Developing an Innovative Educational Environment Using Web 2.0

Collaborative work has become an essential part of education, especially in higher education. Educational institutions are making increasing use of web-based technologies to support communication and collaboration among students. In this thesis, I address the problems of complexity and inflexibility in collaborative tools provided by educational institutions, such as Course Management System (Blackboard) and the different collaborative features it provides. There have been research studies that indicated the unsatisfactory adoption rate of collaborative features in CMS by students and teachers due to the complication and inflexibility of these tools (Guidry and BrckaLorenz, 2010; Papastergiou, 2006; Rosato et al., 2007). An examination of the key features and success factors in existing collaborative tools can provide insight into the design of a collaborative tool that better addresses students’ needs. First, I conducted a survey study with students in an urban university in Midwestern U.S, through which I identified the key features and success factors in collaborative tools from students’ perspectives. Second, through the integration of Web 2.0 technologies, I designed and developed U-Connect, a dynamic and interactive collaborative tool that allows students to easily and quickly create or join groups and share their ideas, thoughts and resources with each other while working in groups. Third, I conducted a pilot study to evaluate U-Connect and proposed a set of additional features and design recommendations for collaborative tools to better support academic group work.Master of ScienceComputer Science and Information SystemsUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/134401/1/MohamedHousamEldin_2016.pd