Digital performance learning: Utilizing a course weblog for mediating communication

Two sections of university-level technical writing courses were given an authentic task to write an article for publication for an outside stakeholder. A quasi-experimental study was conducted to determine the differences in learning outcomes between students using traditional writing methods and those using social media to generate articles. One section was randomly assigned to follow the traditional writing process using computer-mediated writing and small group peer workshops of paper drafts, while the other section published its work-in-progress on a course blog and engaged in web-mediated online collaboration to determine if there are meaningful differences between computer-mediated and web-mediated writing as measured by learning outcomes in terms of publication rates and grades. The results of this study demonstrate that utilizing an online social network in the form of a course blog positively impacted learning outcomes; however, a close examination of the published peer review feedback on the course blog indicated a moderately negative relationship between the quality of the feedback received and acceptance scores. Thus, the value of the web-mediated workshop was not based on the outcome of the workshop, but rather on having providing feedback, which generated a higher level of engagement and more time spent on task as compared to the paper draft workshop section.