Using

Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Preparing Each Student for the Future: Teaching ELL Students to Write Using a Computer
By now, it is common knowledge that the modern economy requires many workers to
work using a computer and that modern universities require undergraduate and graduate students
to participate in their learning via learn using a computer. In an attempt to align what goes on in
primary and secondary schools with the realities of college and career, 42 US states and several
US territories adopted the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), including California, my state
(Standards In Your State, n.d.). The CCSS call on teachers to teach K-12 students to frequently
communicate via computer rather than by paper and pencil. To make sure teachers teach students
the new CCSS way to communicate, and continue to move students toward the ideals of digital
literacy, state tests test students via computer-adaptive testing (CAT) like the CAASPP on how
well students use a computer to type answers to math and ELA questions displayed on a
computer screen.
However, before elementary ELL students can learn to use a computer to write powerful
English sentences in college or on a high stakes exam in high school, they must learn to use a
computer. The need to learn to use a computer before learning to write using a computer can be a
problem for schools that serve relatively poor communities, like mine. Although Vigdor, Ladd
and Martinez (2014) argue that government and philanthropic support for increasing computer
and Internet access in the home wont necessarily shrink the digital divide between poor
neighborhoods and wealthier neighborhoods, Simoni et al. (2016) counter that poverty
concentrated in certain neighborhoods reliably predicts relatively decreased computer use and
skill among fourth and fifth grade residents of such neighborhoods.

Using Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

Because districts, schools and teachers cannot assume that each student will receive basic
computer training in the home, particularly when that home is located in a relatively poor
neighborhood, the Common Core states (like California, Washington, and Colorado) effectively
require schools and teachers to train students in the basics of computer operation. For example,
The Colorado Department of Education published a guide for the states school districts on
which computer skills must be learned at each grade levels, from turning a computer on to
highlighting text on a screen to discerning the purpose of an online advertisement. Properly
implemented, digital classroom software can help districts, schools, and teachers provide an
environment in which students can gain such basic, necessary skills.
2, 3. Personalized, Computerized Learning: A Work in Progress
Additionally, computer training via regular participation in the digital classroom today
should help enable students to one day stand ready to benefit from the promise of personalized
learning, which will almost certainly be delivered via technological means when it finally
arrives. According to Yildirim et al. (2014), a fully personalized integrated education system, or
PIES, does not currently exist, though PIES helpfully serves as an ideal for education software
developers to aspire to. Instead, there are currently many learning management systems (LMS)
on the market, any of which may be further developed in the direction of PIES. To that end,
Yildirim et al. asked teachers, administrators, and IT staff to evaluate several LMS available
today, and to discuss how each might be improved. Significantly, the researchers concluded from
the opinions of study participants that no LMS could do all that PIES requires, and so each LMS
should be designed to work with every other LMS, so educators might build a digital classroom
from multiple interoperable LMS (p. 734).

Using Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

Building on this prior work, Reigeluth et al. (2015) more precisely described the shape
that PIES should take, and more clearly defined the end that PIES should serve: a paradigm shift
in education. The research paper states: Much has been written about the need for changing the
paradigm of education from the sorting-focused, industrial-age, factory model of schools to the
learning-focused, information-age, learner-centered paradigm, and there is growing evidence that
paradigm change is the only way to significantly improve educational systems for a
postindustrial society (Reigeluth, 2015, p. 460). The shift to a learner-centered paradigm
includes the following changes: (1) [f]rom time-based student progress to competency-based
student progress, (2) [f]rom norm-referenced tests to criterion-referenced tests, (3) [f]rom
standardization to personalization, (4) [f]rom teacher as sage on the stage to teacher as guide
on the side, (5) [f]rom decontextualized content in the disciplines to authentic interdisciplinary
projects, (6) [f]rom students as passive and teacher-directed to students as active and selfdirected learners, and (7) [f]rom teacher planning to a personal learning plan for every student
(Reigeluth, 2015, p. 461).
To help support the emergence of the desired paradigm shift from teacher-centered to
student-centered education, PIES core functions will include recordkeeping for student
learning, planning for student learning, instruction for student learning, and assessment for
(and of) student learning with each function capable of providing support to teachers,
administrators, parents, and students, the four main stakeholder groups of every school or school
system (Reigeluth, 2015, p. 461). PIES will also include secondary functions such as
communication and collaboration, PIES administration, and improvement of PIES that run on
a cloud-based system architecture to allow complete interoperability, modularity, and
customizability (Reigeluth, 2015, p. 481). Above all, the paper envisions PIES as allowing

Using Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

teachers for the first time to truly personalize learning and base student progress on learning
rather than on time (Reigeluth, 2015, p. 488).
4, 5. Google Classroom: Free, Easy to Use, But Not Perfect
As discussed above, there is currently no LMS on the market that has all the features and
functions of PIES, which is presently just an ideal or model for education software developers to
aspire to. But there are four increasingly popular LMS on the market that are being developed
toward the PIES ideal: Moodle, Edmodo, Schoology, and Google Classroom. Because I am
interested in the potential of personalized learning to help ELL students dramatically improve
their ELA skill acquisition, and in the ed-tech industrys development of todays best LMS in the
direction of the PIES ideal, it is worth carefully considering in this paper the strengths and
weaknesses of Moodle, Edmodo, Schoology, and Google Classroom for the purpose of selecting
this fall at least one LMS from which to create a digital classroom dedicated to computer-based
writing instruction.
This is a good time to consider the strengths and weaknesses of various LMS. In a recent
paper, Schaffhauser (2015) discusses how districts all over the country are in the midst of an
LMS evaluation right now, and that this is due to the uptick in student computing, the pursuit
of technology that can simplify the personalization of instruction, a desire to broaden
communication throughout the school community and a craving to use data to guide decisionmaking. Schaffhauser notes that the free program (i.e., Google Classroom) has added to what
teachers are "doing in the classroom, but lacks some of the curriculum features teachers most
want, whereas Schoology appears to fill those gaps. Districts often use one tool for attendance,
another for a gradebook and various programs for classroom-based websites and blogs as they

Using Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

are looking for this one-stop shop kind of thing that's also super intuitive, which they admit is
asking a lot of a platform.
Through interviews of district officials, Schaffhauser suggests analytics and student
information system as critical functions of the ideal LMS from which a school should be able to
create assessments that show us whether students are on the right track or in need of
intervention and then deliver that and identify classes where results are amazing, whose
teachers could deliver professional development to share what's working and what's not.
However, according to Schaffhauser, commercial LMS vendors often promise seamless
integration of functions into an existing LMS, but when it comes down to the actual integration,
it's a nightmare.
Equally current, Rafi and Hanafi (2015) in their paper discuss and compare commercial
LMS like Blackboard and open source (i.e., free) LMS like Google Classroom and argue that
open source LMS are beginning to be seriously viewed as an effective, efficient learning
solution from the student perspective. Further, they recommend that schools should try to learn
from others that have successfully implemented the open source education learning management
systems so that their pupils can experience online learning at the early age. Kelly (2015)
discusses the use of Google Classroom to enable student use of technology to collaborate on
writing, to offer significant feedback to each other, and to provide deeper feedback than
what they initially offered each other; students reported that they spent more time in revision
and that they felt more motivated to revise their work when they engaged peer comments about
it.
Wijaya (2016) conducted qualitative research that shows that Google Classroom users
feel that all the facilities and features provided [are] easy to use, easily accessible in

Using Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

completing tasks, lectures, thus lending support to Rafi and Hanafis argument for open source
over commercial LMS in general, and for Google Classroom in particular. However, Ijtihadie et
al. (2012) experienced difficulty using open source LMS Moodle over unstable network
channel infrastructure or very limited bandwidth, which [is] often seen in developing countries.
Against the reliance on an LMS of any sort, whether commercial or open source, Dalsgaard
(2006) argues for focusing on empowerment of students as opposed to management of
learning and of the need to provide students with a variety of tools for their self-governed and
problem-based activities, and to empower students, offering them tools for independent work,
reflection, construction and collaboration.
Similarly critical of the standard commercial or open source LMS as a critical tool for all
educators, Wang et al. (2002) argue that the non-LMS website Facebook has through its
Facebook groups the potential to be used as an LMS because it has pedagogical, social and
technological affordances, which allow putting up announcements, sharing ideas and resources,
and implementing online discussions, even though it does not support other format files to be
uploaded directly, and the discussion is not organized in a meaningful structure. Also, the
researchers express concern about potential breach of student privacy on Facebook, which is less
of a concern on closed commercial and open source LMS. To use Facebook groups as an
LMS, or LMS substitute, many other factors like sound instructional design, positive teacher
attitude and strong technical support are crucial, without which the potential will hardly be
realized.
5, 6. How Would Google Classroom Work with Writers Workshop?
Because the emergence of the LMS is a fairly new phenomenon in education, the
research on the utility of LMS in general and on specific instances of any LMS in particular, like

Using Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

Google Classroom, is either nonexistent or unsettled. That is, there are reasons to like LMS, and
reasons to not like LMS. Similarly, there are reasons to like Google Classroom, and reasons to
not like Google Classroom. The debate over the value of the LMS in general and of Google
Classroom in particular cannot be resolved in the abstract. Each must be tried. That is, each
district, school, and teacher must make a separate determination about which proposed
technological solution will solve the problems actually faced. This will require experimentation
at the very local level. As far as I can tell from the literature, and from the Internet, no one has
yet tried to use Google Classroom to deliver Writers Workshop writing instruction to ELL
students in order to increase computer-based writing opportunities for ELL students. That is what
I intend to do, and is the subject of the following section of this paper.

REFERENCES

Colorado Department of Education. Common Core State Standards K-12 Technology Skills
Scope and Sequence. (n.d.) Retrieved from
https://www.cde.state.co.us/cdesped/accommodationsmanual_ccss_k12_techscope

Common Core State Standards Initiative. Standards In Your State. (n.d.) Retrieved from
http://www.corestandards.org/standards-in-your-state/

Dalsgaard, C. (2006). Social software: E-learning beyond learning management systems.

European Journal of Open, Distance and e-learning, 9(2).

Using Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

Ijtihadie, R. M., Hidayanto, B. C., Affandi, A., Chisaki, Y., & Usagawa, T. (2012). Dynamic
content synchronization between learning management systems over limited bandwidth network.
Human-Centric Computing and Information Sciences, 2(1), 1.

Kelly, L. B. (2015). You Can't Just Write an Essay in an Hour: Supporting Middle Schoolers'
Peer Feedback and Revision Process through Online Writing Groups. Voices From the Middle,
23(2), 81.

Rafi, A., Samsudin, K., & Hanafi, H. F. (2015). Differences in Perceived Benefit, Use, and
Learner Satisfaction between Open Source LMS and Proprietary LMS.

Reigeluth, C. M., Aslan, S., Chen, Z., Dutta, P., Huh, Y., Lee, D., ... & Watson, S. L. (2015).
Personalized Integrated Educational System Technology Functions for the Learner-Centered
Paradigm of Education. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 53(3), 459-496.

Schaffhauser, D. (2015). 4 Features to Look for in a 21st Century LMS: Two Districts Share
Their Experiences of Choosing a Learning Management System That Does a Lot More Than
Help Teachers Post Assignments. THE Journal (Technological Horizons In Education), 42(4),
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Simoni, Z. R., Gibson, P., Cotten, S. R., Stringer, K., & Coleman, L. O. (2016). Does Place
Matter? The Effects of Concentrated Poverty on the Computer Use of Elementary Students.
Journal of Urban Technology, 1-19.

Using Google Classroom and Writers Workshop to Teach Computer-Based Writing

Vigdor, J. L., Ladd, H. F., & Martinez, E. (2014). Scaling the digital divide: Home computer
technology and student achievement. Economic Inquiry, 52(3), 1103-1119.

Wang, Q., Woo, H. L., Quek, C. L., Yang, Y., & Liu, M. (2012). Using the Facebook group as a
learning management system: An exploratory study. British Journal of Educational Technology,
43(3), 428-438.

Wijaya, A. (2016, February). Analysis of Factors Affecting the Use of Google Classroom to
Support Lectures. In The 5th International Conference on Information Technology and
Engineering Application (ICIBA2016). Bina Darma University.

Yildirim, Z., Reigeluth, C. M., Kwon, S., Kageto, Y., & Shao, Z. (2014). A comparison of
learning management systems in a school district: searching for the ideal personalized integrated
educational system (PIES). Interactive Learning Environments, 22(6), 721-736.