An Examination of the Characteristics Impacting Collaborative Tool Efficacy: The Uncanny Valley of Collaborative Tools

Dishaw, Mark T.; Eierman, Michael A.; Iversen, Jacob H.; Philip, George

doi:10.28945/1899

Cited by 5 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…In other words, "The affordances of social digital networks enable people to work together on projects in ways not necessarily possible in the past due to distance, time, age, or language constraints" (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008, p. 527). Early research shows that online networks of collective authoring and idea-processing tools can facilitate student learning (Dishaw, Eierman, Iversen, & Philip, 2013;Wyatt-Smith & Elkins, 2008). Being developed at an unprecedented fast pace nowadays, technology software offers innovative ways to streamline the collaborative writing process, encourage more sophistication and better accuracy in student writing, and facilitate timely, valuable feedback from one member to the other (Liu & Lan, 2016).…”

Section: Collaborative Technologies In Writing Classroomsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Google Docs as a Tool for Collaborative Writing in the Middle School Classroom

Woodrich

Fan

2017

JITE:Research

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Aim/Purpose: In this study, the authors examine how an online word processing tool can be used to encourage participation among students of different language back-grounds, including English Language Learners. To be exact, the paper discusses whether student participation in anonymous collaborative writing via Google Docs can lead to more successful products in a linguistically diverse eighth-grade English Language Arts classroom. Background: English Language Learners (ELLs) make up a considerable portion of elementary and secondary public school students, as language and ethnic diversity has become the norm in the United States. The research literature finds that ELLs are statistically behind their monolingual peers on such key language and academic development indicators as writing. Educators and researchers then turn to collaborative writing with the assistance of online technology. Although it is shown in literature to be a worthwhile endeavor for students of all ages and ability levels, no studies have investigated the differences it makes, namely, in comparison to traditional face-to-face collaboration in the classroom, and to anonymous online collaboration in the virtual space. Methodology: Through face-to-face, online, and anonymous writing activities, a rubric, and a survey, this quantitative study asks if anonymous collaborative writing, com-pared to other modalities, equalizes participation among students of varying language fluencies, and if anonymous collaborative writing, compared to other modalities, affect student comfort levels. Contribution: This builds on research of online collaborative writing tools and suggests that using such tools (Google Docs in particular) is beneficial, especially for students who are building their language abilities. The study further reveals varied degree of success and student comfort level in participating writing tasks in three modalities. Findings: We ascertain that students of varying language fluencies participated more equally when they were able to remain anonymous. Face-to-face writing exhibited the highest overall scores, and students enjoyed working on Google Docs. Recommendations for Practitioners: Future and current teachers are encouraged to be open to new technologies and be creative in the use of technology to facilitate student learning. They should have the opportunity to participate in the discussion on how, not if, integrating technology impacts the cognitive, social, and cultural dimensions of teaching. Recommendation for Researchers: After this initial quantitative study on students’ reactions to various modalities of technology-supported writing formats, the next questions to ask may be how students were engaging in dialogues during face-to-face sessions or chat features of Google Docs trials, and what types of edits students are making. Researchers should turn their focus on secondary school classrooms where there is an increasing impact of technology-assisted collaborative writing on student learning and teaching pedagogy. Impact on Society: As online technology has become an integral part of daily life, it is beneficial to educators, policy makers, and classroom teachers to understand how technology can be integrated in writing programs and to what extent the integration can help boost student motivation and participation. Future Research: More longitudinal research on online assisted collaborative writing and addi-tional quantitative data are needed to further understand the complexities of the writing process in-group online writing and the nature of collaboration.

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Section: Collaborative Technologies In Writing Classroomsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Google Docs as a Tool for Collaborative Writing in the Middle School Classroom

Woodrich

Fan

2017

JITE:Research

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“…(Brodahl et al, 2011, p. 74) However the use of Google Docs (2008) and EtherPad (2008), being collaborative writing tools relatively comparable to wikis, remains a gap in research literature (Benson, 2012;Chu & Kennedy, 2011), though recently a number of contributions to the body of research have been made (Brodahl et al, 2011;Burden, 2012;Caspi & Blau, 2011;Cruz, Dominguez, Maia, Pedrosa, & Grams, 2013;Dishaw, Eierman, Iversen, & Philip, 2013;Garner, 2010;Oguilve, Vindas, & Moya, 2012;Tomlinson et al, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Education Students’ Use of Collaborative Writing Tools in Collectively Reflective Essay Papers

Brodahl

Hansen

2014

JITE:Research

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Google Docs and EtherPad are Web 2.0 tools providing opportunity for multiple users to work online on the same document consecutively or simultaneously. Over the last few years a number of research papers on the use of these collaborative tools in a teaching and learning environment have been published. This work builds on that of Brodahl, Hadjerrouit, and Hansen (2011) expanding its case study. The theoretical framework is the same as the one underlying Brodahl et al. (2011), drawing on two learning theories, the social-constructivist learning theory and the community of practice, and their relationships to collaborative tools. The literature review is extended to cover the recent research work in the field, related to Web 2.0 technologies in higher education.The case study of Brodahl et al. (2011) involved 201 education students who had just begun their four-year initial teacher education. However, 24 students are omitted in the current work, and the result tables from Brodahl et al. (2011) accordantly updated. Disregarding particular groups of students was due to their specific local dispersion, as they conducted their entire assignment and collectively reflective essay paper at the same physical location and, with respect to this, reported the use of collaborative tools as superfluous and unwanted in their setting.Partly based on the same survey, this work presents a case study investigating education students' perceptions of collaborative writing reflective essay papers. However, where Brodahl et al. (2011) presented a solely quantitative study derived from closed-ended questions, this work incorporates the survey's open-ended questions in a qualitative analysis. The analysis also draws on the students' written reflections on their experiences.The qualitative analysis supports the conclusion of Brodahl et al. (2011) that technical problems were a major issue, mostly related to EtherPad. All but one complaint about technical difficulties stemmed from EtherPad users during a limited period of time. Other major negative feedback concerned group size; several groups pointed out difficulties with organizing the work, problems of Material published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee. Contact Publisher@InformingScience.org to request redistribution permission.Education Students' Use of Collaborative Writing Tools keeping track when editing simultaneously, and failure to produce a unified document. Positive issues frequently m...

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“…This study continues an exploration by the authors of the factors that impact collaborative document creation and editing (Dishaw, Eierman, Iversen, & Philip, 2011, 2013. The study is important because on-line collaboration is becoming increasingly important to the function of organizations (Frost & Sullivan, 2006;Hertel, Geister, & Konradt, 2005) and is increasingly used in education (Brodahl, Hadjerrouit, & Hansen, 2011;Parker & Chao, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 69%

“…Still, Tool Functionality does have a significant impact, as evidenced by the difference in the evaluation of Fit for Office 365 after the Fall 2013 revision. One significant difference between the two versions is the elimination of the confusing Save/Refresh button, which eliminated the "Uncanny Valley" phenomenon that we identified in our previous study (Dishaw et al, 2013) and made the tool better match the mental model of the user.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Impact of Experience and Technology Change on Task-Technology Fit of a Collaborative Technology

Iversen¹,

Eierman²

2018

JEL

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This study continues a long running effort to examine collaborative writing and editing tools and the factors that impact Task-Technology Fit and Technology Acceptance. Previous studies found that MS Word/email performed better than technologies such as Twiki, Google Docs, and Office Live. The current study seeks to examine specifically the impact of experience on these outcomes. Fortuitously, during the course of the study, Office Live was redesigned and renamed as Office 365, thus also allowing the examination of tool characteristics. In contrast to previous studies, Google Docs and Office 365 now performed significantly better than MS Word/email on the outcome measures despite users having significantly more experience with the latter. We speculate that as users gain experience with tools that perform the collaborative writing and editing task differently than did past tools, they perceive that the old technology no longer fits the task as well and thus it performs lower on outcome measures. We also observed that even though the Word/email technology did not change during the time of the study, its scores went down, possibly due to users' experience with newer technologies more suited to the task.

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An Examination of the Characteristics Impacting Collaborative Tool Efficacy: The Uncanny Valley of Collaborative Tools

Cited by 5 publications

References 29 publications

Google Docs as a Tool for Collaborative Writing in the Middle School Classroom

Google Docs as a Tool for Collaborative Writing in the Middle School Classroom

Education Students’ Use of Collaborative Writing Tools in Collectively Reflective Essay Papers

The Impact of Experience and Technology Change on Task-Technology Fit of a Collaborative Technology

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