Developing Digital Literacy through Collaborative Inquiry Learning in the Web 2.0 Environment - An Exploration of Implementing Strategy

This study explores a strategy for Web-based collaborative inquiry learning (WCIL) for the purpose of developing students’ digital literacy (DL). In view of the problems and difficulties identified in a previously published case study of WCIL practice in a class of secondary 3 students (aged 14 to 15), another round of WCIL activity was carried out in the same class. A series of measures designed to help students deal with the identified problems and difficulties were adopted to enhance WCIL for developing students’ DL. We explored the effectiveness of the implementation strategies through focus-group interview, weblog postings, and subject teacher interview. Initial findings indicated that these measures are effective in facilitating the implementation of WCIL. To sum up the measures adopted in this round of WCIL, a preliminary implementing strategy model is proposed. Although it is not sufficiently verified, and is still subject to revision and adjustment by future studies, it gives a visual and more manageable model for reference of teachers planning and implementing instructional activities of this kind.