05 MOOC - Unit 2 - Why Is Teaching Writing Important and How Can Technology Help

© 2018 by Iowa State University. Why is Teaching Writing Important and How Can Technology Help?
Lecture Transcript for the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State and
administered by FHI 360. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except
where noted. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Using Educational Technology in the English Language Classroom
Technology for Teaching Writing
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlE2-ekUHe81WFzeFNO_4_38KL_8vergF
Carol A. Chapelle
Iowa State University
Slide 44: Make Writing a Process. Technology plays an important role in making writing a process because
writing assignments consist of multiple steps, each of which uses technology in a different way. The
processes that we see in process writing curricula typically include planning, drafting, revising, editing and
proofreading. Word processing is central to all those processes, but several different technologies are
needed. Let’s hear how Lea Johannsen uses technology in developing the writing process for an
assignment in the writing classes that she teaches.
Slide 45: What is the Context. Hello everyone. My name is Lea Johannsen,
and I’m going to walk you through how I help my students develop their
writing process using technology. But before I get into details, it’s important
to give some context. Thinking about your own personal context is also
important before you do any planning on how to use technology. You need
to think about your students and the assignment they will be working on
before you choose how to use technology to help them learn. In this
example, I’ll be talking about a class I taught last semester: English 101B.
Lea Johannsen This class is taught to undergraduate and graduate students at Iowa State
University. The class focuses on writing single paragraphs in academic
"Lea Johannsen" by Iowa
State University is licensed English, and is the beginner level of academic writing classes here at the
under CC BY 4.0 university. One of the first assignments students write is the Descriptive
paragraph. In this assignment students should pick a place on campus and
write one paragraph describing it. The assignment asks student to focus on describing 2 or 3 specific
aspects of the place they picked. It is also focused on using “sensory language” which describes things
students can see, smell, hear, touch, etc.
This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

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by FHI 360 and delivered by Iowa State University
Slide 46: Step 1: Planning. Step 1 for
students in the writing process is
planning. This is where they need to
start thinking of ideas for their paper
and planning ways to write. Online
resources can be a big help, but I know
that I can’t just make my students look
for resources on their own. Instead, I
went out and found some resources for
them, which I then shared through our
course management site and through
in-class activities. One example of a
helpful resource is the text on the left. Descriptive paragraph about a building on campus
This is a descriptive piece from the Iowa
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Iowa State University, used under CC
State website about an important
BY 2.0. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-
building on campus. Reading a Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
descriptive paragraph like this will help
students get ideas about the genre they are writing in. I had my students look at this piece online and
find places where the text used “sensory language” to describe the building. That way they had an
authentic example of what the assignment wanted them to use. Another resource I gave my students
was a page from the website Purdue OWL. This website is a very credible source for writing help, and
this particular page on the right lists lots of ideas and strategies for students to use when they are
brainstorming.
Slide 47: Step 2: Drafting. Step 2 for students is the drafting stage. This is where they need to actually
write the content that will go into their essay. Depending on their writing style, students may or may
not have outlined or planned their essay before this step. For myself and for many students, simply
getting words onto the page is the hardest step in the writing process. Therefore, I like to keep this step
as simple as possible. I encourage students to write their drafts using a Word processing program (like
Microsoft Word or Pages), and to focus
on getting all of their ideas written down.
Another technology I sometimes
recommend to students for this step is
Google Docs. Google Docs lets students
access their essay from any device, so
they don’t need to worry about staying in
one place to write. It also tracks how
long they are active in writing, and this
can be helpful for making sure
they are putting in enough time Word processing software
and effort for each assignment. "Draft of assignment on Microsoft Word" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0

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Slide 48: Step 3: Revising. When they are revising, students need to be focused on the content of their
essay. They need to make sure that they are actually fulfilling the goals of the assignment. In my case, I
want to make sure that they have picked one
place on campus and are focusing on 2 to 3
aspects of that place. To help students check the
content of their essay and revise, I provide them
with an assignment sheet and a detailed rubric. I
share these documents with students using a
course management system (in my case, Moodle).
Once a document has been posted on the Moodle,
then students can download and access
these documents whenever they would like. Files in Moodle
This allows them to go over the content of This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by ISUComm Moodle Courses, used
their essay and make sure that it fits what under CC BY 2.0. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use
in the AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
the assignment sheet is asking them to do.
Slide 49: Step 4: Editing. Once the essay has been revised, I have students focus on editing. Editing is
when students should focus on major grammar and spelling errors. There are a lot of tools to help
students do this. My favorites are Grammarly and Spellcheck. Grammarly is a system that monitors
student writing and offers feedback on errors they make in spelling, grammar, and punctuation. I really
like it because it doesn’t just fix the mistake, it also gives an explanation so that the student can learn
why what they typed is wrong. There is a free version of Grammarly that students can download, or
they can also purchase a more in-depth version of the software. Spellcheck is a similar tool that’s built
into most Word Processing tools. It underlines mistakes in spelling and grammar, and suggests
corrections. I always tell my students to look at the Spellcheck feedback, but to still look for errors
themselves, since the program sometimes misses errors.
Using Grammarly for Editing
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Grammarly, used under CC BY 2.0. This derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the
AE E-Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.

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Slide 50: Step 5: Proofreading. The final step in the writing process is proofreading. Proofreading
assumes that students have already found all of the major errors in an assignment, and that they are
now focusing on little things like punctuation and formatting. At this step, I encourage students to use
the Purdue OWL website again, this time focusing on their pages on MLA formatting. This style of
formatting might be new to
students, and Purdue OWL
has detailed instructions
and lots of examples for
them to look at.
Proofreading might also be
when students ask
someone else to look at
their draft and give
feedback. I have students
use Google Docs or email to
share their writing with
their peers or with me. Student email
"Student email" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
Slide 51: Using Grammar-Checking Tools. Grammar checking tools provide

some new opportunities for students to get help with their writing, particularly
during the editing phases. But grammar checking tools are not perfect. Let’s
listen to some of the things that current grammar checking tools can do as well
as what they can’t.
Slide 52: Grammar Checkers. Grammar checking tools have been around for a
Prof. Volker Hegelheimer number of years, just like spellcheckers. What I would like to do in the next few
"Prof. Volker Hegelheimer" minutes is really to talk about what grammar checkers can do. We will look at
by Iowa State University is built-in grammar checkers in word processing applications. So, I will show you
licensed under CC BY 4.0
examples of GoogleDocs, Microsoft Word and also Grammarly. I will also talk
about some advanced grammar checkers, or Automated Writing Evaluation
(AWE) and the feedback that these kinds of tools provide.
Slide 53: Student Text. As Prof. Chapelle indicated, these grammar checkers are often used during the
editing stages of writing. So what I have here on the screen and what you have on your transcript (which
you should download so you can follow along), is a student text that was written by a student with an iBT
TOEFL score of about 80 or maybe 85. He was taking an ESL writing class at a major US university. And this
text represents what that person was able to write. So take a look at it, read it and think about what kind
of feedback you might give as a teacher.

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After the first month of university study, I find that there was difficulty for me to fit into the study life in
the US. I have trouble in the understanding of teachers and writing article on some subjects. Actually, I
attended a study abroad school in my home country where teaching way is similar to that in the US.
However, I did not value the time in that school and spent less time on study. When I recall the life in that
school, I regret about I was doing in that time.
However, I made a lot of wrong decision when I studied in that school. I took a large amount of time on
the IELTS study while ignored the subjects in that school we had social science, communication skills,
mathematics and science class in that school. Meanwhile, the teachers taught us some skills about time
management, weekly plan and monthly plan. We also have some homeworks which asked us to write
some essays and reports. All of them were similar to those in the US. Now, I realize that it is an excellent
opportunity to prepare for the study in the US. But I did not spend much time on those subjects. Every
time when we have some important assignments in that school, I often begin at 4 or 5 hours before the
deadline. As a result, the score in the essay and report were very low.
When I begun the study in the US, I start to realize that how important the study in that school for me. I
did not learn any study skills from that school so that I had to learn some study skills from the Internet.
My hardships are not only in the homework but also in time management. I found that I do not know how
to manage my time. Actually, these kinds of skills we have already learnt from that school. So I think if I
can attach importance to the study in that school, I can have much better score in study now.
Slide 54: Google Docs. What I’m

demonstrating here is a series of word
processing applications that are frequently
used. And what I did is the following: I
copied and pasted the text into
GoogleDocs, which is what you see here. I
also copied it into Microsoft Word and then
I copied it into Grammarly just to show you
what kind of feedback these tools provide
in terms of grammar. Now the first one,
GoogleDocs as you can see is fairly simple in
that it doesn’t really provide any grammar
feedback.
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Google, used under CC BY 2.0. This
derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher
Even when you click on spelling it will tell you that sponsored
Program, all the by words
the U.S.are spelledof correctly
Department State. but there is no
feedback on grammar.

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Slide 55: Microsoft Word. When I paste the exact same text into Microsoft Word, as you can see here on
the screen, you can see that several highlights are made. Underlined in blue and some in red. As you can
see “homeworks” which is meant to indicate the plural, which should not be in plural it has an “s” on it.
It should just be “homework”. But it also underlines several other items here; “actually” is underlined a
couple of times. In this case, the grammar checker identifies redundancy. Some of these words are not
necessarily needed in writing so
rather than saying “actually, I
attended”, why not just say “I
attended or instead of saying
“Actually, these kinds of skills” we
could just say “these kinds of skills”
or “as a result”. So, there’s some
feedback here. Microsoft also pick
up on the first sentence in the third
paragraph “when I begun the study
in the US” really should be “when I
began the study in the US”. So, it
underlines errors, and does a fairly
good job at underlining at least
"Example analysis table for collected articles" by Iowa State University is licensed
some of these errors. under CC BY 4.0
Slide 56: Grammarly. This third

example is of pasting the exact same
text again into the word processing
interface for Grammarly, a tool that
you looked at earlier and a tool that
you will be looking at again as part of
this lecture in this week. What you
can see here is that Grammarly also
identifies several possible mistakes
when I type this into the application.
Here it actually provides suggestions
for how to remedy the mistakes or
how to fix the mistakes. So, the first
This work is a derivative of "Untitled" by Grammarly, used under CC BY 2.0. This
example is “I find that there was derivative is licensed under CC BY 4.0 by FHI 360 for use in the AE E-Teacher Program,
difficulty for me to fit in to.” sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
Grammarly indicates that it should be
“a difficulty” or “the difficulty”. It also
identifies enumeration where in the second paragraph it says, “meanwhile the teachers taught us some
skills about time management, weekly plan and monthly plan”. So Grammarly indicates that after that

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second “planning” there should be a comma. It does identify that “homeworks” is a mistake; it should be
“homework”. And it also gives you the correct version of the word “begun” which should be “began” at
the beginning of the third paragraph here. Now, something to point out here, this Grammarly version that
I am using is the free one. So it only checks some of the most basic mistakes here. It does indicate that it
found five “advanced issues.” However, in order to see the advanced issues, we have to upgrade to a paid-
for version. For the purpose of this course, I don’t feel this is necessary. So have a look at this. You will be
able to review Grammarly, GoogleDocs or whichever word processing application you’re using as part of
this week.
Slide 57: Teacher Comments. After having looked at three word processing applications and the kind of
grammar feedback that they provide, I think it becomes obvious that when you look at teacher
comments, and in this case I just provided feedback as I would have done to a student writing this type
of essay. So, I
inserted teacher
comments here
using Microsoft
Word’s
commenting
feature. And as you
can see, I did not
do all three
paragraphs. I
started with the
first two
paragraphs and I
provided quite a bit
of feedback that
would help the
student improve
their writing. Now, "Teacher comments" by Iowa State University is licensed under CC BY 4.0
very little of what I

as a teacher am focusing on in terms of grammar but also in terms of organization was really caught by
word processing applications or the grammar checkers embedded in word processing applications. So,
we are looking at a very different kettle of fish here. This is quite different. I think it is important to
realize that no matter how many of these mistakes grammar checkers are able to identify, there is
always need for a teacher to go in and indicate that there are mistakes here. If you just look at this first
example where the student writes: “after the first month of university study I find that there was
difficulty for me to fit to the study life in the US”. While we understand what the person wants to say, I
would suggest this correction: I would say, “It was difficult for me to adjust to life as a student in the
US”. So those are the kinds of feedback that automated systems cannot provide at this point in time.

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Have a look at my feedback and then you will see that the feedback that teachers provide is invaluable.
It can be augmented by grammar feedback of course, but teachers have an important role to play.
Slide 58: Automated Writing Evaluation. I feel it’s important to also mention that there have been some
developments recently - actually developments have been going on for a long time - but more recently
with much more success in the area of Automated Writing Evaluation. That is really a different set of tools
other than just grammar checkers or spell checkers. In addition to obviously catching problems that have
to do with mechanics such as spelling errors or with some grammar items such as subject-verb agreement,
missing articles, run-on sentences and so on, these tools provide a richer set of feedback to writers. They
go beyond mechanics and grammar and also look at organization or provide feedback on organization, for
example on the absence of presence of a thesis statement or whether or not a topic sentence is used. So,
they provide a lot of help for beginning writers and also for advanced writers. So as part of this week’s
activities you’ll be able to take a look at some of these tools. Now, you can read about these tools, it’s
more difficult to try them out because they are all not for free. However, you will be able to look at them
and find out more about them. And if you have the resources or if it is possible to get a trial version, you
can certainly do that.
Slide 59: AWE Recommendations. I would like to summarize suggestions for using AWE tools in the
classroom. These stem from a recent journal article my colleagues and I published. The reference is
available in the transcript. The highlights I want to mention here are the following:
First, using tools such as AWE tools or other tools that provide consistent feedback may impact student’s
writing practices. Students often write their assignment the night before and then submit it and they will
often not take a second look at it. When on-going and immediate feedback is available, it may be possible
to encourage students to go beyond this once-and-done approach to writing and engage in active
planning, drafting, revising, and editing processes. This could transform their approach to writing.
Second, AWE tools have an impact on linguistic accuracy. We also have found that using AWE correcting
feedback system may really improve linguistic accuracy. That means that students who use such tools
become better writers. Third, teachers continue to play a significant role. Another point that is true of all
tools that I have experimented with in the classroom is that the instructors’ use and perception of the
utility of these tools is key in getting students engaged in trying these tools out and seeing the value (and
the shortcomings) of these tools.
Reference: Li, J., Link, S, & Hegelheimer, V. (2015). Rethinking the Role of Automated Writing Evaluation in ESL
Writing Instruction. Journal of Second Language Writing. 27, 1-18
Slide 60: AWE Tools. Last but not least, I would like to at mention at least some of the more popular
Automated Writing Evaluation tools that are available on a commercial basis. The transcript contains links
to these tools as well.
• Turnitin is a product that is used quite a bit at US universities – especially in first year writing
programs. One component within the Turnitin application that is particularly relevant for writers
is called Revision Assistant. Turnitin also provides so called “plagiarism checking services” – This
is a service that checks to see if the paper students submitted was written by the student and not

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merely copied from another source. With so many paper being available on the Internet, it is
becoming increasingly more difficult to verify that students submit their own work and that they
give appropriate credit to the sources they use as they complete papers.
• Another AWE tool that I have used and that we used here at Iowa State for a number of years is
called Criterion which is produced by the Educational Testing Service or ETS. We used that for
several years and we were quite happy with it.
• The last one is called MyWritingLab, a product by Pearson
I will have links for you in the course so you can take a look at them and you read more about them. Please
keep in mind that there are other products as well, but I cannot list all of them in this short segment.
• Turnitin: http://turnitin.com/
• Revision Assistant: http://turnitin.com/en_us/what-we-offer/revision-assistant
• ETS Criterion: https://criterion.ets.org/ and https://www.ets.org/criterion
• Pearson MyWritingLab
• http://www.pearsonmylabandmastering.com/northamerica/mywritinglab/educators/index.htm
l
Slide 61: Using Collaborative Writing Tools. Many teachers today are using GoogleDocs for collaborative
writing activities. Sock Wun Phng will describe how teachers can use Googledocs to create a space where
students like to collaborate.
Slide 62: Using GoogleDocs for Collaborative Writing.

https://youtu.be/Nw4EAwRUz2c Hi! This is Sock Wun. In this segment,
Huong and I will be simulating a collaborative writing project on Google Docs.
In this simulation, we are students who have been tasked with a partner
writing assignment, and we are using Google Docs to work on the assignment
together.
First, we need to create a new document. I will click on New and Google Docs.
Sock Wun
"Sock Wun" by Iowa State

University is licensed
under CC BY 4.0

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Creating a new Google Doc
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Teacher Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State.
I will rename the Document so that we can easily find it later.
Renaming the Google Doc

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Now, I want to share the doc with Huong so that we can work on it together. I will click Share and type in
Huong’s email. I want to make sure that the share setting is set at Can Edit. Then, I’ll include a message
and click Send.
Sharing the Google Doc
Once Huong accepts the invitation and joins the Doc, an icon will pop up here. Next to that, the Chat
function becomes available. Whenever there’s more than one person in a Doc at the same time, the Chat
function is available.
The Chat function on GoogleDocs

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In the chat, we are planning the paper. I asked her what we should include in the paper so that I can start
working on the outline. All of this happens in real time, so I can see when Huong is typing her reply. Once
she replied with the components that we should include in our paper, I started typing out the outline.
Outlining on GoogleDocs
Once I finished the outline, I asked Huong for her input. She thinks it looks good, but she also thinks that
it should be more detailed and fleshed out. I agree, so I went back into the outline to add in more details.
Here, we’re just working on building up the outline together. As you can see, all of the edits being made
occur in real time too, so here, I’m just reading what Huong is adding to the outline. When I think of
something, I can also edit the Doc at the same time, even while Huong is typing.

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Collaborative outlining on GoogleDocs
After we have a better handle on the outline, I started drafting our introduction.
Drafting on GoogleDocs

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Now, let’s talk about the Comment function. I finished the draft of the introduction, so I’m leaving a
comment to get Huong’s input on the draft. How I do that is I highlight the portion of the Doc I want the
comment to attach to, then I click on this button that pops up on the right.
The Comment function on GoogleDocs
Likewise, Huong can leave comments on places she wants me to take a look at. I can reply to her
comments like so. It looks like she’s asking me for more information on this bullet point because it sounds
too general to her, so I’m replying to her comment to explain my rationale.

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The Comment function on GoogleDocs
It looks like Huong has taken a look at my comment and responded. She provided an idea for us to
incorporate my suggestion. Now that the issue has been resolved, I can click on Resolve over here. That
removes the comment so that everyone in the Doc knows that the issue has been addressed.
Resolving comments on GoogleDocs

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GoogleDocs also has this Explore function that suggests related content for the Doc. It pulls images and
web pages from the Internet that are related to our topic.
The Explore function on GoogleDocs
I decided to search for something specific to see if I can find some resources for us to incorporate into our
paper. I found a link to a Lynda tutorial on how to use COCA, which is the tool that we are evaluating for
this paper. I want to share this with Huong, so I clicked on the link to go to the web page, copied the link
from the URL bar, and sent it to Huong via the Chat function.
With all of that being said, GoogleDocs is a great tool for collaborative writing. The Chat, Comment, and
Explore functions especially are useful for all stages of the writing process from planning to drafting,
revising, editing, and finally, proofreading.
Slide 63: Technology for Teaching Writing. This is the end of the lecture on using technology to support
the teaching of writing. We thank Prof. Chapelle and her colleagues for their presentation. We also hope
that you will find the lecture and the associated activities useful as you explore the use of technology on
your own.

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© 2018 by Iowa State University. Why is Teaching Writing Important and How Can Technology Help?

Using Educational Technology in the English Language Classroom

Technology for Teaching Writing

Iowa State University

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Using Grammarly for Editing

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Slide 51: Using Grammar-Checking Tools. Grammar checking tools provide

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Slide 54: Google Docs. What I’m

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Slide 56: Grammarly. This third

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

very little of what I

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Slide 62: Using GoogleDocs for Collaborative Writing.

"Sock Wun" by Iowa State

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

I will rename the Document so that we can easily find it later.

Renaming the Google Doc

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Sharing the Google Doc

The Chat function on GoogleDocs

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

The Comment function on GoogleDocs

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

Resolving comments on GoogleDocs

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

The Explore function on GoogleDocs

This is a program of the U.S. Department of State administered

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