Nick Hadfield

ETEC 532
April 10, 2008

“Writing on Computers: the Struggle to Change and Prove

the Results”
Summary:
The nature of writing has dramatically changed since the personal computer has

replaced our pen and paper writing. Both at school and in the workplace, word-processed

writing has now become the norm for formal communication. Handwriting has been

replaced, and in this new world of communication, both students and teachers are rapidly

trying to adjust. Teachers are trying new teaching methods or participating in pilot

programs introducing greater elements of technology, and students are increasingly using

computers as a daily part of their lives. At university, many professors who have had to

adjust to the rapid increase of students using computers noted that “...it is rare to see

student using pen and paper to take notes” (Jones, 2005).

Frequently referenced in numerous studies is how the “Digital Divide” is

changing both schooling and our society. Computer access is leading to a polarizing of

society into those with access to the advantages of computers and the Internet and those

without. Those with computers have the advantages of increased typing speed,

familiarity with numerous software programs, and access to online knowledge. Those

without access at home are at an unfair disadvantage; with the increasing use of

computers in school to complete assignments, students without access to computers at

home have a much harder time competing. To address this issue, many schools around

the world have started laptop programs to put a computer in each student’s hand and

thereby level the playing field for all. These laptop programs allow researchers to more

easily control variables such as access to computers. Anytime, anywhere access to

computers and Internet allows these students to take full advantage of the technological

benefits. Major studies such as Rockman (2000-2003), have led large computer

companies to seek improvements in academic areas in order to sell more computers.

Consistently their findings report improved motivation and writing quantity, but fail to
show consistent improvements in writing quality or on standardized test scores.

Much of the research that has been conducted on improving students’ writing skills using
computers has been inconclusive. Studies have found that writing on computers
improved the quantity of the students’ writing, but writing improvements do not seem to
transfer to higher standardized test scores. As well, research studies into using concept
mapping, brainstorm webbing and using other forms of graphic organizers have
consistently shown improvements in students’ retention of knowledge as well as their
writing, but their research does not include the use of technology.
In proving the effectiveness of computer use in many of the smaller studies, one of the
challenges is in distinguishing whether the increase in performance is due to writing
instruction or computer use. Smaller qualitative studies that have shown increases not
only in the quantity of student writing, but also in the quality, have also increased the
amount of writing instruction. We would expect that students who receive more
instruction would make increases in performance. Unfortunately, the cost of larger
studies has limited the evidence needed in the area of writing. One of the largest studies
by Rockman et al., funded jointly by Toshiba and Microsoft, was discontinued after four
years when it failed to find the needed improvements in State-standardized test scores.
Research has tried to find correlations between computer use and an increase in writing

proficiency. The use of graphic organizers such as concept mapping has been shown to

increase the retention of knowledge in students. With the growing number of computer

graphic organizers such as CMap, Bubbl.us, or Thinkature, designed to ease the use of

brainstorm webs and concept maps, research needs to find its effectiveness. Since both

studies have separately shown improvements to student performance in different areas,

the combined use of computerized graphic organizers with a Writers Workshop approach

using computers should demonstrate the missing pieces needed to show growth on

standardized tests.

Part 1: Background.

Digital Divide:

As computers have become more effective writing tools, their use in daily society

has greatly increased. From checkout cashiers to sports writers, many jobs in our new

digital society require a wide variety of computer skills. Students from economically
advantaged families experience much more access to computers than their poorer

counterparts and enjoy many more of the benefits that our increasingly technological

society has to offer. They come to view computers as an integral part of their lives and as

a useful tool that makes their work easier. While engaged in regular school academics,

students who use computers for much of their learning have the benefit of using the same

skills that they will need to succeed in the workforce: “...tools for writing, conducting

research, simulating problems, manipulating formulae, making presentations, and

organizing information” (Rockman, 2003, p. 25). Economically advantaged students

therefore, may view school as a long apprenticeship for their future careers.

Conversely, economically disadvantaged students “...do not have easy access to

computers, powerful software tools, and the Internet. As a consequence, as these students

move through school, they get further and further behind” (Hounshell et al, 2002, p. 101).

Even when students who have limited access do get temporary access to computers, they

don’t feel that they “...helped much in improving their grades or helping them to learn

more” (Hounshell et al, 2002, p. 103). Without daily access to computers to reinforce

technology skills, computers may be seen as one more thing to learn about instead of a

tool to make their work easier. If you can write thirty words per minute by hand but only

type fourteen, then computers will most likely be viewed negatively. Students without

daily computer access not only leave school without the same set of skills for the

workforce, but also have very different views about the nature of computers.

Possible Solutions:
Several programs both at the school level as well as those sponsored

internationally have begun to address this growing issue. Laptop programs have been

introduced world-wide to address the issue of the growing “Digital Divide”.

 School districts have continued to pour money into buying increasing numbers of

computers for their schools; “…The ratio of students to computers has dropped

dramatically from 125:1 in 1983 to 9:1 in 1995, 6:1 in 1998, and 4:1 in 2002(Education

Week, 2003; Market Data retrieval 1999)” (Russell et. al., 2004, p. 322 ). This rapid

decrease in the ratio of students to computers is also confirmed by the National Center for

Education Statistics (Kleiner and Laurie, 2004):

 Ratio of public school students to instructional computers with Internet

access: 1998–2002

With this increased funding, , it is now common for students to have access to several

school computer labs as well as computers in their classrooms. So while students are at

school, the problems of equal access to computers is rapidly declining.

Laptop programs in their various forms have also increased in schools to address

the issue of equal access. Both small-scale programs as well as large ones that “have

placed laptops in the hands of tens of thousands of students” (Rockman, 2003, p. 24),

have risen as laptops have become increasingly cheaper to build and more inexpensive

for schools to buy en masse. “In 1996, approximately 50 schools in the United States

piloted laptop computing programs. Five years later, more than 100,000 students and

teachers at more than 800 public and private schools are using notebook computers in the

classroom” (Sahl and Windschitl, 2000, p. 4). The “One Laptop per Child” program

wants “to help make education for the world’s children a priority, not a privilege” (OLPC,

2008) by selling and donating $200 USD laptops to developing countries. Through the

various types of laptop programs, students are all given an opportunity to develop the

technology skills needed to succeed in the modern world.

Part 2: The Changing Nature of Writing

Writing Attitudes:

Our students’ writing ability has long been a concern of both parents and teachers

alike. Students view writing activities both at school or at home negatively (Dixie, 1996,
p. 50). Parents are also not setting a good role model for their children when it comes to

writing, "Only 13% of the parents surveyed had a strong interest in writing, while 74%

were sometimes interested" (Capretz, 2003, p. 13). So while parents expect their children

to become proficient writers, they apparently do not model the expected behaviour. With

parents’ interest in their own writing waning, "ninety-five percent of children indicated

that they did not write regularly in journals" (Capretz, 2003, p. 14).

Many students find school writing assignments very challenging due to the

complex skills required. In order for students to write well, they must have creative

ideas, correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, and have some sort of unique voice to their

writing (BC Performance Standards, 2002). Because of the wide variety of necessary

skills, it should come as no surprise that students would take advantage of opportunities

to compensate for some of these areas. For example, because many students find it

difficult to come up with a writing idea, "thirty-nine percent of the students prefer to be

given a topic from the teacher," and "42% of students stated that it was difficult to create

an idea for writing” (Colatone, 1998, p. 20). Computer software programs allow students

to compensate for poor spelling and grammar skills. Microsoft Word, Open Office Writer

or Online authoring software can automatically fix many of the common spelling and

grammatical errors. Therefore, as long as the student can type as fast as they can print or

handwrite, writing assignments using a computer should be a much more enjoyable

experience for the student.

The Writing Process:

Although the primary medium of writing has changed in the workforce from

handwriting to word-processing, the way that writing is taught in school largely remains

unchanged. Students are still taught to draft out their ideas, make changes, check for
spelling and grammatical errors, and finally publish their final copies to hand in for

marks. This same process still continues today with various blends of when the students

start typing out their work on the computer; students may begin their first drafts on the

computer, or may only type out their final copies on the computer. Frequently this model

of instruction is taught with mini-lessons to provide the instructional skills that students

will need to complete their assignments (Atwell, 2002).

The use of graphic organizers to provide a structure for student learning has

rapidly gained attention over the last twenty-five years. The use of Concept Maps to

display ideas and the relationships between them in the form of a picture or a map

(Trochim, 1989), brainstorm webs, Sociograms, or many others, has given students a tool

to organize their ideas. Instead of students having to think linearly from start to finish

about their writing assignment, students are encouraged to get all their ideas down on a

page, and then organize them into a structure. Novak and Gowin (1984) suggest that

concept maps be drawn "free-hand" after an initial articulation of the major ideas and

classification of them into hierarchical concepts. This structuring of ideas into a logical

flow is an essential skill needed in writing essays. Students need to collect their ideas,

research and collect information, determine needs and resources, and finalize a plan of

action. Unfortunately, while research confirms the usefulness of using graphic

organizers, few teachers always use them, and only 65% sometimes found them useful to

students.

Research around the use of graphic organizers is very positive about their academic
benefits for students. Graphic organizers allow students to better structure their ideas and
separate main ideas from trivial facts, "The students' ability to focus on the main idea
changed from 80% to 95%" (Capretz, 2003, p. 40). Also noted in this study was that
graphic organizers “played a major role in student achievement in the areas of focus,
support, and organization" (p. 40), and that students were able to take their ability to
create graphic organizers and apply them to different subject areas.
Part 3: Changes to Teaching:

Computers in the Classroom:

The increasing numbers of computers in the classroom requires teachers to use

different methods of teaching. With the growing use of the Internet at school, teachers’

knowledge in comparison is greatly dwarfed. The teacher is replaced as the sole provider

of knowledge to pass on to the students, and instead must act as a coach to shape and

guide their learning. Many teachers find this adjustment to their teaching very

challenging. The students who have grown up with computers and daily access to the

Internet “are far ahead of their teachers in computer literacy” (Richardson, 2006, p. 6).

The students are “Digital Natives,” whereas the teacher is a “Digital Tourist”

(Richardson, 2006, p. 6). Teachers don't multi-task as well as their students, and “the

tools of the online world are rarely used personally or in the classroom” (Richardson,

2006, p. 7). Teachers therefore try to mesh older teaching methods with technology in

hopes that it will meet both needs.

Through Internet content providers such as Wikipedia and Britannica online, as

well as through search engines like Google, students have access to thousands of pages of
information on their desired topic of study. The teacher’s role has now changed from
lecturing about various topics of study to helping the students focus their studies and
learning about their topic as they collect their research. This “…co-construction of
knowledge among teachers and students” (Sahl and Windschitl, 2000, p. 4) is a very
different model than the traditional lecture from an expert. Much greater emphasis is
placed on the student to engage in the learning in this new model of teaching. Students
“...have to monitor their own progress, identify the tools and resources they need to use,
and know when to seek help” (Rockman, 2003, p. 27). The teacher guides and checks
progress, but it is the student’s responsibility to gather the needed knowledge.
Much greater effort needs to be paid to teacher training and professional

development with specific focus on how to teach with computers. Even if teachers are

technologically proficient, many lack the understanding of how the various tools of

technology can be incorporated into their existing classroom structure, and perhaps most
importantly, few are able to envision how technology can facilitate new and more

sophisticated learning activities (Sahl and Windschitl, 2000, p. 5). Teachers may learn a

few computer activities to incorporate technology into their teaching, but not the radical

change of transforming their teaching; they will still teach from the same model as they

were taught.

Computer Writing Successes:

There has been a great deal of research into trying to prove that computers

improve students` writing skills. Large companies like Toshiba and Microsoft that

sponsor computers in school have an economic interest in the results. They stand to

make a lot of money from the various provinces, states, and school boards, if they can

demonstrate that computers will be a quick fix to raise students` standardized test scores.

Although research has consistently proven that students write more and have greater

motivation, it does not show increased performance on standardized tests or that students`

writing is qualitatively better.

When students engage in writing on computers, there is an overall rise in

motivation. Many teachers have noted that when students use computers, they have

“...greater research skills, improved writing skills, interest in school and greater self-

confidence” (Lowther, 2001, p. 8). Similarly, Trimmel and Bachmann (2004) found that

students in a laptop program “showed a higher level of learning interest and cooperation”

(p. 156). Since, for many of the students, much of their after school activities involve

using computers for chat, email, or web surfing, using computers comes very naturally to

this new generation of students. Lowther (2001) found that as a result of using

computers, “teachers indicated that students produced higher quality work and had more

self-confidence, greater enthusiasm, increased depth of knowledge, and were more

engaged with other learners” (p. 8). The learning environment changes with the

introduction of computers; students take greater responsibility over their learning and

develop greater understanding. As student motivation and engagement increases, the

time students spend writing also increases (Russell et. al., 2004, p. 327).

The culture of writing also changes as students adapt to writing on computers.

“As students learn to take advantage of computer for writing, their writing strategies

change—revisions in real time become easier and accepted as a normal part of the

process” (Rockman, 2003, p. 25). Students become more flexible learners and come to

see their writing as an on-going process that is improved by continual revisions instead of

a one-shot finished product. Computers allow students to quickly edit and revise their

work, whereas changes made to a paper and pen assignment are viewed as long and

laborious. Russel et. al. (2004) argues that teaching writing has progressed quickly

because computers have allowed students to become much more efficient and their work

to look “…aesthetically pleasing…”(p. 323). Rockman (2003) also found that students in

laptop programs seem to be better learners as they tend to take “notes while they read,

underlining or highlighting main ideas, writing together with other students, re-reading

papers before turning them in, and using information from a variety of sources”

(Rockman, 2003, 27). Students in laptop programs also see computers as their “primary

writing tool” (Russell et. al., 2004, p. 322).

An increase in the amount that students write is also frequently noted in research

studies. Russel et. al. (2004) wrote that the “volume of writing has increased in all areas

of the curriculum” (p. 323). The increase in the volume is noted by Rockman (2003, p.

27) who found that students` writing was also “qualitatively better” (p. 27). However,

Rockman (2003) also states that they have difficulty tying laptop use to an increase in

performance on standardized tests (p. 27). So while teachers consistently report

improvements in the quality of students` writing, these findings fail to register as

improvements on standardized tests.

Standardized Testing
A major obstacle to proving the effectiveness of computer use on writing is the

structure of standardized tests. Students who have received instruction using computers

are then expected to write their standardized tests by hand. These students who have

experienced increased motivation, have written longer and higher quality pieces of

writing using computers and have had the advantage of grammar and spell check

programs, are then expected to handwrite for hours to complete the tests. With this

mismatch of instruction to testing, it is no wonder that results have not shown the

improvements that Toshiba, Microsoft and others would have liked.

The challenge for educators now is to provide instructional strategies that will
transfer easily between classroom use and standardized tests. Using graphic organizers to
help structure and organize information is perhaps one of the best candidates to bridge
this learning gap. Graphic organizers, such as concept mapping, help students to identify
important information, arrange it in some type of hierarchy, and provide a form for
writing paragraphs and essays. Breaking down writing skills into smaller and smaller
parts matches with the structure of standardized tests. The typical five-paragraph essay
that appears on many high school tests is very easy for students to structure using
brainstorm webs and concept mapping.
Students who use many software-based or online graphic organizers to
continually organize their information and structure their ideas should be able to transfer
these skills to their written work. So while grammar and spell checking, the ability to
make “changes on the fly,” or typing speed will have no net gains on their standardized
test scores, the ability to structure their ideas should transfer from computer to written
test. The continual use of concept mapping to analyze concepts and break them into
smaller pieces, and finally organize them into a logical sequence should enable students
who have completed most of their writing assignments on computers to still demonstrate
their proficiency on structured written tests.
Some standardized tests have started to include increasing amounts of technology.

The British Columbia Foundation Skills Assessment test as of the 2008 school year has

included a large online component to their testing. In this situation, many of the tested

students, especially the grade four students, had never taken a test on a computer. This
mismatching of teaching to evaluation put undue pressure on the students who were

expected to perform tasks that they had not been prepared for. We can expect that as

standardized tests become more integrated with technology, students with greater

computer skills such as those in laptop programs, will perform much better than those in

more traditional programs.

Part 4: Conclusions:

With millions of dollars spent each year on providing computers for student use,

there is a strong incentive for schools, school districts, and states/ provinces to prove their

worth. We observe in the students increased motivation, quantitatively longer writing

pieces, and an increase in learning skills like collaboration and peer-editing, but fail to

find the correlation between computer use and standardized tests results. Writing is

frequently found to be longer when students use computers, but qualitative improvements

to their writing are inconsistent.

Graphic organizers continue to show positive results for student learning and help

them to achieve greater understanding of the concepts to be learned, but have yet to be an

integral focus of a large-scale computer-writing study. Perhaps a study of how computers

can improve writing using a combination of software graphic organizers such as CMap,

Bubbl.us or Thinkature.com, with Writers Workshop lessons, will be able to consistently

document improvements to the quality of student writing both from teachers and on

standardized tests.

The issue of documenting how computers can improve student writing is very concerning
for educators. With the realization that much of the writing that students will do
following their high-school education will be word-processed, educators increasingly
incorporate computer use with writing instruction, even without the improvements to
state and provincial standardized tests. These tests that are supposed to document student
learning and compare it to a larger norm to establish overall trends are failing to reflect
our technology-based methods of writing. Hopefully with the addition of technology-
based graphic organizers and the increased use of technology in standardized testing,
research into writing on computers will finally find consistent evidence of writing
improvements. Moreover, with this problem finally resolved, research can then turn to
focus on documenting which technology-based instructional methods best improve
student writing.
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Alexander De Cosson, I realize that I have continued on my Literature review and

expanded my ideas. However since the Literature review assignment was so small, and I
had accomplished so much at that time, I found it easier to do most of the work for this
paper immediately, and then just polish it up for the final assignment. Hope you like it,
even though I am WAY over on words!