The collaborative construction of knowledge through online forums for the development of sociocognitive writing skills

San Juan

Congreso; 41st FAAPI Annual Conference.ELT as a Multidisciplinary Endeavour: Growing through Collaboration; 2016

Universidad Nacional de San Juan

Changes in the production and access to information generated by information and communication technologies (ICTs) require new skills and offer cognitive and social opportunities for the construction of knowledge and collaborative learning. As a consequence, new literacy teaching models are required. In fact, as Area and Pessoa (2012) suggest, ?appropriation of meaning and multimedia expression are the new terms for the old concepts of reading and writing? (p. 17). In this context, literacy implies developing not only instrumental but also cognitive and social skills to interact with information and transform it into knowledge in a collaborative manner. Even though online learning has increased in popularity, applications of web-based language learning (WBLL) have not yet been matched by research in higher education (Dalla Costa & Gava, 2009; García, González & Ramos, 2010; Sun & Chang, 2012). The purpose of this study is to analyse the impact of a blended learning project carried out in the virtual classroom of an English Language II university course for the collaborative construction of knowledge in an online learning environment. The specific objectives are the following: (a) To carry out a forum debate in the virtual classroom as a pre-writing activity, (b) to analyse the types of collaboration and the cognitive skills employed by the students, and (c) to carry out surveys to obtain the students' perceptions of this online activity. In the following sections, we present a theoretical framework about the educational role of ICTs and reflect on the implications of the collaborative construction of knowledge in WBLL environments and the usefulness of forum debates. We also describe the research design of this study. Finally, we present its results and limitations, pedagogical applications and future lines of research.