It is a fact that technology has become an indispensable part of our lives. The recommendations of the World Health Organization because of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic surrounding the whole world brings the obligation to continue the education and training activities with distance education systems. Once again, the significance of technology use in education has become abundant. Within the scope of this chapter, applied studies on digital writing, digital micro, and macro-level writing, Web 2.0 tools, digital and automatic feedback in digital writing will be envisaged in line with the 21st century technological educational requirements. In addition, the effective tips to teach basic digital writing through technology integration will be explored while the impact of the information age on the writing discipline will be discussed.
TopIntroduction
Like you, I’m a teacher of writing. We rely on decades of experience from practitioners and researchers who have formulated, implemented, written about, changed, and tried again their ideas about teaching writing in a workshop format. And all of us continue to learn every day what it means to be a teacher of writing as we listen to our students, shape our responses and lessons around their needs, and assess the work that they have completed (Hicks, 2009, p.1).
It is evident that writing habits around the world have changed profoundly due to recent technological developments. Individual writers coexist “everywhere” by means of bulletin boards, chat rooms, e-mails, text messages thanks to the Web 2.0 tools and similar digital tools. People constantly respond to news reports on blogs, and they often share posts on social media. This type of digital writing is called “self-sponsored writing” by Brandt (2017), and she describes it as follows:
A writing that belongs to the writer, not to an institution, with the result that people-students, senior citizens, employees, volunteers, family members, sensible and non-sensible people alike- want to compose and do-on the page and on the screen and on the network- to each other. (p. 2)
Self-sponsored writing provides endless opportunities to write on the internet by using tools such as Myspace, Facebook, twitter, Instagram, Googledocs, multiple blogs, and national media sites. Self-sponsored writing also occurs by uploading photos, videos, and sending posts with descriptions, where writers are not only the creators but also the recipients of the news. While the act of writing has significantly changed in the digital world, it is not always possible to transfer this change into the classroom. Most often, teaching writing is exercised through a conventional pen and paper rather than situating writing as a real-world outcome. Since most of the students are digital natives in today’s digital era, presenting opportunities of novice experiences to these students seems necessary. “It is this type of writing that will define today’s writers and determine their success as communicators once they leave the classroom” (Beaufort, 2007, p. 46).
In parallel with the requirements of self-sponsored writing in the digital era, schools are the places to support students to become the writers of the new age. In order to accomplish these essentials in writing instruction, teachers need to set a balance between conventional teaching methods and modern technological approaches that are brought to classrooms. Furthermore, it is now more crucial to use digital writing tools to be able to pursue teaching and learning since the world is currently going through extraordinary tough days within the context of COVID-19 pandemic. Quite many teachers around the world are now teaching languages from home while aiming to teach all language domains of listening, speaking, reading and writing online at this difficult time. During this challenging time, digitalizing teaching and learning has gained considerable emphasis. In much the same way, internalizing the terms of digital literacy, digital divide and digital equity while referring to educational contexts has become more crucial and challenging for professionals.
What is even more challenging for language teachers is the fact that “most of the students in English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts find writing skills challenging, and they struggle with writing … after being accepted in universities” (Mahmoodi & Buğra 2020, p.151). From another perspective, the students are not just the typical students of the past; but in contrast, they are the digital natives, who know and use the latest technology in their daily lives extensively by self sponsored writing. By this definition, it is vital for the 21st century teachers to know more about these digital natives and the ways they can use technology in their writing classes to improve the efficiency level of their classes (Laborda & Royo, 2007; Yüce, 2020). Therefore, this study is devoted to the 21st century readers and writers by discussing the educational values peculiar to the 21st century writing instruction by answering the following research questions:
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Is digital writing in English better than traditional writing?
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How is writing affected by digitalization in the 21st century across the globe?
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How are digital immigrants affected by digitalization in the 21st century?
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Is there a solution for the aforementioned issues?