Using computers to enhance learning

Hello everybody,

Although education in Egypt is moving systematically towards “Quality and Accreditation”, we are still waiting for changes in assessment /evaluation. Great efforts are being made to develop curricula, teaching-aids, teachers’ quality,labs, playgrounds, halls, libraries…etc. However, we are still exam-oriented community. That’s what may affect part of our learning objectives.

My Learning objective for the last session each week is about the skills of dealing with Exam Items, including WRITING. Level 11 is the target audience. Here is my objective for today:
“Using computers connected to the internet, students search for ideas to write a composition of five paragraphs with 75% accuracy.”

According to the articles I read, research shows that WAC (Writing Across Curriculum) helps students develop the following skills considered necessary in both academic and workforce environments:
1- the ability to solve problems
2- the ability to examine ideas carefully and support them with evidence
3- the ability to incorporate and synthesize information

WAC helps address typical writing problems such as:
1.Attitude (the motivation and interest of students)
2.Mechanical Skills (spelling, punctuation)
3.Organizational skills (how to piece it together)
4.Style (conventions appropriate to task and audience)
5.Reasoning ability (thinking, logic)
6.Knowledge (something to write about)
7.Many students have no clear or realistic idea as to what is expected of them in college.
8.For many students, language skills that relate to writing (reading, listening, vocabulary) are poor.
9.Students seem to have trouble grasping questions and analyzing problems.
The WAC philosophy derives from the premise that "writing to learn facilitates learning to write."

Other merits to WRITING
1.Writing can help students to learn better--"verbalization at the more conscious levels, including writing, probably helps the writer to understand the thoughts that otherwise would remain inaccessible. The research also suggests that "writing helps people to operate at a higher level of abstraction".
2.“When we ask our students to write, we are encouraging them to engage actively with the subject matter in our disciplines: to see patterns, connect ideas, make meanings - in other words, to learn”.

Practicing writing results in improved student writing:
1.If writing is to become a natural and effective skill for [students], they must be offered practice and instruction in a great variety of academic settings. They must learn to write for different readers and in many contexts".
2.Many of the problems we see in students' writing result from them not having enough awareness of these different contexts, or from them not having enough practice addressing them.

The improvement of an individual student's writing requires persistent and frequent contact with the student both inside and outside the classroom.
1.It requires assigning far more papers than are usually assigned in other college classrooms
2.It requires reading them and commenting on them not simply to justify a grade, but to offer guidance and suggestions for improvement; and it requires an atmosphere of trust.
3.In short, it requires paying attention to the needs of individuals.

You can find that and more on this URL:
http://kccenglish.tripod.com/cnworkshop.html

This web-page has the title:
“Using Computers to teach writing across the curriculum”


All the best
Ahmed Khattab