Matching the Affordances of Wikis to Collaborative Learning: A Case Study of IT Project Students

The use of Web 2.0 technologies is increasingly common in many aspects of life: social, work, and study. The study reported here looks into how one type of Web 2.0 tool, the wiki, was being used to support groups of IT students involved in a collaborative authentic-task in their undergraduate studies to develop a software solution required by their "clients". The study indicates the existence of a mismatch between what supports are needed by the students, with how they use the wiki tool to support their needs. The mismatch is not the result of a lack of technical skills or aversion to technology, but rather the lack of ability to perceive the affordance of the tool in meaningful ways to facilitate the collaborative activity at hand.