Writer’s bloc: An online, real-time communal writing platform for enhancing writing pedagogies

Writer’s Bloc is an online communal writing platform for enhancing writing-based pedagogies in the physical and digital classrooms. Currently a prototype, this project will focus on developing Writer’s Bloc into a fully featured version, hosted by UBC IT Services. This online tool, based on a web framework and using methodologies from natural language processing, will be a platform for in-class writing, enabling immediate feedback or discussion of writing in a collective context. Its purpose is to motivate an attentiveness to shared disciplinary language, allowing students to take up positions as readers and writers in academic communities. In the long term, it is expected that Writer’s Bloc will be utilized widely to more effectively integrate writing pedagogies into the classroom, enriching the quality of education particularly in large or online courses.