background

• Integrate new forms of technology in language-learning classrooms
• Enhance learning
• Equip students with the technological and collaborative tools to prepare them for future academic and professional contexts.

Purposes

• investigate student attitudes towards doing various language-learning tasks on Google apps
• explore some of the advantages and limitations of using Google apps as a cloud-based collaborative tool.
• investigate student behaviours while collaborating on Google apps

Method

• Survey and Interview
• 31 participants
• Pre-U level EAP courses

Method

• Students' perception on using 4 Google Apps: Sheets, Slides, Doc, Form
• Students to do various language learning tasks
• Field notes based on observations of one in-class task were also analysed to investigate student behaviours while collaborating

Result

• Participants reported advantages of collaborating on Google apps such as ease of use, working together from different places, and being able to give feedback online.
• In regards to behaviours, participants showed a tendency to divide their work while collaborating.

Limitation & Implication

• Initial problems encounters, problem collborating online using the 4 apps to write an essay, & Technicals
• Learning curve - Practice needed; Different writing styles and ideas; internet speed, connection, etc.

Objectives

• 1) investigate student attitudes towards doing various languagelearning tasks on Google apps,
• 2) explore some of the advantages and limitations of using Google apps as a cloud-based collaborative tool, and
• 3) investigate student behaviours while collaborating on Google apps.

Scope

• Instead, this study sought to investigate some of the benefits and possible limitations of using four different Google apps from a student-user perspective, and to investigate how Google apps as an online collaborative tool can possibly change the way students work together in the language classroom.

Literature Review

1. TAM

Technology Acceptance Model and Google Apps’ Ease of Use

• Attitudes towards Technology Acceptance Model (TAM).
• The TAM is a model used to explain why users accept different information systems based on perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use (Davis, Bagozzi, & Warshaw, 1989).

Definition

• Davis et al. define perceived usefulness as the belief a user has that a “specific application system will increase his or her job performance”, and perceived ease of use as being the extent to which the “user expects the target system to be free of effort” (1989, p. 985).

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• The TAM can be a useful framework to evaluate students‟ perceptions of using collaborative online technologies like Google apps.
• Perceived ease of use and perceived usefulness influenced student attitudes towards Google apps in a project-based learning environment (Cheung & Vogel, 2013), and influenced students‟ intention to use Google apps for a platform-based personal learning environment (Rejón-Guardia et al, 2019).

Previous Study

• Studies investigating Google apps in other learning contexts also suggested Google apps were easy to use.
• Students in an online college speech class recommended Google apps be used in future courses because of the ease and accessibility of the tool (Edwards & Baker, 2010), and students using different collaboration strategies for essay writing found one of the main advantages of Google Docs is that it is easy to use (Apple, Reis-Bergan, Adams, & Saunders, 2011). These studies align with TAM because they suggest that participants had favorable attitudes towards using Google Docs because its ease of use.

Previous Study

• students using different collaboration strategies for essay writing found one of the main advantages of Google Docs is that it is easy to use (Apple, Reis-Bergan, Adams, & Saunders, 2011). These studies align with TAM because they suggest that participants had favorable attitudes towards using Google Docs because its ease of use.
• These studies align with TAM because they suggest that participants had favourable attitudes towards using Google Docs because its ease of use.

Computer-Supported

CSCL

• Computer-supported collaborative learning (CSCL) aids and enhances group work, interaction among peers, and the “sharing and distribution of knowledge and expertise among community members” (Lipponen, 2002, p. 72).

Paradigm Shift

• Koschmann (1996) describes CSCL as a paradigm shift in instructional technology because it simulates problems in a real-world context, mediates communication inside and between classrooms, and provides a shared space for participants to store the products of their group work and “model their shared understanding of new concepts” (p. 14).

CSCW

• Computer supported collaboration also includes Computer-Supported Collaborative Work (CSCW), which deals with workplace collaboration (Kumar, 1996).
• Both CSCL and CSCW are important to expose students to in order to enhance learning and prepare them for work in the future.

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• Google apps is a tool which can foster CSCL. Google Docs facilitates efficient collaboration by providing team members with a “mechanism” that enables them to “work within a single user space” (Perron & Sellers, 2011, p. 490), which is perhaps why it was found to be useful for group work in out-ofclass collaborative writing activities (Zhou, Simpson, & Domizi, 2012).

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• In addition to Google Docs, medical students in a first-year pathology course found the collaborative capabilities of Google‟s version of PowerPoint (Google Slides) helpful for creating presentations (Peacock & Grande, 2016).

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• Studies have also shown some advantages of participants collaborating on new mediums instead of traditional ones.
• Students enjoyed collaborating to edit and expand a pre-written easy more on Google Docs than Microsoft Word (Apple et al., 2011), and students creating collaborative mind maps on Google Docs used peer collaboration more to discover science concepts than students collaborating on paper (Lin, Chang, Hou, & Wu, 2015).

Collaborative Second-language

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