Google Docs as a Tool for Collaborative Writing in the Middle School Classroom

This study investigates the effect of using Google Docs online learning media in conjunction with collaborative writing strategies on high school students' writing skills. The study took place at Surabaya's high schools, with 16 tenth-grade students participating. The research is a pre-experimental design with a one-group pretest and posttest design. The study's design involved only one class in the treatment of Google Docs media in collaborative writing. The first research question focused on implementing Google Docs and collaborative writing activities in the learning process conducted by a teacher and students. The findings were determined from observational sheets. Further research findings for the second research question, which were derived from students’ pre-test and post-test scores, were examined using t-tests and presented quantitatively. Additionally, questionnaires were used to determine students' perceptions of the use of Google Docs as a collaborative medium in their writing studies. According to research findings, students' scores improved significantly following treatment compared to their pre-treatment scores. Cohen's d was used to determine the magnitude of the effects created by this study, and it was discovered that the effects were quite significant. The results for the second research question indicated that the learning process was done successfully. Students' attitudes towards the treatment also showed that most groups performed well during the activity. Furthermore, the third research question results indicated that the combination of Google Docs and collaborative writing methods elicited favorable responses from students. Thus, collaborative writing strategies utilizing Google Docs as a medium can assist Senior High School students in writing more effectively.

Second language (L2) research suggests that synchronous written corrective feedback (SWCF) in online collaborative writing tasks can help improve L2 linguistic knowledge and writing skills. Following the rise of online collaborative writing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this exploratory study examines L2 learners’ perceptions of receiving SWCF during collaborative writing tasks completed on an online text-editing platform (Google Docs) and mediated by videoconferencing (Zoom). Adult learners (N = 46) enrolled in advanced online French as a Second Language courses took part in two collaborative writing tasks, during which their teachers (N = 3) provided SWCF. Learners’ screen activity was recorded. After the experiment, a perception survey was distributed and selected participants took part in semi-structured interviews to further discuss their experience. Results indicate that learners viewed the provision of SWCF through computer-mediated communication as an effective way to improve their L2 writing compared to traditional, delayed written feedback. Pedagogical implications for the implementation of videoconferences collaborative writing tasks involving teacher SWCF are discussed.

Collaborative writing is widely recognized for its benefits in enhancing linguistic competence, critical thinking, and social interaction in EFL contexts. Despite numerous studies highlighting these advantages, a gap remains in how collaborative writing competence can be systematically assessed and practically applied in classroom settings. This study aims to empirically validate a Collaborative Writing Competence Framework (CWCF) comprising five key dimensions: communication, coordination, creativity, responsibility, and reflection. A quantitative research design involved 103 Indonesian undergraduate EFL students enrolled in an Essay Writing course. Data were collected using a Likert-scale questionnaire and analyzed through Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). The model demonstrated a good fit (χ² = 86.528, df = 81, p = .317; CMIN/DF = 1.068; RMSEA = 0.026; CFI = 0.992), with acceptable reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.719–0.807) and convergent validity (AVE = 0.501–0.673). Creativity emerged as the most influential factor in collaborative writing competence. The validated CWCF offers actionable insights for EFL instruction: structured peer discussions, guided brainstorming, and task delegation can enhance collaboration, while integrating self- and peer-assessment fosters responsibility and reflection. Digital platforms such as Google Docs may also support real-time coordination and feedback. The CWCF thus serves as both an assessment instrument and pedagogical tool, paving the way for more effective collaborative writing practices in EFL classrooms.

Many studies on language learning have highlighted the advantages of collaborative writing (CW) in promoting learners’ writing skills (Strobl, 2014). To achieve the end product of collaborative writing tasks, learners are required to work collaboratively in various stages of planning and editing the writing as well as finalizing the shared texts (Woodrich & Fan, 2017). According to Storch (2011), although CW has been widely used and found to be very effective in promoting writing learning, it has been practiced mostly outside the context of second language (L2) learning. However, Kessler et al. (2012) suggested that with the assistance of technologies, we can integrate Web 2.0[1] applications and pedagogical practices in teaching and learning writing to enhance students’ writing via online CW.

A problem that still persists in Collaborative Writing is the lack of use of relevant technology to counter lessened interaction and learning participations in developing writing skills effectively. To offset these difficulties, this study examines the use of Edmodo on students' collaborative writing. This study used a quasi-experimental study of 56 students, grade 10, Gresik, Indonesia, with two assigned classes of experimental and the control group, each containing of 28 students. The results of this study reveal that there is a significant influence of Edmodo on Collaborative writing, evidenced by the results of sig. (2-tailed) is 0,000 (lower than 0.05). Edmodo has proven to be a dependable means when merged with a Collaborative Writing strategy, and has also been attested to reassure student participation and interaction. Suggestions and further research basis are also presented, especially to innovative scholars as treasured opportunities for accompanying enquiry to pay more courtesy to the progress of Collaborative Writing which is increasingly unlocked to always re-join hearty users’ wants. Key Words : Collaborative, Writing, Edmodo,Technology, Course of Fusion

Collaborative writing has been a common activity in different professions for many years. Researchers from multiple disciplines, including from HCI and CSCW, have experimented and evaluated a number of collaborative writing tools. However, with the emergence of more modern technologies like cloud-based Google Docs, newer versions of Microsoft Word etc., collaborative writing practices are gaining in popularity and use. Yet, we know little about the accessibility of these systems and how they should be designed to best support the increasingly common collaborative practices that constitute everyday work groups and collaboration. Our research goal is to study how people with visual impairments collaboratively write with other sighted and/or visually impaired peers in practice, whether and how they use computer-mediated collaborative tools, and design new assistive technologies to facilitate collaboration among a group of writers with visual impairments or mixed abilities.

Examining the utilization of web-based discussion tools in teaching and learning organic chemistry in selected Rwandan secondary schools

This research mainly aims to design a Wiki-based Collaborative Process Writing Pedagogy (WCPWP) to help Mainland Chinese upper primary school students with their writing. A wiki-based learning environment (www.joyouswriting.com) named Joyous Writing Club (JWC) was designed and developed by the researcher using MediaWiki software. This study was conducted in a primary school in Shenzhen, Mainland China.
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\nThis research applied Design-based Research (DBR) methodology, and included three iterative research phases which lasted for over one and a half years (three semesters). Through the cyclical process of design-based research, the design for WCPWP was modified and refined during the three phases. Quantitative and qualitative methods as well as methodological triangulation were used for data collection (Hussein, 2009). Instrumentations included online wiki documents (group writing); course feedback questionnaire; writing ability (composition) pre- and posttest; writing attitude pre- and posttest; observations; interviews; open-ended questions for teacher’s questionnaire. 
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\nAt the beginning of the study, a rudimentary conceptual framework of WCPWP was put forward to guide the initial teaching and learning of writing in the first research phase. The WCPWP framework is proposed based on Constructivist Learning Theory (Piaget, 1967; Vygotsky, 1978; Hewett, 2009), and Social View of Writing Process Theory (Faigley, 1986; Tompkins, 2008). The initial design of WCPWP was guided by principles for exploring virtual collaborative writing (Hewett, Robidoux, & Remley, 2010) which provides a broad framework for the research design and links the general learning theory to the specific domain of learning in this study. Besides, the Systems Approach Model of Dick and Carey (1996) is used to support the instructional design in this study. Furthermore, the Alessi and Trollip's (2001) model for software design and development was used to design a wiki-based virtual learning environment.
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\nThe first and second research phases involved the same Chinese language teacher participant and student participants in the same class. Both of the two phases mainly aimed to improve the design of WCPWP by investigating students’ collaborative writing processes, students’ and teacher’s perceptions and attitudes towards WCPWP, the change on students’ writing attitudes. The results in each phase showed both effective and ineffective aspects of WCPWP, which became the starting points of pedagogical (WCPWP) improvement in the next research phase. The third research phase mainly aimed to investigate the effects of improved WCPWP on students’ personal writing ability and attitudes towards writing compared that of Traditional Individual Product-oriented Writing Pedagogy (TIPWP). Besides, students’ writing process on wiki, students’ and teacher’s perception and attitudes towards WCPWP were also explored. Based on the results in this research phase, an elaborate conceptual framework of WCPWP was put forward.
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\nThe results showed that the Chinese language teachers and most students had positive attitudes and perceptions towards WCPWP. They perceived that WCPWP had positive influence on improving students’ writing ability, writing attitudes, collaboration, reading and oral expression. They were also interested in using WCPWP in their future Chinese writing activities. The results further revealed that WCPWP had significant positive effects on students’ writing attitudes compared with TIPWP. Furthermore, interview results and students’ writing performance on wiki suggested that WCPWP had positive effects on students’ writing ability. However, the statistic results did not show that WCPWP had significant positive effects on students’ personal writing ability compared with TIPWP. This study also discussed the possible reasons causing the results based on theories and related literatures.
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\nThis study provides an example of capitalizing on computer and wiki technology to support the collaborative writing among Mainland Chinese upper primary school students. The results of this study have theoretical implications for applying the design principles for implementing wiki-based collaborative process writing in Chinese Context. It also has great theoretical value to the field of collaborative writing in Chinese by adopting more precise characteristics of wiki-based collaborative process writing. This study may also deepen primary educators’ understanding of the links among technology, pedagogy and content. Finally, it guides educators in the integration of social media (wikis, Google Docs) as well as the design of effective matching pedagogic strategies in their teaching of writing.

This chapter discusses the prospects of online collaborative writing on wikis, asynchronous web tools, from Bangladeshi EFL learners’ perspectives. The participants in the study included 17 first-semester undergraduate students majoring in English at a public university. Data collected from questionnaires, post-questionnaire discussion and class wiki archives of self/peer writing, edits and feedback reveal students’ consistently growing interest in wiki-based writing. The students emphasised its multiple yet easily connected pages with online word processing affordances for writing and editing recursively, thus, visibly improving their writing skills. However, their online collaboration was challenged by internet cost, connectivity, mobile technology, wiki screen, peer communication gaps and gender impacts. This study has implications for teachers aiming to implement online learner collaboration both during the COVID-19 pandemic situation and afterwards when onsite classes resume in the future. The study also suggests concerned authorities including the government for ensuring easy and cost-effective access to web-based collaboration.

Using a large sample of longitudinal assessment data from children in publicly funded infant/toddler care, preschool, and kindergarten (analytic N = 453,468), this study modeled language and literacy trajectories from early infancy through kindergarten for dual language learners (DLLs) from homes representing many different languages and their peers from monolingual English-speaking homes. DLLs and their monolingual peers showed common developmental trajectories, including an initial period of rapid growth that slowed between 10 and 30 months, plateaued between 30 and 45 months, and then accelerated from 45 to 60 months of age. Although the general developmental patterns were similar, differences emerged between children in English-speaking versus non-English-speaking homes: DLLs' growth rates slowed more than their monolingual peers' between 10 and 30 months but then grew more sharply after 45 months. A linguistic distance hypothesis helped to explain the magnitude of the differences between groups of DLLs and their monolingual peers. The differences occurred as children passed through specific developmental levels of the Desired Results Developmental Profile (DRDP) assessment's learning progressions. The current study adds new quantitative information about language and literacy trajectories from early infancy through kindergarten among children from different language backgrounds and demonstrates how the findings may be applied to support effective instruction with culturally and linguistically diverse children. This study examined developmental trajectories in language and literacy among children from different home language backgrounds in publicly funded infant/toddler care, preschool, and kindergarten programs. According to teachers' responses to developmental assessment rubrics, children showed similar trajectories of language and literacy development from infancy through 5 years, regardless of the language spoken at home. All children experienced an initial period of rapid growth that slowed between 10 and 30 months, held steady between 30 and 45 months, and then accelerated again from 45 to 60 months of age. Although the general patterns were similar, children classified as dual language learners grew less than their monolingual peers between 10 and 30 months but then grew more than their monolingual peers after 45 months. Specific developmental milestones were associated with the emerging and then waning differences, and greater linguistic similarity between a home language and English was associated with greater language and literacy development. Educators who apply their understanding of these trajectories, and the milestones at which they typically diverge, may have greater ability to identify children's difficulties, modify their instruction to target important developmental milestones, and better understand the degree to which children are progressing as expected.

Online Collaborative Writing (OCW) on Google Docs has been used as an approach to the teaching of Portuguese as a first language and of English as a foreign language in Brazil. On this article, we present some quantitative data on OCW drawn from a larger pedagogical intervention research related to the participation of 36 students from Integrated Secondary Education at the Federal Institute in Rio Grande do Norte . Students were divided into seven groups to write, collaboratively on Google Docs, a post for an informative blog over three online collaborative sessions. The initial findings are related to frequency, time, and interactions during those sessions. Our conclusion is that time and frequency of students on each session are not related to the amount of interactions, for groups that showed more engagement, in fact, spent less time writing, even though they had an average frequency on the sessions.

Young Indigenous students with a language background of emergent, unrecognised, and/or non-prestigious contact languages are commonly by-passed as English language learners (ELLs). Consequently, they are taught and assessed via undifferentiated mainstream pedagogy and testing, generally characterised by reported underachievement. Long-term social and linguistic minoritisation has effectively created this inequitable situation, excluding this cohort from standard school ELL processes such as on-entry identification, and specialist ELL services of assessment and needs-based support. In these challenging social-educational contexts, where, furthermore, knowledge about the varieties resulting from language contact and shift is still developing, initiating language assessment for these young Language Minority ELLs pivots on the discernment of non-specialist classroom teachers. This is clearly a high stakes assessment exercise for this otherwise invisible ELL cohort, as this evidence makes the case for language-informed responses, such as differentiated delivery of classroom curriculum. Prioritising the social context in language assessment use and drawing on exploratory practice principles, the study investigates teachers’ views on their use of the state mandated classroom-based proficiency tool (adapted to be inclusive of this Indigenous ELL sub-group). This serves to illuminate the kind of support teachers need to conduct identification and assessment for these Indigenous ELLs and to highlight the broad gaps in basic research. An analysis of the interviews elicits the “puzzles” facing classroom teachers. Findings include that direct elucidation of tool puzzles for L2 pathways in contact language contexts would be most useful, not a proliferation of extra tools nor a complexification of the current tool.

The paper presents an overview of a pilot study aiming at developing university students’ writing competence with the use of a selected Web 2.0 collaboration tool as authoring environment for Task-Based Language Teaching. Online word processors were used to design a pre-task, task and post-task sequence which was implemented in varied modes of work when teaching English to students at the Department of German Studies, Maria CurieSkłodowska University in Lublin, Poland. The specific aim of the study was to investigate the applicability of one particular online collaborative environment, namely an online word processor such as Google Docs (http://docs.google.com), to implement form-focused language teaching at a tertiary level. The study was conducted in an action research fashion, with two parallel groups of students using two different collaborative environments (wikis and online word processors). As it was found out, the idea of learning writing in collaboration mediated by online resources was new to students and the awareness of how to make the best use of peer editing and peer feedback had to be established among students first. Once it was done, however, collaborative learning online proved to be a powerful vehicle for language instruction. The emergence of new Web 2.0 tools facilitating collaboration and publishing such as online word processors has helped to redefine the process of teaching language skills, and specifically writing, in the TBLT framework.

This research identifies important features of mathematics learning from the accounts of early school leavers. These students were enrolled in a Youth Reconnected Program at a Technical and Further Education [TAFE] college. Specifically, it examines the relationship between their experiences of mathematics learning in two different social contexts, the program and secondary school classrooms, the discourses and associated discursive practices of these two contexts, and the forms of identities of participation that are constructed in them. Drawing on a social theory of learning and critical discourse theory, the research identifies the processes by which membership in communities of learning is achieved and identities discursively constructed. It draws on the accounts of forty-three early school leavers and six staff members located in a Youth Reconnected Program, a program designed to re-engage early school leavers in education and or training, about their prior experiences of secondary school and their current experiences of TAFE. From these accounts, the thesis seeks to explicate their experiences of learning mathematics in both contexts and to consider the implications of different student experiences of learning for mathematics education. Critical discourse analysis provides the means for applying this framework to examine the discourses, discursive practices, identities, and forms of participation constructed in the accounts. It views the accounts as constituted by their social context. It shows how the language of the accounts works to construct particular versions of reality and how relations of power construct particular identities. It allows a richer qualitative exploration of the reported practices of mathematics classrooms with particular regard to linking the theoretical and practical concerns of this study. It makes transparent the relations between the social (including relations of power and domination), discourse, and discursive practice, thus enabling a more in-depth reading of the participants‘ accounts. Discourses about two different experiences of mathematics learning were identified—one about mathematics learning in the Youth Reconnected Program (TAFE) and the other about mathematics learning in secondary schools. The discourses and their associated discursive practices—differing application of instructional style, communication and interaction, source of authority, pace of instruction, grouping of students and assessment— were found to contribute significantly to the construction of particular student identities and forms of participation. Student experiences emphasised the importance of four characteristics for membership in a community of learners—mutual engagement, joint enterprise, shared repertoire and access. These characteristics and practices were shown to contribute substantially to the construction of identities of participation in mathematics learning for most of the students who participated in this study. There was strong evidence to indicate that small class sizes impacted significantly on student engagement and participation in learning. A crucial factor here rests with the role of the teachers and tutors and how, given the opportunities for reduced class size, they implement, sustain and maintain interactions with the students for effective teaching and learning to occur. If in this context, consistent interactions are provided that also includes clear and explicit explanations, discussion, and negotiation, students are more likely to maintain their interest and actively participate in mathematics learning. This study‘s significance is twofold. It lies in the critical importance of the issue it addresses—student participation in mathematics learning—and the articulation of a social theory of learning with critical discourse theory to enable a different and more effective understanding of the significance of discourses, identities and communities of participation in mathematics learning. Although the study cannot claim generalisability across other populations of learners or across all mathematics and TAFE classrooms because of the small select sample of early school leavers drawn upon, by highlighting these accounts of students‘ learning experiences in some mathematics classrooms and the TAFE program, and their associated experiences of them, it draws attention to a different perspective on mathematics learning. In this alternative framing, learning as a social process is contingent on access to the discourse of mathematics learning and the discursive practices that support learning, participation, and membership in a community of mathematics learners. An attention to the social processes of mathematics learning infers a significant role for mathematics teachers in enabling student access to certain discourses and communities of learning. Such a role is often neglected in current contexts of accountability that specify a focus on achieving syllabus outcomes.

Facebook, the largest social networking site, was used for online discussions in six chemistry courses over three academic years. Postings consisted of faculty-generated problems in the form of online collaborative problems which were assessed as part of examinations, as well as student-generated discussions and questions. Incentives, including a modest grade enhancement for participation, and “preposting” a problem suitable to online collaboration prior to the actual exam where the question was posed for assessment, were established. As a result, student participation was high, with 100% of the class joining the Facebook group and a typical average of 10 posts per course enrollee per semester, despite the fact that there was no formal posting requirement. Examples are provided of enhanced classroom discussions arising from Facebook collaboration, as well as students’ learning challenging topics from each other.