In class on Wednesday, we were discussing how some efforts to prevent plagiarism (i.e., having students write drafts by hand in class) are no longer totally authentic to the changes in the writing process brought on by increased use of word processing software. I'm feeling about 30 years behind the curve in writing that statement; yet, the point of the discussion--changes in how we write--is an important consideration. With word processing software, we may edit more as we go, using the curser to add, subtract and move chunks of text in the blink of an eye. A word-processed draft is different from a hand-written draft in many ways. In CALL this week, we discussed the teaching of writing and grammar, and it's clear that technology has enhanced these areas of our teaching.
Teaching grammar through technology isn't a new idea. Certainly the language laboratories of the 1960s were working on grammar, if in a somewhat non-communicative way. Current applications have more to offer in terms of contextualized activities, or in the case of programs like Criterion, advanced text analysis capabilities that can offer students individualized feedback on their written work.
The teaching of writing has been altered by trends in technology. Arguably, collaborative projects have never been more easily facilitated than by wikis or Google Docs. Blogs provide a space for students to post written assignments for a larger audience than traditional hard copies turned in to the teacher. As Katie described, using blogs for simple assignments like ENG 105 Reading Logs helped her students take the assignments more seriously, and maybe think more deeply about the ideas brought up by their classmates. The next time I teach a writing class, I want to make more use of these technologies in my classroom.
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