Godwin-Jones blog

Sheila Wallace
Ling 611
Godwin-Jones Blog

Godwin-Jones, R. (2008). Emerging technologies web-writing 2.0: Enabling, documenting, and assessing writing online, 12 (2), 7-13.

After reading Emily and Erin’s blog, I am thinking, I so don’t know how to blog, and keep people smiling and laughing. I think this is what is meant by some of the articles we have read so far. And I promise, I think I can be less anal. Really! But, for the last time let me be anal and write the rest of the summary as I see fit. I promise the next blog won’t be as…let’s see, how Erin puts it…blah, blah, blah, blah. J

This article talks about the trends in technology in recent years and how the internet has influenced the changes in modes and purposes for writing online. New opportunities and incentives for personal writing through blogging have provided social networking. This article also touches on linking formal and academic writing through informal and recreational means for connecting writing with emerging technologies. Language tools and online services have improved writing through automatic assessment of writing prompting students to be more encouraged to participate online.
Tools online such as Web 2.0, Adobe, Photoshop Express, Flickr and Facebook are easily accessed through the Web browser. The recent trend is that there are more free online editors available such as On Text, widgEditor, Xstandard, and Textile. Other emerging text editors include Google Gears/Google Docs, FCK editor, Mleditor, and others that enable participants to share and collaborate on projects.
Assessing online writing through the use of portfolios contributes to learners taking more responsibility for documenting and assessing their language skills. To assess English grammar, Microsoft tools has the capability to take text and automatically make the corrections in the English vernacular. Other editing tools available online are Language Tool (used in 12 languages) which could be used in addition to the tool OpenOffice.
I would like to end this very “so to the article” blog by adding one more to the litany of facts and factoids by saying that we want to make a range of opportunities to improve student writing….and one way to do this is to loosen up, let peers review each other’s writing, and provide feedback. Social networking, as I have witnessed this summer, can be a way to not only provide academic feedback, but to also provide it in a way that is so non-academic (and sometimes even using jargon not found typically in the classroom). I am not typically this loose in my responses, but let’s just say that the stars were aligned and that a Eureka! moment has finally hit!!!