SECOND POSTING - ONLINE AND OFFLINE LEARNING & USAGES OF COMPUTERS IN WRITING

Based on my reading on ONLINE AND OFFLINE WRITING COURSE in page 7 (Online Teaching and Learning in ELT Book) I can say that computers have change peoples’ life better mostly the students. Educators or shall I say instructors used many ways to make teaching more attractive and fun. Through the amazing technology, online learning which includes several materials such as the electronic mail, bulletin board, chat room computer conferencing and web-based online learning system has been practiced to make the teaching more effective.

We cannot deny the fact that it has influenced the teaching system in general although some of the contras can be seen. Students that are involved in the discussion type of education find themselves uneasy when dealing with the electronic environment because it written format seemed to be so public compared to discussion. Students’ participation in learning through online has greatly increased.

If we were to see the comparison between the online and offline learning styles, there are few views that appears to be important. Students are said to excel much better in the online mode and this has proved by the studies done by Thirunarayanan and Perez-Prado (2001/2002) at the College of Education in Florida.

Apart from that, the online language learning has said to improve the students’ writing skills that lead to improvement in their communicating skills. Not only that, they are said to have practiced themselves in active learning, critical inquiry and reflective thinking.

This type of learning is very efficient but however some of the studies reflected on the contras in it whereby it is said that there was no significant difference in the performance of online and offline students. Barry and Runyan (1995) conducted their study in military settings whereas Johnson et al (2000) compared a graduate online course with an equivalent course taught in the traditional way – face to face format. At the same time, Johnson (2002) analyzed the performance of Introductory Biology students in the two modes of instruction whereby the results show that there is a little difference in the performance of students taking face to face classes and students taking online courses.

The online courses can be in few aspects and therefore to explain in detail would be rather difficult. The study that was carried out at International Islamic University Malaysia gives us brief explanation on what is meant by these two terms. The course is known as English for Academic Writing (EAW) where all the students are compulsory to enroll themselves in. Students from different faculties and courses are required to attend. This module prepares students with skills that include many areas.

Because the numbers of students is large, it has come up with an alternative way of delivering the course and that is online and offline mode. Though they have two different modes, the main course content, objection and assessments of both modes remains the same. Few differences can be detected from the online and offline modes. This can be shown at the description below:

ONLINE MODE

The duration of lectures and tutorials are basically three hours. In the lecture session, it provides students with the techniques, theory and mechanics of writing. All this are based on the requirement in the module. As for the tutorial session, it provides students with group and individual attention. Apart from that, individual and group activities are also organized for the students.

OFFLINE MODE

The students are given four hours of on site sessions and two flexible hours. On site are referred to the tasks that are assigned in the computer lab. Here, the students are to gather information on the techniques, theory and mechanics of writing as required in the module during the four hours on the sessions from the online module provided. In addition to that, chat facilities are provided for students and instructors to discuss the areas covered by the module. Both the online and offline modes ensure students to be equipped with the necessary computing skills.

From this, a section of the questionnaire focused on the factors that might influence students’ process of learning. It has been said that the results that students obtain are all depending on the amount of hours spent with their instructors. It was assumed that the more time the instructor spent interacting with the students, whether through online or offline, the better the results would be.

Assignments that required the lectures or even the instructors to look on showed no differences in the results between the different modes. Apart from that, through the T-Test, the same results could be seen. There was no significant difference between the two modes of instruction. Although it is argued that online teaching can accommodate the needs of individual students (Lau Seng & Fitri Suraya, 2002), it is yet to be studied whether this possibility has been exploited by the online teachers. Hence, the online and offline learning is very important and has created a big impact on decision-making.

Below are the sites that you guys can look on for further information regarding the online and offline learning:

http://campustechnology.com/articles/39789/

http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/Departments/eLearning/?article=5OnlineMyths

You can also refer to the Online Teaching and Learning in ELT Book in page 7.

In the importance of a computer wise, it has served us a bunch of benefits. Students can improve their writing through computer in many ways. One of it is improving the grammar and vocabulary wise. The reason I am saying this is because Word Processor in that matter has software which is known as tools right under the title bar column. In this tool bar, students can have their work checked in the spelling and also grammar.

Apart from that, students can recheck their work by just looking through the page and say if there are any mistakes, they do not have to delete the whole thing but just have to edit it. Not only that, it conserves much more time compared to writing it in a paper where it messes up the paper if there were any mistakes done. Students also can have many copies of the essay in printed version instead off writing the essay for so many times. This simplifies the task and no one would face any form of stress.

In addition to that, students can come up with amazing work whereby they can include certain graphics in their task. Not only that, they can insert pictures at any time they want as the data would just remain there. Therefore, we cannot deny the fact that computer in that matter has make students’ life much more easier.

Further information on how computers help in writing can be viewed at:

http://www.utoronto.ca/writing/computer.html

Hope you guys understood what is meant by online and offline learning, not forgetting the usages of computers in writing. Have a nice day reading and see you the next time!
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COMPUTERIZED WRITING

Welcome back! Hello to everyone. This task is about computerized writing. Here, I am going to focus on what is understood by computerized writing and how it works towards the students.Computerized writing is about the writing and the computer, whereby to show the connection between both of them. As far as we are concern today, there are certain students that have fears in coming up with essays whether it is involving the formal or the informal ones. Having such fears can bring down their confidence in writing and thus makes it a very big problem. In these days, students are required to write an essay with very little information provided by their educators. Not only that, some of them have very little basics on essay writing which drives them harder to come up with the final product.

Some of the students might have natural anxiety while writing an essay. Essay writing involves many stages that vary from the introductory paragraph, the body and finally the conclusion. The structure of the story has to be in an appropriate flow and should not have run-on sentences. The other aspect that should be focused on would be the grammar and language. Here, computerized writing has a good solution for these where a student can improve their skills and also avoid them from doing mistakes.

Computerized writing helps students to produce an effective essay. Computer acts as a workhorse and no longer seen as tutors and drillers. In the Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) there are three phases whereby computer that acts as a tutor falls in the first category – BEHAVIOURISTIC CALL. This phase focuses on the drill, reward and punished aspect and the example of it can be seen in the studying system.The reason I am saying that computer acts as a workhorse and not as a tutor because of its usefulness. Let us take Word Processor. In the Word Processor, the task becomes much more easier compared to write using a pencil and a paper. This software enables us to enhance our language production and also able to show us the connectivity between reading and writing. Hence, students can experience be successful in writing.I have to say that students should not only depend on this software in order to write successfully. It has been said that write as much as possible can actually improve our writing skills. One should be doing this repeatedly to gain success in it. Practice makes perfect, heard that before? Well, it implies in this situation. This has been proved by Newman (1984) where he said that “writing improves more by experimenting with many aspects of the process at the same time than by mastering separate skills and blending them.”Newman's second point is that there is a difference between using computers for drill and practice and using them for word processing. In the drill and practice software, the computer is in charge whereby this software tells the user what to do and controls what is being learnt.

With word processing, however, it is the user who makes full use of it and that is in using the computer and learning to write.Writing in Word Processor allows rapid alteration and manipulation of the text that is able in helping students to sustain the mental images they are trying to capture while experimenting it with language. The thesaurus capability encourages synonym replacement, and many other possible tasks that involve the organization of the paragraph, the language used, deleting the errors much easier and loads more. Hereby, I can say that computerized writing has benefited the students in various ways.

There are few activities connected to the computerized writing and can be viewed at the websites below:

http://www.essay2review.com.

This website has loads of categories that you can look on. Computerized writing gives priority on writing and the links that you can actually look at would be the essay writing. Under this category, it explains about many things such as the rough draft, editing and the tips on writing an essay. One can look and study thoroughly to get the picture of it. The other part of it would be the essay types. In this category, it explains how to write a particular essay effectively. After clicking to this link, several types of essays are displayed and we are able to choose one based on our choice. The points given are very straight forward whereby in other words it is understandable. It does not only explain about how to write but also give appropriate approach that students can practice in their writing.

http://www.eslgo.com/classes/write/application_essays/.

This website serves almost the same thing exactly like in the first one but here it emphasizes more on how to produce an essay. There are few steps that you should be following to come up with an effective and attractive essay. I can say that these website suits the beginners compared to the ones that are used to essay writing. All the lessons given will take you to the different portions of essays. There are several links under the main link where you can look on. It does not only help us in producing an essay but also has lessons regarding the grammar in essay writing which includes the word choice and few exercises that you can try on. This website will also be a very good one for those who cannot arrange their ideas well.

http://www.buowl.boun.edu.tr/students/ESSAY%20DEVELOPMENT%20EXERCISES.htm.

This website can help the students to perform better in essay writing. This website mainly gives priority on the exercises with the appropriate answers. Students can try on the exercises given and view the correct or possible answers. Not only that but it also helps the students in introducing them to various methods of writing introductions. This website explains on how to start off an essay and serves practices on how to write introductory paragraphs for their essays. Apart from that, explanation on how certain essays should be produced has also given. Try those activities out and you will be able to see the difference.As for the softwares, there are many types of softwares that you can look on in the essay writing category but needs you to purchase it. For making your life easier, I have entitled a website that can be used for free. In this website, you can know or equip yourself with almost all the aspects that you should know in essay writing. This website gives explanation on how to write a particular essay and has loads of important points. In addition, it also provides sample essays that can be read at any time of the day and gives additional information on how you can improve your writing. This software is very useful and everyone should try to attempt it. Just click on it and it will give you wonders!http://www.toeflessays.com/download/nextgen_preview.pdf

More information about computerized writing can be viewed at the websites below:
http://tojde.anadolu.edu.tr/tojde21/articles/Semire.htm

http://www.digitalwriting.org/overview.html