Collaboration for group assignment in distance education : m-learning opportunities and challenges

This research discusses the use of a learning management system, “Interact”, in distance education, particularly using the tools like wiki, chat room, group mail, announcement and multi-media repositories that support virtual team work. The paper explores distance education student experience in using technology for online collaborative group assignment. In a subject “Information and Knowledge Management in Organizations”, international and local students were grouped together for their group assignments. In a case study project, all groups proposed solutions for identified problems in their chosen organizations. Students worked as virtual teams in completing their case study assignment. Each group was provided with a private project site in Interact. Students were observed how they developed their assignment in wiki and used various tools for communication and storage of documents. An anonymous web-based survey was conducted after students completed the group assessment. The obtained results reflect a wide range of factors including technology use, difficulties in working with students from a different country and challenges they faced with the online group assessment. The findings indicate that while e-learning technology was mainly used, m-learning technology plays a significantly useful role in further facilitating student collaborative learning activities in group assignments.