First Day Reflections

Writing Skills and CALL Treatment at GDC(Boys) Havelian
Week 1 Reflections
Day 1

I am working on a research project regarding the impact of using CALL Online Tools on the writing ability of college students. The pilot phase of the project is over. Now an intensive one month CALL treatment is being given to the experimental group.Class size has been kept to  a minimum(10 students) in view of the many issues related to managebility,power outage and availability of internet in the college.

The participants (subjects) of the study are using  six online tools to develope their writing skills.These tools are:
1.Penzu  an online digital diary or journal      Penzu
2.Nicenet: Internet Classroom Assistant        Nicenet
3.Blogger: Blogging platform                        Blogger
4.Wiggio: Public sharing portal                    Wiggio
5. Electronic mail
6. TodaysMeet                                             TodaysMeet

The 4-week intensive course is being conducted using both offline(face-to-faace interaction) and online (virtual environment) interaction. Experimental Group attend a face-to-face session during which they are given instructions on sub-skills of writing.In the college CALL Room they are given OJT(On job training) about the many online tools.
Tasks and assignments are set for virtual interaction from home.
Observation
Students take interest.Tey are comfortable with technology.Problems are there yet tey are managebale.Power outage is a problem.Computer hardware problems are also there.We are also facing anothet problem:less number of computers are in working condition.
Implications
Students have to take turns on the computers.Majority of the technical problems have to be fixed by the English Language Teacher.It means if we want to teach language using CALL tools,we (English Teachers) need to be skilled in tackling technical problems too.