Wiki Tool in Higher Education: An Australian Perspective

This paper aims to examine the challenges of and perceptions about promoting students’ learning, communication, and interaction via the Wiki tool in the blackboard platform. Wiki intends to sustain and advance students’ professional and personal skills, the former ones including reading, writing, research, information, critical thinking, decision making, technology, digital oral presentation, drawing (i.e. concept maps), teamwork, and languages, and the latter ones including motivation, leadership, negotiation, communication, problem solving, time management, reflection, self-management, and self-appraisal. Additionally, integrating Wiki in teaching and learning will improve students’ work performance, productivity, and self-confidence, as these skills are needed for not only the current study, but also the workplace in the future. Additionally, using this tool in teaching and learning, especially in the higher education, can bring some challenges to the lecturer and students, particularly in the presentation and marking. This paper will discuss the Wiki implementation in the postgraduate unit at an Australian university. The study results confirmed that using Wiki in the postgraduate unit at an Australian university enhanced students’ personal and professional skills; in addition, students learned and absorbed the new concepts and cutting-edge-knowledge of the ITS65 unit, i.e. sustainability and Green IT.