Mediating PBL in a Wiki environment (cont’d)
Benefits Of Using IT To Support PBL
Studies have shown that PBL promotes in-depth understanding of content (Hung, Bailey & Jonassen, 2003) but usually at the expense of the breadth of content coverage.
The use of information technology (IT) has the potential of increasing efficiency in the use of classroom and Internet resources, opening up access to new information and experiences, and expanding the learning environment beyond the classroom and the teacher (Lim, 2005). The asynchronous features of IT also allowed students to be more flexible in terms of their schedule, particularly having extra time to read and reflect on previous postings before making their own contributions (Chew & Seah, 2005). It is therefore not surprising that some researchers have reported findings that using IT in a collaborative learning environment have led to higher achievement, higher level reasoning, frequent generation of ideas and solutions and greater transfer of learning in problem-solving performance (Uribe et al., 2003; Arts et al., 2002; cited in Lim, 2005).
Many types of IT are being used currently to enhance teaching and learning at various stages of the PBL process, as shown below:
Figure 1: Existing uses of IT in the PBL process.
(Lim, 2005; adapted from Tan, 2003, p.123)
A recent pilot study by Chew & Seah (2005) revealed that majority of the students rated the synchronous chat, portal forum and (surprise!) Digital Drop Box as being highly effective at many stages in the PBL process, as compared to the Face-to-Face mode and other communication media. Their results are charted below:
Figure 2: Level of effectiveness of communication media across PBL stages.
