Abstract:

Writing is a key ability for academic and personal life. In higher education, writing has been proved as a powerful instrument to boost reflection and learning. However, fostering writing among university students is not always included in the syllabus and students struggle when they have to write demanding texts, such as argumentations. Furthermore, although using virtual environments has advantages, such providing a free access and self-regulation of time to students, not many open-access tools are available.

In this paper we present an educational intervention to foster writing as a learning tool. Our educational intervention is based on two tools that are implemented at University of Cantabria. On the one hand, a writing lab, with two elements: a virtual training on argumentative synthesis for the Moodle platform and materials to promote writing as a learning tool. On the other hand, a plugin to extract and analyse information on how students use the resources in the Moodle course.

Our project is a part of a broader Erasmus + project called ORWELL, which its main objective is supporting digital writing competences in higher education: https://orwellproject.eu/.

The main objectives of our subproject are:
- Create an online intervention to support students on how to write argumentative syntheses independently.
- Provide materials to encourage employing writing as a though tool.
- Create a Moodle Plugin and implement it to collect data about students' usage of the platform.

All the materials created for the Writing Lab have been implemented in the Moodle platform of the bachelor of Infant Education and Primary Education from the University of Cantabria. The writing lab consists of an intervention, videos and resources to motivate students to improve their writing by informing on its importance. Besides, the plugin to analyse the usage and behaviour of students in Moodle will provide information on which the resources they access, the time that they spend doing the tasks, the order they follow, etc.

The project is still in progress. For the moment, 65 students have completed the intervention on how to write argumentative synthesis. The intervention consists of an instructional video about the process and a practice guided by questions and graphic aids during which they will write an argumentative synthesis based on two new texts previously read. In addition to the intervention, students perform a pre-test and an initial and final satisfaction questionnaire. The preliminary results indicate that students are satisfied with the intervention.

The first version of the plug-in has been implemented in the Moodle of University of Cantabria and we will analyse and contrast data in the next few months.

The material developed in this subproject will be translated into Italian and English so more students will benefit from this work. We hope our results will allow us to share materials for fostering writing as a learning tool at higher education.

Keywords:

Erasmus Project, writing, e-learning, university.