Traces of writing competency: Surfing the classroom, social, and virtual worlds

Clayton Clemens, Maiga Chang, Dunwei Wen, Vive Kumar, Oscar Lin, Kinshuk

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingPublished Conference contributionpeer-review

Abstract

Understanding the development of students' competence in writing poses significant challenges, given the complexity of the writing process, the skill levels of students, the types of writing activities offered to students, and the volume of data concerning writing as a whole. While language is taught from elementary school up to university courses and even beyond, the pattern of learning a language has remained much the same for decades. This proposal advocates that distributed social environments may provide a new paradigm for students to learn the discipline. Students need not be confined to just classrooms; they can engage in authentic learning in real-world or virtual-world scenarios. Further, whether real or virtual, the writing software itself can assume a proactive role in supporting not only the students but also the instructor. We emphasize the need for ubiquitous, situated, mixed-initiative writing support for students where underlying technology platforms can be extended to measure individual competencies, identify writing competency-gaps, and promote means to address these gaps. This proposal discusses several ideas, including peer feedback, collaborative writing, book annotation, integrated instructor interfaces for grading, and the effects of mixed-initiative, immersive, social and agent-oriented assessment on writing competence.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 2011 11th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, ICALT 2011
Pages625-626
Number of pages2
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2011
Event2011 11th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, ICALT 2011 - Athens, GA, United States
Duration: 6 Jul. 20118 Jul. 2011

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 2011 11th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, ICALT 2011

Conference

Conference2011 11th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, ICALT 2011
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityAthens, GA
Period6/07/118/07/11

Keywords

  • Collaboration
  • Component
  • Mixed-initiative
  • Social networks
  • Writing

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