ENACTMENT

= 2. ENACTMENT = **2.1 Design and development focus** Willis (2009) suggests that the leading task in the design and development focal point is the selection of development environment, which includes tools (media selection) and process for design (instructional strategies). He claims there are 3 important characteristics for the development environment: power, flexibility, and accessibility**.** Dabbagh suggests that exploratory pedagogical and dialogical models are best suited to support collaborative learning, articulation, social learning skills, and self and group evaluation skills. Writing Centre pedagogy is constructivist. We believe writing texts is a powerful learning experience; it reflects an individual’s representation of truth and knowledge, which is derived from social practice of negotiating various held views.This is also justifies our practice of consulting and collaborating with students as a way of scaffolding them to become good academic writers in their disciplines.

According to [|Garza and Hern]"One area that writing teachers and scholars should examine more is the area of how technology affects the activity of writing collaboratively. How, for example, does our choice of technology influence social interaction among collaborators? How might the tool help us facilitate communication among collaborators, or address the needs of our ultimate audience? How do issues of cost and access to technology affect individuals from different socioeconomic groups or cultures?"

Therefore, to determine the tools best suited for exploratory pedagogical and dialogic models, I reviewed available literature on technological affordances. I used Bower’s (2008) classification of affordance requirements for the task to match with available technologies. The [|matrix]reveals that wikis provided more affordances for collaborative writing. Scholarly research by Carr et al. (2007); Forte and Bruckman (n.d.), Lundin (2008 ) further reiterated these findings. For example, they suggest that “Wikis offer significant affordances for student-centred learning in communities of practice because web pages can now not only be read but also be easily edited and extended by multiple participants through a browser. The use of wikis opens up a new realm of collaborative sharing and creation of knowledge through learning conversations, where the process is as important as product, the audience is involved in the process, and notions of control over the product may be relinquished by the individual” (Deacon et.al, 2007: 268). Furthermore, Garza and Hern suggest that using open- source technologies such as wikis is more cost effective, since the students will only need a browser "to become web authors or to participate in a collaborative project." In fact, going open source was inevitable as the institution's LMS is an older version of Blackboard, which does not even have wikis embedded on it.

It was then determined that the task will be performed using a wiki. With the LMS, already excluded as a platform for the activity, the developer considered Wikispaces, which she had also used in another collaborative writing task, as the best platform. The selection was primarily based on the three characteristics that Willis and Wright emphasise a development environment should comprise: power, flexibility, and accessibility. Wikispaces, unlike some LMS embedded wikis does not require students to know any HTML; their word processing skills are sufficient. Joining or signing up is simple and privacy settings are adequate. Above all else, there would be no sign up costs. After creating a Auditing Cycles Wiki, and students had been signed up, the students met to familiarize themselves with the wiki.

**2.2. Cooperative Enquiry**

In co-operative inquiry a group of people come together to explore issues of concern and interest. All members of the group contribute both to the ideas that go into their work together, and also are part of the activity that is being researched. Everyone has a say in deciding what questions are to be addressed and what ideas may be of help (Reason& Heron, n.d. “ A short guide to co-operative enquiry” Available online: []). Cooperative enquiry can be equated to formative and summative evaluations intended to improve the material one or a group is working on. In R2D2, evaluations begin when the idea of creating instructional design is conceived and continues throughout the process of design and development.

I have already mentioned that there were numerous recursions along the design and development process, and all decisions were never taken unilaterally. For example, on one occasion students were working synchronously on their wiki, and inadvertently over-wrote others’ work. That was addressed by suggesting that students create a back-up word document to save their work, just in case something similar happened. One student had hyperlinked documents saved on the hard drive, which he found could not be opened in another computer. He was advised to save use his Google account to save and share his documents; something that was novel to him. A true indication of the students’ appreciation was also demonstrated by how they also used the discussion page of the wiki to post comments for collaboration purposes. To provide scaffolding, I also used the discussion page to post messages and resources to the students.

**2.3. Product Design and Development**
It should be noted that R2D2 is not linear. Whilst product design and development is an activity that is classified under design and development focal point; it does not necessarily mean that it only begins after design focus. Rather these focal points should be seen to be occurring synchronously and recursively. The design and development is supported by all other activities, and its primary goal is the “creation of student-centred learning environments that learners can use” (Willis and Wright).