Supporting digital writing in EL

It’s been awhile since my last post, but since I’ve got a little time on my hands before the mid-year marking frenzy begins, I thought I’d write a little on the practical aspect of bringing in technology-appropriate writing into class. I can hardly claim to be an expert in this matter, since I’m currently not giving my students many opportunities to write using computers, but hopefully I’ll get to do so next term!

Having recently gone through summary writing with my classes, I was musing to myself that this component of the English examinations is remarkably suited for computer-aided writing. Whether for extracting text from the original passage, re-ordering and revising points, or even conducting the final word count, it seems to me that using a computer for the task would only aid the summary writing process. Of course, the major stumbling block in this is that assessment is still conducted using pen and paper, so ultimately it is still beneficial for students to continue practising using the dated, inefficient method (the QWERTY keyboard comes to mind here).

In fact, many of the concerns I’ve sensed about digital writing have to do with its lack of relevance to the mode of assessment, so that’s one thing that will need changing if the intent is to further integrate technology into education. Aside from that, here are some other common concerns I’ve come across (and my comments on them):

• Ease of plagiarism. While it is a lot easier to copy-and-paste text off the internet, tools such as Turnitin help to combat this by cross-checking responses with internet sources, as well as other students’ work.
• Difficulty of marking. While I actually rather like Microsoft Word’s review functions, I would have to agree that it’s a lot easier (and effective) to just make swipes on the paper with your red pen and to annotate accordingly. More powerful annotation tools such as crocodoc allow for more versatility, though, and with a tablet PC you would be able to easily do the same using a stylus.
• Eye strain. It’s great to be saving the environment by reducing the amount of paper used, but not if it makes teachers go blind (from overuse of computer displays) in the process! I don’t have a solution for this yet (my own eyesight’s getting worse everyday), but I’m sure technology will catch up (I’m still rooting for E Ink, despite the iPad’s apparent success without it).
• Devices. It’s troublesome bringing the students to the computer lab for something that can be done in class, so it might only be feasible if the students already have devices (laptops? netbooks?) of their own to use for this.

Perhaps we aren’t ready to implement all-out digital writing in classes just yet, but if we don’t go about attempting to tackle these issues (including mode of assessment), we’re not going to get anywhere – especially if solutions already exist out there!

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