Language and Learning in ‘The Late Age of Print’: Situating a Web-Based Essay Writing Project

In 1999, the Language and Learning ,Services Unit at Monash embarked on a ‘Strategic’ Innovations’ project aimed at providing online web-based learning to students. One of the main components of the project has been the creation of a series of online tutorials in a range of a~emic skill areas. This paper provides a description and. a critique of one of the first . tutorials developed -an (lssay ‘Writing tutorial. In evaluating this resource, our aim is to give a sense of the processes of learning and reflecting we have been engaged in on the project and also to situate these within broader debates about the new technologies and their impact on . language and learning. practices. We shall argue that the success of web-based language and learning resources is contingent on recognising the implications both textual and pedagogical of the technology used. The Language and Learning Services Unit (LLS) at Monash, like many of!1er academic support units at Australian universities, has in recent years begun to adapt its practices to the exciting, but also sometimes daunting; world of the online technologies. In 1999, the Unit was fortunate to be the recipient of a generous Strategic Innovations Fund (SIF) grant from the Univt:rsity and embarked on a project designed to provide an ,electronic gateway to our services and resources,theQnline Student Resource Centre. One of the main components of the project has been the provision of online web-based learning for students who are unable to draw on the benefits of face-to-face academic skills teaching. This has mainly involved the creation of a series of o~etutorials in a range of academic skills areas including: essay writing; report writing; lecture listening I;II1d notetaking; academic reading; seminar presentations and grammar.! In the present paper we provide a description and a critique of one of the first tutorials developed the essay . writing tutorial Tutoria/slWriting!writing.html).2 For most of us at LLS, the reconceptualisation of our work for an online environment has represented a significant challenge, one requiring a good deal of learning and re-orienting of our thinking. Our aim in what follows is to situate these reflections within broader debates about the new educational technologies and their impact on language and learning practices. In relation to the specific learning resource described here the essay writing tutorial we shall argue that, whilst· the materials have the. advantage of being widely accessible to students, their online effectiveness may be constrained somewhat by certain difficulties we found in attempting to translate modes of classroom instruction to the new environment. We argue further that the design of any future web-based learning .. materials n(leds to take into account the special ‘modular’ structure that characterises the key technology of hyPer,text., . AN ESSAY WRITING TUTORIAL Of the range of language and academic skills teaching the Unit is engaged in, clearly it is the teaching of essay writing and related .skills that occupies most of our energies and resources. Whilst the essay as a genre is more integral to certain discipline areas (i.e. the humanities and social sciences), a recent survey of writing requirements across the university (Moore & Morton, 1999) found that this assignment type continues to be the main generic currency in a majority of subject specialisations. The development of a set of online essay writing materials with broad applicability was thus a priority for the project. A benefit of our work as language advisers is that the needs of our students are well understood. We know for example that students have difficulty with understanding and critiquing references, with interrogating assignment topics, with structuring their work. With the online environment, though, it was necessary to imagine a variety of students all at different points in their progress. The same personalised attention could not be given. The ‘attention’ itself had to be different. Increased student access was clearly an advantage, but to what?