Enhancing engineering student communication via a publically available wiki

Undergraduate engineering programs have struggled in recent years to add communication skills to an already crowded curriculum, and many engineering students are reluctant writers. Because these students produce copious and frequent written text through Web 2.0 technologies, capitalizing on this passion in the context is a way to add more writing to the curriculum. This paper discusses the ongoing evolution of a course-based wiki originally intended to promote active learning but which also has had the added benefit of promoting student writing and audience awareness. A discussion topic on the wiki asked students how they envisioned the audience for their postings and whether the audience had any influence on their writing. This paper presents some of the student comments and speculates why some students downplay the role of audience in their writing.