Stephen Hill
Institute of Education, University of London
Higher education institutions in the UK, and abroad, are increasingly looking to e-Learning as a means of broadening potential education provision to an ever growing distant student population. The increased use of e-Learning software within higher education provision has been accompanied by a growing amount of research as to the pragmatic aspects of the software (e.g. Chatterton, 2012), the student and teacher technological competence required in the online environment (e.g. Collier et al. 2004; Bower, 2011) and interest in pedagogic practice suited to the specific online learning environment (e.g. De Freitas and
Neumann, 2009; Anderson et al. 2006; McBrien and Jones, 2009).
This report details the experience of transferring a face-to-face writing support class in UK higher education to an online real time environment. This report provides a brief reflective look at the pedagogic design decisions that went into the movement of this particular face-to-face class to an online real time environment.
This implementation study was based in the Academic Writing Centre (AWC) of the Institute of Education (IoE), University of London. The Academic Writing
Centre provides academic support for students studying at the IoE in the form of teacher led non-credit bearing face-to-face classes that are based on the needs of graduate students studying education (or social research) related topics (e.g. Masters in Comparative Education, Masters in Bilingual Learners etc.).

Classes within the AWC are usually 2 hours per session, are typically comprised of a maximum number of 16 students 1 , and cater to both home and international students. Students coming to the AWC are often looking for an informal, encouraging environment that will support them in their writing for assessment and the AWC course curriculum reflects this need (i.e. many of the
AWC courses have been created to align with assessment criteria for written assignments). Teachers within the AWC often look for opportunities to draw parallels with students’ programmes of study through activities that involve discussion (often in small groups e.g. 2 or 3 students) and writing (often given for homework with subsequent feedback provided).
After receiving ethical approval, students were recruited for the implementation study through approaching current face-to-face AWC students. In total seven students chose to participate in the study. As the implementation study occurred in the spring the number of students involved was not dissimilar to a normal AWC class. These students were made aware that while they would be participating in an actual AWC class with an AWC teacher, that the class formed a part of research, and that they would be asked to participate in a focus group following the online class to determine what they felt was helpful and what they thought did not work very well. The faceto-face class that was taught online involved instruction on how to use sources in academic writing (an important criterion in writing for assessment at the
IoE). The online class was meant to be as similar as possible to a face-to-face
AWC class.
The e-Learning platform that was used for the online writing class was
Blackboard Collaborate. Within the JISC e-Learning initiative, Chatterton (2012) provides an extensive and insightful overview of the main features (e.g. the
Webtour), necessary training, and potential pedagogy associated with this learning platform.
1 The number of students attending AWC classes often depends on the time of the year that the course is offered. Classes in the autumn term are more popular than classes in the spring or summer terms as students have less time to spend on non-accredited work in the spring and summer as their research projects become more intensive.

Commentary
In Table 1.0 the lesson syllabus is presented. Table 1.0 is broken down into the individual topics (or elements) within the lesson, the pedagogic purpose associated with the topic, and how these were realised comparatively in the face-to-face and the redesigned online lesson. The accompanying PowerPoint slides are those that were embedded into Blackboard Collaborate. Individual slides are referred to by slide number.
Table 1.0 Lesson syllabus
Syllabus topic Pedagogic purpose Face-to-face class
What happened
Commentary
Introduction to the use of sources in academic writing
Feedback
To give an overview of source use and academic writing and to highlight two important aspects – the why and the how of source use, to permit students to conceptualise the remaining content of the lesson
To permit students to compare their ideas in the first activity with those as expressed in the books by Neville
(2007) – why you cite, and Pears and Shields
(2010) – how you cite.
In the face to face class the
AWC teacher simply spoke about these two aspects of source use while holding the two books in Slide 5.
Students were encouraged to offer their ideas. Ideas were written (by the teacher) on the whiteboard under the headings of why you cite and how you cite.
The teacher handed out copies of the books to students which they shared in small groups (about three per group). Students discussed and made notes of anything that they wanted to discuss as a group.
Online class
What happened
In the online class a shared visual was created (Slide 3). The teacher uses the audio function to discuss why you cite and how you cite.
Students are encouraged to write their ideas on Slide 4 under the headings why you cite and how you cite. Students were encouraged to
‘raise their hand’ (using the raise hand icon) if they had problems.
Webtour (see Chatterton, 2012), slide 5. Students have partial access to this book online through websites like Amazon. They were shown parts of the book and made notes of anything that they wanted to discuss as a group.
In the face to face class this activity served to create an informal atmosphere where students could offer their opinions. The reduced sense of co-presence in the online class made this initial activity
‘colder’. Within the online class the teacher made potential suggestions that could go under each heading.
The lack of visual co-presence meant that the teacher had to explicitly ask students to identify problems.
The nature of this activity created the necessity of a teacher led group activity for the online version.
Webtours in small groups are not possible with Blackboard
Collaborate. The online version also restricted students to a partial version of the book. The ensuing

Exploratory reading
Guided reading
To raise awareness of the citation conventions of APA and MLA. To encourage students to read in detail.
To raise awareness of policy documents concerning plagiarism.
In class students used laptops (with wifi connections) to look through the online guidelines to APA and MLA (Slide 6). They created 3 questions (Slide 7) that they then asked a partner. They reported their success (or lack of) to the group.
In class students read the first five points of the policy document (Slide 8). A group discussion of these points followed.
In the online class students looked at the APA and MLA website (Slide 6), though opening a new browser window and created 3 questions to ask a partner (Slide 7). They asked their partner questions in a breakout room (see Chatterton, 2012). They reported their success (or lack of) to the group.
In the online class students read the same five point of the policy document on the website (Slide 8). A group discussion of these points followed. Students were asked to
‘think aloud’ while they read in the chat facility.
Homework To encourage students to link AWC session content to programme content.
In class students received the homework on a sheet of
A4 paper (Slides 9 and 10).
Their findings were discussed in the next class.
In the online class students could download the PowerPoint slides
(Slides 9 and 10). Their findings were discussed in the next class. class discussion was lively in both environments. Some of the second language students in the online class chose to participate through the chat facility.
The creation of learning spaces (e.g. whole group, smaller groups) was difficult in the online classroom. In the face-to-face classroom small group work, and working with partners, maintained the presence of the teacher (as the whole room is shared). The teacher could not simultaneously be co-present in each breakout room.
The guided reading task was quite similar between the face-to-face class and the online version. As the teacher could not see the students while they read online, they were asked to ‘think aloud’ as they read.
These points were then addressed in the group discussion.
The homework exercise was similar in the face-to-face and online version.

From the focus group the following points that were highlighted by students and that are relevant to pedagogy and pedagogic design were:
1) The lack of visual co-presence meant that the teacher continuously asked for an explicit visual cue (the raised hand icon) to signal that everyone understood. Some students felt that the teacher did this too often and that this was distracting.
2) Students being placed in breakout rooms felt isolating (likely as in a faceto-face class group work still takes place in the co-presence of others).
3) Students with a second language appreciated the opportunity to interact within the class using writing (the chat facility).
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