Good afternoon, everybody. I hope you have been enjoying TESOL 2011. I certainly have.. I’m Harry Harris from Hakuoh University in Japan. Thank you for attending this Workshop on Writeboard, an electronic forum that my students use for journal entries and other collaborative activities. I have opted to make this a workshop today so that we can share ideas which we can take back and adapt to meet the needs and demands of our own circumstances. I certainly hope to grow from this in order to help my students with new ways to participate in online writing activities.
BACKGROUND: To give an idea of my students’ needs. JOURNALS: To provide extra, non-essay type writing practice. ONLINE: Explain why instead of traditional paper journals. SYNCHRONOUS/ASYNCHRONOUS: To provide a probably unnecessary explanation for why CALL is important. YOUR SUGGESTIONS: Ask for you to share your ideas. Then, we will look at Writeboard, which you will see is a wiki with and Add Comments secition. We will conclude with a second break providing everybody with the opportunity to share ideas about how to use a wiki in the classroom. Then we will look at some issues and conclude.
Regional university in Japan; New English program with students who mainly want to become English teachers. The program is fairly rigorous with 6 compositions per 14-week course, journal entry requirements, and other grammar, punctuation, etc., activities. They are fairly motivated. Important to understand is that many English majors in Japan have done very little writing in English or even Japanese, so the journals are an important activity that allows them to do quantity writing. However, they are at least in the beginning challenged by computer technology, which, as we shall see, is the major reason why I use Writeboard.
The literature supports journal use in writing. It helps students develop a sense of audience, rather than just their teacher; it helps them learn from and about each other, helping them learn and helping to create group cohesion; and, relatedly, it provides them with a means to practice communicating for a purpose other than academic. It also helps with language skills.
Issues with paper journals; could not intervene as much with paper journals; and of course free and easy to use
Felix did a fairly exhaustive study 2002-2004 of literature; Vygotsky, of course, we know because of his theory of Zone of Proximal Growth, the learning gap that is bridged by adult guidance and peer collaboration; and Dewey, who provides us with a social model of learning
What I have used is something I found online called Writeboard, which as I have said is essentially a wiki below which you can write comments.
Something like the following will be delivered to your electronic mailbox.
Now, you do what you want with your Writeboard and save it.
Then, if you want to use it for collaborative purposes, as I certainly do, you insert the e-mail addresses of those whom you wish to share the board.
So what can you do with the writeboard to support your students who are making journal entries?
You may want to do this when you have large classes, as I did one semester with 38 students.
If you do debate, as I do, you can use the wiki to provide students with an out-of-class opportunity to work on debate. In some classes at my university, and elsewhere, I have students prepare for debates.
They can also do proofreading exercises, whether simple sentences or within the context of texts.
Now, how do I manage my Writeboards? This screenshot is not complete, but as you can see, your writeboards can add up. I first save the URLs on a Word document until my desktop got too full and I had trouble finding the document. I then moved them into a folder section of my hotmail account.
In first semester, took 2 weeks for some to get online. Some students do not participate as much as the syllabus demands; I let them know the requirements at the beginning of the semester in written and oral form and count their entries at the end of the semester. Also, my students seem to still address me in their entries, though the eventually seem to address their Writeboard mates more as they get to know each other. Also, with the wiki, there seem to be some cultural issues, at least with my students, who hesitate to correct each other. Then, as suggested earlier, my basic students at time approached me and told me that they did have anything to write about, so I provide topics.