Keywords
Asynchronous, Synchronous, Written composition, Tutoring, Email, Websites, Research universities, Two year colleges, Voice overs, Consulting services
Abstract
Over the past two decades, writing centers have steadily been expanding services and materials they offer online. The way students write and communicate about their writing continues to change, and the writing center has increasingly been looked upon as a site through which technology and writing have the ability to converge in the form of tutoring and collaboration. Given the seemingly exponential expansion of new technologies for content delivery as well as conferencing, the authors wanted to find out to what extent writing centers are taking advantage of these new tools–particularly those tools that seem best matched to the collaborative, dialogic ethos of the brick and mortar writing center. In this article, the authors provide some key terms and define various methods for conducting online consultations. This review should be useful for writing centers interested in understanding current conferencing technology and what technological options are available to them. The authors then share some of the results of the Writing Centers Research Project (WCRP), which in 2006 devoted a special section of its biennial survey to the current state and activity of online writing center operations. Looking at these results, they conclude by pointing out trends and obstacles related to various forms of online tutoring, using survey comments and feedback to posit possible rationale for these findings.
Citation Information
Type of Source: Journal Article
Authors: Stephen Neaderhiser, Joanna Wolfe
Year of Publication: 2009
Title: “Between Technological Endorsement and Resistance: The State of Online Writing Centers”
Publication: Writing Center Journal, Volume 29, Issue 1
Page Range: 49-77