Teaching Concepts

In terms of teaching composition, Ceilidh's most important benefit is that it provides instructors with an excellent medium for teaching and demonstrating many important writing concepts. This is an idea which I believe has been overlooked by many web-based software developers. Their focus has been on developing ways for teachers and students to communicate more effectively over distances, rather than how program features might be used to demonstrate writing concepts. As a result, there has been a gap between web-based software and client-based software.

Web-based software developers have focused on making conferencing and communication possible, while client-based software developers have focused on helping students understand concepts. If we are going to choose a program to use for teaching online writing courses over the web, we should, of course, evaluate its ease of use and accessibility. However, if we want to maximize the potential of a program, we should also consider the ways the program's features and functions help us demonstrate important writing concepts to our students. This blending makes Ceilidh so unique. The developers have combined the advancements of both client-based and web-based software. At this point, I have been able to capitalize on Ceilidh's features to help teach my students three important writing concepts over the web: dialogism, revision , and collaboration. While I have noticed the potential for demonstrating many other important concepts, such as critical thinking and reading, I will focus on the three concepts mentioned above.