the usefulness
of what was produced, as reflected in these two student comments:

 I just did my own wiki contribution and I found it really difficult to navigate the other parts of the site. So I didn’t really see what other
team mates wrote.
 It didn’t really encourage any group work as such because you could easily split [the task] up into five different sections. We just went
home and did the five different sections on our own.

While students’ perceptions of the wiki were somewhat mixed, an unexpected finding from staff who were interviewed was that
students’ use of the wiki allowed them to see how students’ understanding of the course material was developing, opening the possibility
for more responsive teaching:
532 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534

I think this is a really good way to stay engaged with your students . and develop a more intimate teaching/learning relationship with
them where you can pick up on things like them maybe not picking up on a certain topic and then maybe adjust your teaching strategy
for the coming week.
Staff expressed concerns about the learning curve for students, many of whom were noted by staff as having little understanding of what
a wiki was or how to use it. This is consistent with the survey results in which most students reported no or little prior experience with wikis
(71%), and about a quarter of students reported technical or other problems with the activity.
A key finding from this case study is that despite using a wiki and designing a collaborative learning task in which students were
expected to co-author content, there was little evidence that students actually collaborated on this task (see Judd et al., 2010, for more
information about this evidence). Many of the student contributions to the wiki involved superficial changes and much of the content was
written and produced by a relatively small number of students. Furthermore, many students posted their contributions late in the task – at
the last minute – making it difficult for genuine collaboration and co-authoring to occur. The modest assessment weighting for this activity,
and the learning curve involved in using a wiki, may also have inhibited students’ motivation to contribute to the task in more than
a superficial way.

5. Discussion

These cases highlight some important challenges in implementing Web 2.0 technologies in higher education. Students’ limited prior
experience with the technologies, foreshadowed in the survey, was confirmed in the case studies. This challenges the claim that students’
prior use makes Web 2.0 technologies intrinsically motivating and immediately usable. In practice, this lack of familiarity posed few practical
problems for the implementations because most students were able to quickly develop the necessary skills and valued the technology skills
they did develop. Nevertheless, as noted by Meyer (2010) the workload in learning new skills, however useful, should not be underestimated.
The cases also highlight technical challenges associated with the fact that many of the tools were new and still under development, and
also because the institutions involved had not yet developed systems to support Web 2.0 tools. While not underestimating the barriers a lack
of support and infrastructure can pose for more mainstream and widespread implementations of these tools, the project teams were able to
mobilise sufficient resources to overcome these potential problems. The experiences are, however, indicative of some of the work ahead for
departments and institutions (see also Schroeder et al., 2010).
Beyond these practical issues, most of the challenges could be characterised generally as ‘task-technology’ fit (Naismith, Lee, & Pilkington,
2011). One way to think about this is to see it primarily as a task design issue, that is, we focus on improving the design of the task, perhaps
through optimising what Biggs (1999) calls ‘constructive alignment’ between assessment and intended learning outcomes. The implication
is that if the task design is good then students are more likely to achieve the learning outcomes we want them to. And it is in attempting to
improve the design of the task that we face a conundrum when it comes to adapting tools intended to support Web 2.0 practices so that they
align with educational practices.
Web 2.0’s emphasis on active participation, user generation of content and collaboration seems to fit well with the kinds of creative and
critical activities we associate with higher education, with the ways that we know students learn through exposure to multiple perspectives,
and with the communication and teamwork skills we want our graduates to develop. But these superficial synergies mask what Dohn’s
describes as a clash of ‘practice logics’. Put simply, the social practices of Web 2.0 and those of education are at odds with one another, and
fundamentally so. As noted above, Dohn argues that Web 2.0 values participation, however minor or major, above recognition of an
individual’s contribution, thereby de-emphasising authorship. This clashes with the remit of education to accredit individuals through
progress towards a qualification. And this clash plays out in the cases in this study, and helps to explain the basis of challenges posed by
integrating Web 2.0 technologies into higher education.
Let us consider the cases in this study on a continuum from greatest alignment between Web 2.0 and education to least. The course
introducing students to blogging as a contemporary journalistic practice is arguably the most well-aligned and the most ‘authentic’ because
developing Web 2.0 skills and knowledge is inherent in the activity. The blog has a purpose beyond simply creating content for the course
because it is publicly available to a real audience. Its individual nature is consistent with industry practices by which individual authorship is
often (though not always) attributed. This also enables the blog to be assessed as a student’s own work, as required academically. So in this
case the Web 2.0 and educational practices are well aligned. The positive feedback suggests that students saw relevance in the skills and
knowledge they developed.
Three other cases are examples of previously existing tasks which have been extended through the integration of Web 2.0 tools – the
biology image sharing activity added a collective dimension to an individual task, the education image sharing activity extended existing
group projects, and the education blog enabled students to share their experiences while on professional placements. In each case the
original task remained the primary focus, with the Web 2.0 activities aiming to enhance familiar types of academic tasks rather than replace
them with new practices. The feedback suggests that students valued the new activities because they allowed them to see what other
students were doing. This broadened their experiences, so they were no longer limited to only the beetles they collected, the part of the
environment audit they conducted, or what they experienced in their particular classrooms. While the material generated was solely for the
purposes of the course, the outcome was akin to Web 2.0 practices of generating content to share with others. In the case of the education
blog, however, some students were concerned about what they perceived as the extra workload blogging added, expressed reservations
about commenting on each others’ posts and were disappointed with the limited participation of other students and the teacher. Other Web
2.0 studies have also identified a range of positive and negative experiences of editing and sharing of work (e.g., Churchill, 2009; Ducate &
Lomicka, 2008; Ellison & Wu, 2008; Hemmi, Bayne, & Land, 2009; Hourigan & Murray, 2010; Kerawalla et al., 2009; Wheeler, Yoemans, &
Wheeler, 2008). These mixed results highlight important differences in group dynamics between academic and Web 2.0 settings.
Furthermore, in all three cases it could be argued that, however valuable, the collective activity was adjunct to the primary task of students
developing their own understandings. And so we might interpret these cases as being examples of Web 2.0 tools serving educational
purposes without fully reflecting Web 2.0 practices. They would also appear to highlight scope to make more of the collective resource
created by students’ contributions, for example by extending the task to encourage further engagement.
 S. Bennett et al. / Computers & Education 59 (2012) 524–534 533

The chemistry image sharing and the psychology wiki activities were likely the most novel to students as academic activities. Both
activities involved working with content in ways that were not typical in the discipline areas. While students indicated they enjoyed
identifying chemistry concepts in everyday phenomenon, they also complained that this did not help them do better in their assessment
tasks. So, although there was a high level of engagement in the activity, students felt it did not fit clearly into the dominant educational
practices in their course. And while developing material in the wiki offered new ways of working and developing understanding of content
in psychology, some students divided up the work cooperatively rather than working collaboratively and engaged in little editing of each
others’ contributions. This highlights the difference between the academic expectations of equal input by group members and the
distributed authorship models common in the Web 2.0 world where any voluntary contribution is valued. Other studies in which students
used Web 2.0 tools differently to the ways teachers intended (e.g., Arnold & Paulus, 2010; Naismith et al., 2011) highlight the perennial issue
of the gap between a teacher’s design of a task and students’ interpretations and actions (Ellis & Goodyear, 2010). This underscores the need
for sophisticated thinking about the role Web 2.0 technologies might play in education as they are often designed for different practices
based on different assumptions about knowledge creation and sharing.
The findings of this collective case study highlight the significant challenges when trying to make Web 2.0 tools (and their underlying
practices) coherent with educational goals. The question becomes whether we reshape education in the image of Web 2.0 or we repurpose
Web 2.0 tools in ways that adapt them to the context of education. There are some examples of teachers and students moving beyond
traditional institutional boundaries and using externally hosted Web 2.0 tools. This may be interpreted as a partial reshaping of some
educational practices which, over time, may influence the mainstream to adopt more of what Crook (2008) calls a ‘Web 2.0 mentality’.
However, given that educational practices tend to change gradually over time rather than by dramatic shifts it is more likely that Web 2.0
will be adapted to serve the needs of education, at least in the short term. Repurposing is already happening to some extent with learning
management systems integrating Web 2.0 tools in ways that maintain some of their functionality but modified to allow grading and tracking
of individual student contributions. Integration of Web 2.0 tools to suit educational practices will still require “considerable creative
involvement from teachers” (Crook, 2008, p. 35), not just in designing tasks that fit with the overall learning context and receive appropriate
reward, but in supporting students to perceive their value and develop relevant academic skills (Chong, 2010). It also must be acknowledged
that in many cases institutions are bound by privacy and intellectual property law that precludes making student work publicly available,
making a shift to Web 2.0 practices impossible.
As a final point of discussion it is important to acknowledge the limitations of this study. It might be argued in retrospect that the tasks
could have been better designed and the tools better chosen to match them. The low response rates on some evaluations also requires that
caution be exercised when interpreting the results. We invite readers to critically evaluate our arguments and to also consider the extent to
which the contexts of the cases in this study reflect those within their own experiences. This was, however, an exploratory project and much
of the choice was driven by the teaching staff who participated in the study and limited by the available resources rather than mandated by
the researchers. It was hoped that as a result the research would be more naturalistic and that readers could learn more from the outcomes.
We may have also learned more from an analysis of student work rather than relying solely on student and teacher self reports. Nonetheless,
the results do advance thinking about Web 2.0’s role in education and offer a foundation for future research to build on.

6. Conclusion

This paper has presented data evaluating six Web 2.0 technology implementations in Australian higher education. Some of the
implementations were more successful than others, especially those for which there was a high degree of alignment between the
educational and Web 2.0 practices involved. These findings highlight the potential learning benefits that can come from effective use of Web
2.0, particularly through student content creation and sharing. Furthermore, the cases suggest that the possible pitfalls of students being
unfamiliar with the tools and a lack of institutional support can be relatively easy to overcome. Even the challenges of finding the right tool
to support a well-designed activity are familiar ones in educational technology. More significantly the cases highlight fundamental tensions
between Web 2.0 and educational practices. It is not clear whether these tensions can be overcome or whether they are intractable, but
certainly they should be acknowledged whenever Web 2.0 tools are brought into formal educational contexts.

Acknowledgments

Support for this project was provided from the Australian Learning and Teaching Council (ALTC), an initiative of the Australian
Commonwealth Government. The authors would also like to acknowledge the wider project team listed in full in the project report
(Kennedy et al., 2009).

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