Communications of the ACM - Special issue on computer graphics: state of the arts
Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies
Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing Technologies
Electronic Brainstorming: the Illusion of Productivity
Information Systems Research
Is Out of Sight, Out of Mind? An Empirical Study of Social Loafing in Technology-Supported Groups
Information Systems Research
Creativity support tools: accelerating discovery and innovation
Communications of the ACM
Project-Based learning with eMUSE: an experience report
ICWL'12 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Advances in Web-Based Learning
Education and Information Technologies
Hi-index | 0.00 |
The main objective of this research was to validate the effectiveness of Wikideas and Creativity Connector tools to stimulate the generation of ideas and originality by university students organized into groups according to their indexes of creativity and affinity. Another goal of the study was to evaluate the classroom climate created by these tools and the method ''Think Actively in a Social Context'' (TASC) proposed by Wallace and Adams (1993) and framed within project-based learning (PBL). The research was conducted with a sample of 34 students in the third year of a Computer Engineering degree, which, during a period of 15 weeks, required them to design and implement an innovative distributed application project. The procedure consisted of the implementation of the eight phases of the TASC method integrated to the Wikideas and Creativity Connector tools. The information provided by the tools, interviews and questionnaires administered to students were used to analyze our hypothesis. The results show that the tools helped the students to generate, evaluate and select the most relevant ideas and to form teams for project execution. They also revealed that teams with high indexes of creativity and affinity (type @a) achieved the best grades in academic performance and project originality. Furthermore, research data show that Wikideas and Creativity Connector along with the TASC approach created a positive classroom climate for students. Based on this work, several suggestions can be extracted on the use of the tools and the TASC method for project-based learning.