Outcomes-based work safety training with wiki

Vincent Siu, Ka Luen Fung, Wai Ki Chan and Albert C Cheung
City University of Hong Kong
Hong Kong SAR, China

Wiki, a Web 2.0 communication tool, is an established website that enables collaborative learning. Typically, it allows browsers or visitors to add, remove, edit and change its content without the need for prior registration. Participants can insert hyperlinks to related websites for further elaboration, analysis and other activities. Applying wiki to learning enhances the interaction and flexibility of Web-based learning, and it is also an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring.

Outcomes-based teaching and learning (OBTL) is a new pedagogy that has recently been strongly endorsed by the University Grants Committee (UGC) for tertiary institutions. It places emphasis on the intended learning outcomes (ILO) for students which are set for programmes or courses. The outline and content, and the teaching methodology, are then devised in a way which facilitates and encourages active learning. Assessment is based on the achievement of the ILOs, and students find themselves actively engaged in the learning process.

The authors have combined OBTL as the pedagogy and wiki as a tool to develop self-learning work safety training. The initial targets are undergraduate students who learn through practical work such as laboratory work, workshop practice, and field investigations and hands-on activities. The training is composed of individual modules, each with text, graphics, video and animation to enhance the learning activities. After a simple assessment, students can enter the wiki and participate in the discussion, sharing their experiences and thoughts. With active yet guided collaboration, they can bring in their findings and enrich the learning resources. Finally, the paper discusses a comparison of safety training under the traditional face-to-face mode, the Web-based mode and the wiki-based mode.