Chapter 7 (Planning Tips) of Warschauer et al.suggests a list of teacher tips for their coordinating of online projects. These tips are helpful for both one-class projects and multi-class projects. The access to computer and the Internet provide means of communication for the group members and the teachers as well. E-mail accounts and web-based groups can be established for communication. In the one-class projects, given that the IT resources available are limited, students can still do the projects by spending more time on off-line preparation. As for multi-class projects, teachers can establish teaching teams, and find partners with similar approaches, and help students with the online communication.
Although these tips are proved to be beneficial by some studies, it may cause problems if put in another context. One of the main problems with the communication is that the students may not have sufficient time for their individual communication. Most ESL/EFL students in Hong Kong or in the Mainland are occupied with other in-class activities and homework, and thus may not be able to do the project at home. In this regard, I believe that it could be a solution to have the students discuss over the project on a separate session. Project groups are formed and tasks are assigned to each group member. After the session, these students can work independently on information collection and website designing.
Another problem may occur when the students encounter difficulties in the correct use of English language. The challenge for the students would be the difficulties to express themselves clearly and correctly in English. Thus, the projects they prepare would turn out to be either the copying of readily available articles online, or their own writing with a lot of errors. This will impede the whole project as teachers have to deal with grammatical errors in the first place. Therefore, I suggest that the challenging project can be replaced with the less difficult online discussion over a certain easy topics. The students post their threads on a forum, for example, will provide the learners a chance for exchanging ideas and learn language. The teacher’s role in this activity will be the coordinating and facilitating of communication.
Link to Warschauer(2003) Chapter 7
http://web.archive.org/web/20080304005803/exchanges.state.gov/education/engteaching/ifettips.htm
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Thanks for a thoughtful reflection. The problem of accuracy that you mention could perhaps be solved by focussing on accuracy at some point. For example, students could be asked to complete drafts before sharing their work online, perhaps also commenting on peers' work. I think it is the role of the English teacher to provide guidance on how to construct projects accurately, without copying from web sources (it would also be good for students to learn how to appropriately incorporate such sources into their work).
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