How to promote writing habits among learners of the

department of Educación Continua in the University of

Veracruz

By

DIONISIO ALOR HIBAM IRU

Group: 702

Subject: Principles of Education

Professor: Eugenio Ávalos Ruíz

Index

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

1.1 Question
1.2 Hypothesis

CHAPTER II
FRAMEWORK

2.1 Traditional Education vs. Virtual education

2.1.1 Learner Characteristics
2.1.2 Teacher Characteristics
2.1.3 Interaction
2.2 Virtual Classroom
2.2.1 Material
2.3 Advantages and disadvantage
2.4 Availability of New Courses

CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY

3.1 Questionnaire

BIBLIOGRAPHY
 CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Question

Why learners of the department of Educación Continua in University of Veracruz

do not develop efficiently their writing skill?

Hypothesis

“If learners of the department of Educación Continua in the University of Veracruz

used a wordpress weblog as an educational resource to hold debates, write their

comments, opinions and do activities that promoted the development of their

writing skill using the weblog, they would be more encouraged to practice and

develop their writing skill.

 CHAPTER II
FRAMEWORK
2.1 Traditional Education vs. Virtual Education

Technology finally has taken an important roll in education. However a lot of

teachers and students resist making the change to virtual classrooms. For example

in Wilmorton researches have identified the need to retrain lecturers in the `art and

etiquette’ of managing online learning, but so far only 20 out of 250 teachers have

signed up to their training program, putting a brake on the college’s expansion of e-

courses (Hoare, 2001). If we want to move to the next level which is virtual

education we will have to invest more energy and effort. A mentality change is

needed.

One of the main problems is the human resource because while they resist making

the change the progress and development of education will not be possible. We

are living in a world that is constantly changing and if we do not cooperate with the

change we will not be able to succeed in human progress.

2.1.1 Learner Characteristics

Virtual education requires new skills from learners and teachers. Due to the fact

that nowadays learners where born with technology, it is going to be easier for

them to assimilate the knowledge through ITCs (Information and Communication

Technology). Besides, learners will develop easily the abilities need to interact with

ITCs and make good use of them.

Good virtual learners will feel comfortable with technology. Also they will find it as

the best and most efficient way to learn (Versluis, 2004). Currently a lot of students

prefer consulting e-books than consulting libraries because it is faster. But to be

able to use virtual resources at their maximum potential, students will need to be

efficient at using them. Teachers will have to prepare themselves too because they

will be in disadvantage since they were not born with technology and it is

something completely new for us.

2.1.2 Teacher Characteristics

A lot of training will be required for nowadays teachers to be able to teach new

generations. The fact that students know more about the functionality of ITCs

affects the dynamic of the educational process. Teachers are in disadvantage

before the learners about the knowledge of ITCs and it will take a lot of time and

will require a lot of effort to cover that barrier. The first change that must occur is a

mentality chance. Technology is teachers’ friend and some organizations like

UNESCO has produced a set of guidelines on the use of distance education in

teacher education (UNESCO, 2001). Training will definitely play an important role

in succeeding the upgrade to virtualization of education.

2.1.3 Interaction

The new environment in which education will take place, besides requiring new

abilities, it will provide us with new possibilities of interactions. Of course there are
advantages and disadvantages. When you start using online courses as an

alternative, you lose all the benefits of the face-to-face interaction (Cowan, 2009).

But instead, you win benefits such as breaking time and physical barriers. This fact

completely changes the interaction dynamic and opens a wide range of

possibilities to develop new activities to practice and asses what the students have

learnt.

Virtual interaction removes visual elements as gender, age, ethnicity and social

status. The use of e-mail decreases the level of small talk, and requires a bigger

effort to think about what we are going to express. Written language has its own

advantages (Rogerson 1999).

Moore (1989) proposes three kinds of interaction in virtual classrooms:

1. Interaction between material and student (we would add between material

and teacher)

2. Interaction between student and teacher

3. Interaction among students

2.2 Virtual Classroom

One of the biggest advantages of virtual classrooms is that the space is not a

barrier because students that live far away from the physical institution that offers

the course students are interested in will be able to attend to classes from their
comfortable homes. According to Sherry (1996) distance education involves

“situations when the instructor and student are in separate locations or time.” How

ever we have to warn students because too much comfort might affect their

concentration while taking classes. Students will have to design schedules and be

responsible to accomplish them.

Compared with traditional education models, distance education introduces new

technological and pedagogical elements (Moyo, 2003). That is way teachers have

to be well prepared to face this new environments. At this point virtual education is

not mature enough to depend only on it to transmit knowledge. Traditional

classrooms still have advantages over virtual ones such as human interaction.

Some learners will respond better to stimulus coming from another human being

than they would do responding to an instruction in a machine.

2.2.1 Material

The main resources that virtual education makes use of are e-mail, discussion

groups, online assignments, reading lists and chat rooms. It is not easy to adapt

activities to make them work in virtual environments. These resources were not

created for educational purposes but by the time teachers have been adapting

them. In one hand we know that it is a challenge and soon new generations of

teachers that were born with technology will improve the usage of these resources.

Besides technology is constantly changing and improving its usability to make it

easier for students and teachers to create a more human interaction.

The quality of the material will be a key for virtual programs to succeed (Perraton

and Creed 1999). Again training is needed to learn how to use virtual resources

and achieve any kind of goal in education through the usage of ITCs.

2.3 Advantages and disadvantage

Since space is not a barrier, students that did not have access to courses far from

their cities, online courses will be the solution because they are more accessible

for them. Education will reach a wider area and we will be educating more people

(Singh, 2002). Students will be able to take the hole course as homework and they

will not have the pressure of attending at an specific time to classes.

Institutions such as universities will enable people to study whenever and wherever

they want. Schedules will be more flexible because the students are the ones that

decide when to take their classes. Besides they will be saving money because they

will not have to move from one place to another. Of course Internet has a cots but

it is cheaper than the money they would spent moving from their hometowns.

(Khalil 2001).

One of the most negatives impacts on society would be that students will perhaps

become too dependent on ITCs and social skills would be in danger of being

neglected in favour of Internet “chatting” and other such non-personal

communication and interaction (O'Donoghue, 2001)

2.4 Availability of New Courses

Kerevan (2001) emphasizes that universities will no longer be `academic islands’.

With virtual education universities will be able to offer courses for those with full-

time jobs the opportunity to study, global companies will want to play a part in

buying and organizing education for their employees and universities will be able to

offer this new type of courses through internet.

Technology changes will power the development of more interactive courses,

different market sectors will result benefit from these advances and educational

institutions will have to rethink their entire market and strategies (Graves, 2001)
 CHAPTER III
METHODOLOGY
Questionnaire

Please answer the next questions the most specific and as clearer as you can.

1. Do you have access to Internet service? Where?

2. How many hours do you spent a day surfing the Internet?

3. Describe what do you use internet services for?

4. What websites do you usually visit when you use the internet?

5. What do you use the most for searching information, internet or local libraries
and books that you have access to?

6. How do you feel when you use internet to do your homework?

Very Comfortable ( ) Comfortable ( )

Uncomfortable ( ) Very uncomfortable ( )

7. Do you know what a social network on Internet is? If so, please describe it in
your own words.

8. Dou you have accounts in any of the next internet services? Check as many as
you wish.

Facebook ( ) Blogger ( )
Metroflog ( ) Wordpress ( )
Windows Live ( ) Otros:______________________
Twitter ( ) ___________________________
Youtube ( ) ___________________________
Myspace ( ) ___________________________

9. Have you ever participated in a weblog or online forum commenting, writing

articles or discussing in a topic of your interest? If so, what topic was it?

10. If classes where given through internet, would you be interested in studying that
way?
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