Processes and Products of Individual and Collaborative Writing on Google Drive: a Workshop

Jornada; V Jornadas Nacionales de ELT. Innovations and Challenges in the 21st Century.; 2019

Universidad Nacional de Villa María.

The dawn of the 21st century witnessed a giant leap forward in the development of online collaborative software (Apple et al., 2011; Koch, 2010; Vodanovich &Potrowski, 2001). Among the technologies that make virtual collaborative writing possible, Google Docs -operative from Google Drive- stands out for its simplicity and flexibility. This environment makes asynchronous collaborative work on a common task possible and it allows for academic writing to transcend the confines of the classroom (Conner, 2008; Perron & Sellers, 2011). Compared to Microsoft Word, Google Drive is considered a more intuitive, entertaining and easy-to-use tool (Apple et al., 2011). Simplicity in use and access also means a higher level of participation, which translates into more democratic writing processes. As a central feature to the process of collective construction of written productions, Google Drive allows for peer-to-peer feedback, which results in improvements both in content negotiation during writing and in the final product (Ertmer & Stepich, 2004; Ciftci & Kocoglu, 2012), as it makes room for instances of efficient and relevant feedback, it enables the development of both peers? writing skills, and it humanizes the environment by fostering the emergence of a virtual community of practice (Corgan et al., 2004). Thus, collaborative writing on Google Drive embraces a socio-cultural vision of learning as a social practice where members of a writing community take on active roles in the exchange of experiences and interaction among peers (Hymes, 1974; Vygotsky, 1978). Participants in this socio-technological environment have common goals and writing purposes, make group decisions from the collaborative negotiation of ideas, and generate cooperative written productions (Hennessy et al., 2005; Wong et al., 2017). This paper will describe a workshop implemented in the context of a project entitled Online Writing Workshop (OWW), School of Languages, UNC.