1. Enhancing Writing Skills through Web 2.0 Technologies.

Introduction

Creater of the web, Tim Berners-Lee’s main intention to develop the Web was to create a collaborative environment for his fellow scientists at CERN, cutting across institutional and geographical boundaries with the assumption that everyone would be able to edit in this space. The educationists found this concept to be beneficial to the teaching learning process as it was more open and supported the development of skills, creativity and innovation. The educationists opine that most of the learners do not find sitting in rows ,forcibly listening to lectures and being examined ,interesting and motivating.The learners prefer to learn in a flexible and informal environment wherein learner autonomy is encouraged.Taking the rapidly changing demands being put forth by the society into consideration it has become for the teachers to acquire knowledge and skills in handling Information and Communication Techniques ( ICT) and explore pedagogical possibilities to integrate it effectively into the curriculum in a progressive manner.

With an impetus to self-esteem, competency and autonomy, web 2.0 technologies were introduced into the writing classrooms for level 4 students at Salman Bin Abdul Aziz University. The aim was to foster constructive learning ,make learners self sufficient and train them to indulge in life long learning .The learners’ pace , interest and learning styles were taken into consideration . Since most of the learners had years of experience with text messaging, blogging, participating on discussion boards in wikis and using virtual worlds it was evident that the Students could improve their English writing skills not only from the in-class instruction but also from cooperative networked learning.

In order to encourage collaborative learning and make the learning process interesting and motivating, the undergraduate students at Salman bin Abdul Aziz University, used Face book to improve their writing skills. For this purpose the class of forty had been divided into five groups with each group comprising of eight students .The groups had been provided with an account and had to maintain the site throughout the semester. Thus, a total of 5 Face book sites for English writing had been created. Every month the facilitator made it a point to post at least five writing assignments on Face book for the students to practice writing and give their comments on peer work. Prior to posting their assignments, the students shared their knowledge and ideas related to the writing assignments through the "share status" feature of the Face book which is similar to an online discussion board. To promote self directed learning the teacher monitored, evaluated and commented on the students’ assignments. The students were found to be intrinsically motivated to post their assignments at the earliest and eager to comment on their peers ‘assignments. However, it was observed that the students with higher competency not only scored high but also comparatively commented the most and the students who scored less either repeated others' comments or gave incorrect suggestions. The students revealed that while writing the assignments they felt conscious about the comments they received from their peers. Most of the students expressed that they found the tasks more challenging, the environment more supportive and felt happy and encouraged on receiving the "like" icon on their writings. However, a few students did not find posting assignments on the face book very effective as they relied on the online correction tools for vocabulary and spellings. A few students also expressed their inability to communicate well and make clear comments on others' work because of the limitation on the number of characters on Face book message board.

Many students found Wikis beneficial because they are editable Web sites and like blogs, require very little technical skill. Moreover,“revert to this version” button on the page also allows a user to resave the web page in a previous version. Thus, enabling the students to easily track the changes without losing anyone’s work. The procedure to submit the assignments was also considered very easy as the contributions automatically got posted once they were saved to a Wiki page. The students found the tasks interesting as they had ample opportunity to use their creativity by incorporating many videos, photos, documents, images, slide shows and voice recordings by clicking on the “tree” icon on the toolbar.

Classroom blog can also be considered as an effective aid to enhance the writing skills of the learners. Teachers can post assignments, classroom notes, video lectures and other classroom material on their blog. The learners have the advantage to review class material multiple times. Similar to Wikis and Face book, Blogs provide the students provision to participate in online discussions with their classmates before posting their answers. Some of the students have their own blogs and prefer to use them more as they are user-friendly.

From the experiences shared above it is evident that the web 2.0 technologies have provided ample opportunities to the students to be more independent, interactive and engage socially with their peers. However, a few factors that are essential to make learning meaningful and successful have been discussed below:

Intrinsic motivation: The learners have to be both intrinsically and extrinsically motivated. They have to perform well not only to obtain a good score but also for their own satisfaction. The learners have to take up the responsibility of their own performance.

Goal Orientation: Apart from motivation, the learners are required to set challenging goals for themselves and maintain high levels of commitment. The learners have to seriously chalk out their objectives, set and prioritize their targets and try to attain their goals. The learners should also assess their capabilities without being influenced by emotions. Their judgments should be more specific to a task. For instance , instead of making a general statement like ‘I am good at English’, it would be appropriate to say ‘I can speak English fluently’ which means that he has to assess the other three skills-listening, reading and writing individually and try to improve in the area in which he is weak .

Focus of Control: The learners have to realize that their performance depends upon either internal factors like effort, ability and motivation or external factors that are beyond one’s control like chance, luck etc. But most of the time internal focus of control plays a vital role.

Meta cognition: The learners should learn to identify appropriate learning strategies and apply them in learning situations accordingly. The learners should use their skills in planning, monitoring and evaluating. Some of the strategies are:-

i. Direct attention-concentrating on general aspects of a task.

ii.Selective attention- Paying attention to specific aspects of a task.

iii.Self-monitoring- checking one’s own performance.

iv.Self-evaluation –Appraising one’s performance in relation to one’s own standards.

v.Self-reinforcement- Rewarding oneself for success.

Self-regulation: This is a very important feature of self-directed learning. The learners ought to understand the objectives of their tasks and try to complete without reminders, deadlines or cues from teachers, peers or parents. The learners should not take advantage of the freedom and use it in a positive way .It has been observed that most of the learners waste their time initially and later compromise on their quality of learning and gradually lose interest owing to monotony.

Social Learning Skills: Social learning skills support decision-making, communication, trust building, and conflict management, all of which are important components for effective collaboration.