2012 International Conference on Education and Management Innovation

IPEDR vol.30 (2012) (2012) IACSIT Press, Singapore

Collaborative Blogging: A Tool for Teaching Writing in EFL

Classroom

Dararat Khampusaen
English Program Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Khon Kaen University, Thailand 40002

Abstract. This study examines the outcomes of a blogging collaboration project among university
students on their essay writing skills. Writing feedback was provided by peers and the instructor on blog to
help students to write their essays. The results indicated that collaborative blogging improved students
attitudes towards writing. Feedback increased students motivation to write. Collaborative blogging
improved students writing and supported development of related skills and knowledge. Students writing
skills were improved as a result of feedbacks gained from peers and the instructor. Collaboration, rather
than the use of technology encouraged students to improve their writing skills. In addition, students
technology skills improved even though direct instruction related to technology was not provided. Students
developed clear literacy skills as they published their essays online. Blogging in writing class made
students to become autonomous learners. Finally, collaborative blogging enabled differentiated essay
writing instruction while ensuring success for each student
Keywords: collaborative learning, blogging, writing, collaborative blogging

1. Introduction
In traditional writing classroom, the lodgement, marking and return of student assessment have been
done manually. It requires a great deal of effort from the instructor to manage the papers. Moreover, the
teacher needs to watch out the turnaround time. The worst problem is accountability and assignment tracking
and security. It is worthwhile to also mention that this way of writing class management requires a lot of
paper for drafting, the writing and the feedback.

2. Blogging in the Writing Class

Blogging, similarly to online threaded discussion groups, is an easy way to engage in students writing to
the classroom. It is an effective way to manage the lodgement, marking and return of student assessment
with no fuss [1][2]. Blogging with Googles blogger.com, LiveJournal.com, and WordPress.com is free and
easy to set up, manage, and update without additional support. As many students are active users of
Facebook, Twitter, hi5, they become familiar with blogging [1].
The rationale behind blogging is that it is very convenient for users to check changes one has done to
his/her blog. While with other tools, a user needs to check in occasionally to see if there is any new content
posted, blogs make use of a publish-subscribe model, in which the subscribers receive notifies when new
content has been posted. In the writing classroom; therefore, blogs are qualified as a pedagogical tool [5].
They can replace the cycle of steps in developing essay: brainstorming, writing, submitting, receiving
feedback, revising writing, and resubmitting. Blogs clearly benefit the writing classroom. Blogs enable the
instructor and students communicate through and about writing. Both sides easily update an online writing

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Corresponding author. Tel.: + 66 89 0266692 fax: +66 43 203050
E-mail address: darkha@kku.ac.th
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promotes blogging as a new form of to enhance class discussion and to create a community outside the
classroom.
Blogging rather than hard copy writing provides a space where students can interact with one another
and can promote collaboration [2][3]. Using blog has been claimed to encourage students to write more
thoughtfully [2].

3. Method
The study took place in Khon Kaen University, Thailand, during October to December 2010. Participants
were 30 university students enrolling in a course entitled English for Healthcare Business. The participants
together wrote about 360 drafts and 250 pieces of feedbacks during this project.

3.1. Research Question

The teacher determined the most salient issues related to writing at the university level and found that it
was, What happens to university students attitudes towards writing, quality of a final writing product, and
motivation to write when they participate with peers and teacher in a blogging project related to the essay
writing?

3.2. Research Instruments

3.2.1 Survey on What do you feel to blogging in the writing class?
3.2.2 Pretest/posttest on language usage and essay organization
3.2.3 Essay writing rubric

3.3. Research Procedures

The primary learning outcomes of the project were for the students to write essays (free essay, one
paragraph essay, three-paragraph essay, and five paragraph essay) on given topics. This was accomplished
through the following process for each essay topic:
Step 1 Students were divided to groups of three. Each group set up a blog.
Step 2 Each group discussed the topic with peers in group.
Step 3 Teachers provided instruction on faulty sentences, element of writing, essay structure and etc.
Step 4 Each group developed the outline of the essay.
Step 5 Each student wrote the first draft on his/her blog page.
Step 6 The other two students in the same group and the teacher visited the writing pages of each
member and provided feedback according to the writing rubric given.
Step 7 The first draft was revised.
Step 8 The second/final draft was posted.
Step 9 The cycle was repeated until the deadline approached.

4. Finding
Data analysis revealed three distinct categories according to the research instrument employed. The first
of which was related to attitudes and motivation in essay blogging writing. The second is the improvement of
paragraph writing. The last is on the writing quality including types of errors found from students writing in
both language usage and essay organization.
The following is the result of the survey on attitudes towards blogging in the writing class.
Std.
Statements Mean Mode
Deviation
I like to write e-mail or chat online. 0.612 1.53 2
I like writing on the computer. 0.452 1.74 2
I like receiving feedback from other students. 0.478 1.68 2
I like receiving feedback from the instructor. 0.375 1.84 2

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 I am excited to be notified that someone has posted feedback for my 0.315 1.89 2
writing.
I think writing on computer is more motivating. 0.612 1.53 2
I would like my work to be read and commented by other students. 0.688 1.16 1
I used the feedback. 0.229 1.95 2
I like to make the outline of the essay with other students. 0.692 1.58 2
I think friends make my writing better. 0.478 1.68 2
I did more self-study to prove my friends feedback. 0.513 1.47 1
Std.
Statements Mean Mode
Deviation
I am proud to see my essay online. 0.607 1.42 1a
Blogging makes me become more organized, reliable, punctual and 0.597 1.63 2
responsible.
Fig. 1: The result of the survey on attitudes towards blogging in the writing class.

The survey was administered at the end of the semester. Students were asked to respond to 12 simple
statements about writing with a yes, somewhat yes or no answer. Figure 1 shows all of the questions
that were converted to be affirmative. The result showed that collaborative blogging activity improved
students attitudes, interest, and motivation towards writing. They had a very positive feeling towards the
feedback from their peers and teacher. The feedback received was used by almost all students in this study.
Students reported favourable improvements. It was also found that feedback generated from the collaborative
blogging experience increased students motivation to write. Many students accepted that collaborative
blogging in writing class made them were more organized, reliable, punctual and responsible.
Students essays were assessed by the writing rubric focusing on language usage as well as essay
organization. Here are two drafts of an essay from the same student.
Students pre/post paragraph writing was evaluated by using the rubric. Four rubrics were used by the
instructor, the teacher assistant, and two students. All four rubrics were compared to find the average score in
each evaluated topics (convention, organization, sentence structure, idea/focus and word choice). The
following table presents the results of paragraph improvement.
Writing Pre-test Scores
Evaluated Points
mean mode sd
Convention 2.5 3 .50
Organization 2.5 2 .51
Idea/Focus 2.4 2 .51
Sentence structure 2.4 2 .50
Word choice 2.4 2 .58

Writing Post-test Scores

Evaluated Points
mean mode sd
Convention 3.3 3.5 .64
Organization 3.8 3.5 .45
Idea/Focus 3.4 3.5 .30
Sentence structure 3.5 3.5 .25
Word choice 3.5 3.5 .27
Fig. 2: Paragraph improvement

Convention refers to the editing and revising component of writing (e. g., spelling,
capitalization, paragraphing, punctuation and grammar).
Organization is how thoughts and ideas are put in their place.
Sentence structure is the fluency and variety in use of sentences.
Ideas and content covers presentation of clarity and details in writing on how details are
presented in an interesting and fresh manner.
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 Woord choice iss how well words are chosen
c to make
m the writing commuunicate smo
oothly and
apppropriately.
Studentts demonstraated a clear coherent theesis in their paragraph. Conventions
C were generrally correct..
Word choicce was adequuate. Their sentences
s vaaried in struccture and were generally correct. Theey were ablee
to stick to the
t purpose and provide adequate traansitions am mong ideas. Inn addition, tthey could move
m beyondd
surface undderstanding and
a demonsttrates facilityy with topiccal and disciiplinary knowledge and vocabulary..
Their argumment was fouund logical with
w sound evvidence and references. Finally, the organization n contributedd
T writing was more focused andd supportingg ideas weree adequatelyy
in their parragraph wass effective. The
developed.
First Drraft 1

Fig. 3: Students
S essaay draft 1

Final Draft
D

Fig. 4: Stuudents essay final draft

The wriiting rubric contributed

c d on qualiity of writing
data g. Accordingg to organizaation which is i also a keyy
skill relatedd to writing, the compaarison betweeen the first and final draft
d and froom topic to topic of ann
individual indicated
i thaat the author was facilitatted through the collaboraative activitiies in both cllass meetingg
and via bloggging. The sttudents weree able decreaase errors in language usaage, synthesiize the conteent and graspp
main ideas. In addition,, they could organize thee content off the essays better.
b The nnumber of words
w greatlyy
increased coomparing beetween the fiirst (Figure 2)2 and final draft (Figuree 3) of each topic. The collaborative
c e
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blogging in the writing class enabled development of related skills and knowledge (e.g., typing skill,
negotiation skills, etc.).
Moreover, students exchanged and transferred knowledge and skills in both writing and technology.
Class discussion sessions were benefited from visual literacy as all essays were presented online. There were
fewer problems related to issues of the lodgement, marking and return of student assessment.

5. Discussion
Blogging among student enrolling in the writing class was found a productive and successful project.
Attitudes towards writing improved. Students were highly motivated by both the collaborative writing
activities in class as well as the online. Participants showed strong commitment to the activities throughout
the project, which was not easy to happen in traditional witting class. Besides, writing quality was also
improved in many aspects.
Collaborative blogging had an impact on students writing and development of general learning goals.
The instructor could see that students were more engaged in writing activities.
For teacher developing future blogging projects; however, should consider issues related to time
constraints. Assessment and giving feedback to an essay, both manually and electronically takes time.
Students motivation may drop if the feedback was delayed. Without feedback from peers and teacher,
students had nothing to help improve his/her writing. In addition, clear rubric for peer feedback as well as
feedback giving training must be provided. Students need to be trained how and what to and not to do as a
feedback giver.
In addition, students use of rubric to assess peers writing pointed out that students should be taught
what makes good writing work and how to accurately assess it. They should understand both how to make a
purposeful revision and editing strategies to improve their peers and their own work. At the same time, it is
necessary for the instructor to support learners to have the knowledge, reasoning, and skills needed to help
them improve their own writing.
Last but not least, the collaborative blogging in the writing class project was a proof that technology can
be effective in a classroom when used with a creative and sensible integration as mentioned by Will
Richardson [5] that blogging is a constructivist tool for learning. This cannot be successful, however without
engaging students to self-reflection by keeping track of their learning and sharing. Blogging thus is a
potential tool in writing class.

6. References
[1] S. Baim. Blogs help create learning community. Online Classroom. 2004, August, 2(8): 5.
[2] P. Beeson. Bringing blogs into the classroom. Quill. 2005, August, 93(6): 27-29.
[3] L. C. Ducate, L. L. Lomicka. (2005, Fall). Exploring the blogosphere: Use of web logs in the foreign language
classroom. Foreign Language Annals, 38(3), 410-421Flatley, M. (2005). Blogging for enhanced teaching and
learning. Business Communication Quarterly, 68(1), 77-80.
[4] R. Goodwin-Jones. Tag Clouds in the Blogosphere: Electronic Literacy and Social Networking. Language
Learning & Technology. 2006, May.10 (2): 8-15. (Also online at: http://llt.msu.edu/vol10num2/emerging/ ).
[5] W. Richardson. Blogs, Wikis, Podcasts, and Other Powerful Web Tools for Classrooms. Thousand Oaks, CA:
Corwin Press, 2006.

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