<p>Earlier forms of distance education were characterized by minimal social interaction like correspondence, television, video and radio. However, the World Wide Web (WWW) and online learning introduced the opportunity for much more social interaction, particularly among learners, and this has been further made possible through social media in Web 2.0. The increased availability of collaborative tools in Web 2.0 has made it possible to have online collaborative learning realized in Higher Learning Institutions (HLIs). However, learners can perceive the online collaborative learning process as challenging and they fail to utilize these collaborative tools effectively. Although a number of challenges have been mentioned in the literature, considerable diversity exists among countries due to diversity in infrastructure support for e-learning and learners’ background. This motivated this study to investigate components of online collaborative learning perceived as challenging by learners in HLIs in Kenya. Using a questionnaire, a survey was conducted in two public universities and two private universities to identify students’ perceived challenges in an online collaborative learning environment. Through purposive sampling the questionnaire was distributed to 210 students using e-mail and 183 students responded. Based on descriptive analysis the following five major challenges were rated as high: lack of feedback from instructors, lack of feedback from peers, lack of time to participate, slow internet connectivity, and low or no participation of other group members. There was also a relationship between the university type (private or public) with the perceived challenges which included: lack of feedback from the instructor (p=0.046) and work load not shared equally among group members (p=0.000). Apart from slow internet connectivity the rest of the challenges were in line with the observed challenges in the literature.These key challenges identified in this study should provide insight to educators on the areas of collaborative learning that should be improved in order to provide access to quality education that supports effective online collaborative learning in HLIs in Kenya.</p>

<p>In this paper we explore the impact of an intelligent grouping algorithm based on learners’ collaborative competency when compared with (a) instructor based Grade Point Average (GPA) method level and (b) random method, on group outcomes and group collaboration problems in an online collaborative learning environment.  An intelligent grouping algorithm has been added in a Learning Management System (LMS) which is capable of forming heterogeneous groups based on learners’ collaborative competency level. True experiment design methodology was deployed to examine whether there is any association between group formation method and group scores, learning experiences and group problems.  From the findings, all groups had almost similar mean scores in all group tests, and shared many similar group collaboration problems and learning experiences. However, with the understanding that GPA group formation method involves the instructor, may not be dynamic, and the random method does not guarantee heterogeneity based on learner’s collaboration competence level, instructors are more likely to adopt our intelligent grouping method as the findings show that it has similar results. Furthermore, it provides an added advantage in supporting group formation due to its guarantee on heterogeneity, dynamism, and less instructor involvement.</p>

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Abstract:Wiki spaces are simply web pages that allow users to create, edit and share each other's work. This paper shares experiences from a group of students who were using the Wiki spaces in their course work. It attempts to use collaborative knowledge building theory to evaluate the existing Wiki spaces practices in order to inform stakeholders on the power of Wiki spaces in setting students on a knowledge building trajectory. The respondents were 150 university students from Kenyatta and KCA universities in Kenya whose lecturers had created Wiki spaces for collaborative group tasks as part of their coursework during the September to December 2013 semester. More than 50% of the students found the Wiki spaces promoting the various aspects of knowledge building such as reflective learning and propagating idea diversity to be useful. This paper underscores the importance of Wiki spaces as environments for positioning today's students on a knowledge building track which is a skill set requirement for the 21 st century graduate.