Schedule: 2009-09-12 (15:00 - 15:45)
Parallel Session 3 (Room A-32)

Title: Online Collaborative Writing Tasks
Authors: Christine Appel, Lola Casado
Abstract: There are now a wide variety of tools available for online communication and collaboration. These tools are increasingly used in the professional world and students need to learn how to use them and how to write and collaborate with peers in such environments. From a second language learning point of view it is accepted that approaches such as process writing, peer feedback and group writing foster awareness of the writing process and the development of students’ writing skills. These have been successfully put into practice in the second/foreign language classroom. However, when it comes to distance-learning students most often work individually. It is now possible to change this thanks to VLE’s that allow distance students to work in virtual classrooms and belong to a virtual community. Tools such as Wikis and Google Docs make collaborative writing possible in such a setting.

This paper presents a study set in the context of university level EFL distance learning involving 5 groups of students (a total of 220 students) and 3 teachers. We describe how collaborative writing using Wikis is integrated into the Continuous Assessment of the subject. We then discuss how the design of the task impacts on pre-writing student discussions, student participation in the Wiki, how teachers give feedback, peer-feedback strategies, and the final product quality. We analyze student contributions to the Wikis, teacher feedback and the Wiki history of contributions. We also discuss data collected through student questionnaires and informal open interviews with students and teachers. We finally provide guidelines for designing online collaborative writing tasks.
Keywords: wiki, writing, peer-feedback, distance-learning

Main topic: Research in new language learning environments

Biodata: Christine Appel, BA,M.Phil, PhD is a lecturer of EFL at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona. She also lectures in CALL and has experience in Teacher Training. Her current research interests include Computer-mediated Communication, Telecollaboration, Distance learning, Task-based Learning, Second Language Acquisition and Corpus Linguistics. Lola Casado, BA, MA, teaches EFL for the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona. She is an author of EFL materials, has extensive experience in EFL teaching for secondary level and teacher student training. Her current research interests include Writing Skills, Computer-mediated Communication, and Distance learning.
Type of presentation Paper presentation

Paper category Reflective Practice

Target educational sector Adult education

Language of delivery English

EU-funded project No

Schedule:	2009-09-12 (15:00 - 15:45) Parallel Session 3 (Room A-32)
Title:	Online Collaborative Writing Tasks
Authors:	Christine Appel, Lola Casado
Abstract:	There are now a wide variety of tools available for online communication and collaboration. These tools are increasingly used in the professional world and students need to learn how to use them and how to write and collaborate with peers in such environments. From a second language learning point of view it is accepted that approaches such as process writing, peer feedback and group writing foster awareness of the writing process and the development of students’ writing skills. These have been successfully put into practice in the second/foreign language classroom. However, when it comes to distance-learning students most often work individually. It is now possible to change this thanks to VLE’s that allow distance students to work in virtual classrooms and belong to a virtual community. Tools such as Wikis and Google Docs make collaborative writing possible in such a setting. This paper presents a study set in the context of university level EFL distance learning involving 5 groups of students (a total of 220 students) and 3 teachers. We describe how collaborative writing using Wikis is integrated into the Continuous Assessment of the subject. We then discuss how the design of the task impacts on pre-writing student discussions, student participation in the Wiki, how teachers give feedback, peer-feedback strategies, and the final product quality. We analyze student contributions to the Wikis, teacher feedback and the Wiki history of contributions. We also discuss data collected through student questionnaires and informal open interviews with students and teachers. We finally provide guidelines for designing online collaborative writing tasks.
Keywords:	wiki, writing, peer-feedback, distance-learning
Main topic:	Research in new language learning environments
Biodata:	Christine Appel, BA,M.Phil, PhD is a lecturer of EFL at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona. She also lectures in CALL and has experience in Teacher Training. Her current research interests include Computer-mediated Communication, Telecollaboration, Distance learning, Task-based Learning, Second Language Acquisition and Corpus Linguistics. Lola Casado, BA, MA, teaches EFL for the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya in Barcelona. She is an author of EFL materials, has extensive experience in EFL teaching for secondary level and teacher student training. Her current research interests include Writing Skills, Computer-mediated Communication, and Distance learning.
Type of presentation	Paper presentation
Paper category	Reflective Practice
Target educational sector	Adult education
Language of delivery	English
EU-funded project	No