Collaborative Writing on Google Docs: Taiwanese Students’ Participation, Behaviors, and Writing Trajectories with Real-work Online Tasks

Abstract

In the past two decades, the growing rage of computer mediated environments (CMC) affords new literacies and new opportunities for language learners to experience, construct, communicate, and access knowledge (Ware, Kern & Warschauer, 2016). Also, it suggests that writing in multimodal in the digital ear contributes to its production and interpretation (Canagarajah, 2013) and can be particularly beneficial for L2 learners’ writing practices (Elola & Oskoz, 2010) such as writing quality (Stroch, 2005), writing fluency (Bloch, 2007), academic voices (Sperling & Appleman, 2011) and a sense of audience (Sun & Chang, 2012). Google Docs and online text-chat systems are prominent collaborative tools for group writing, and the result shows that the focus group displayed a mixed-interaction pattern, a collaborative pattern in two online text-chat systems, and a more dominant-passive pattern while co-constructing the text. They study also explored that changing the mode of communication from Line to Google Docs chat-room appears to have led to an increase in the participants’ interaction and communication and seems to have facilitated collaboration. Participants make a significant contribution of two types of writing changing functions, adding and correcting in the text and make revisions to their text.

The use of Web 2.0 tools in English language learning: A systematic review

“…This in-depth attention highlights the revolutionary potential of Web 2.0 technologies in enhancing students' writing skills. The frequency of these results demonstrates the significant contributions that digital platforms have made in facilitating writing practice (Liu et al, 2022;Sahla and Altalhab, 2022;Yousefifard and Fathi, 2021;Jong and Tan, 2021;Alghammas, 2020;Barrot, 2021), collaboration (Alghammas, 2020;Hsu, 2019;Yeh, 2021;Hafour and Al-Rashidy, 2020), and feedback systems (Hafour and Al-Rashidy, 2020;Alharbi, 2020;Sundrarajun, 2020;Ebadi, 2021;Sahla and Altalhab, 2022;Liu et al, 2022;Yousefifard and Fathi, 2021). Eleven investigations also showed a significant increase in participants' enthusiasm and motivation (Seifert and Har-Paz, 2020;Ballıdağ and Dikilitaş, 2021;Najjemba and Cronjé, 2020;Kung, 2018).…”

“…The research also used Google Docs employed in nine investigations. The success of this application may be linked to its ability to edit collaborative documents, which makes it suitable for group projects and collaborative writing; both of these applications are essential for language acquisition (Chiablaem, 2021;Yeh, 2021;Hafour and Al-Rashidy, 2020;Ebadi, 2021;Alharbi, 2020). Finally, six studies used blogs as Web 2.0 tools.…”

“…This distinction highlights how crucial it is to improve students' writing abilities by incorporating Web 2.0 technologies. The focus on writing proficiency is likely related to the widespread use of digital tools that provide writing practice, group writing, and feedback exchanges, closely correlating with the benefits of technology-assisted language learning (Yeh, 2021;Hafour and Al-Rashidy, 2020;Ebadi, 2021). With 14 studies concentrating on comprehending learners' attitudes toward Web 2.0 tools in language learning environments, attitudes are also a prominent targeted variable.…”

A review on digital multimodal composing in post-secondary EFL context: Practices and implications

“…Therefore, a brief overview of the research results is needed to lay out how DMC has facilitated the learning process and what challenges emerged. In the studies, DMC was implemented to leverage students' English language skills, such as improving writing proficiency (e.g., Yeh, 2021;Balaman, 2018;Xu, 2021), oral presentation skills (e.g., Seau, Azamn, & Noor, 2018;Lee, 2019), and communicative competence (e.g., Greenblatt & Donald, 2022). Through DMC, the students also practiced their digital literacy skills by employing various multimodal resources (e.g., Jiang, 2022), which expanded their multiliteracies practice (e.g., Hung, 2019;Lo, Lee, & Tien, 2020;Yeh, 2018;Yeh, Heng, & Tseng, 2021).…”

“…Through the mixing and transmediating of the available semiotic resources, students expand their meaning-making by continuously reflecting on their design process. Moreover, research on DMC have indicated the benefits it brings to the language learning such as writing skill development and genre awareness (Yeh, et. al., 2021;Balaman, 2018;Yiqin, 2022), improved learning engagement and investment (Jiang, 2020;Smith, 2021), development of digital literacy skills (Yeh, 2018;Jiang, 2020), and practice on authorship (Hafner, 2015) and digital empathy (Chen, 2018;Christopher, 2021).…”