• Sharing knowledge; We Share

   

  • Academic writing

  • Creative writing

  • Fun writing

  • feedback and opinions

  • We share & discuss research papers for both students and teachers

  • We Share books, read them and discuss them in groups in the e-reading section.

  • We share poetry and literature in general

  • We ask questions and get answers from multiple perspectives

  • We share authentic resources;

    • e-books,

    • dictionaries

    • articles

    • Idioms

    • learning strategies

    • Design teaching and learning materials using flash technologies

  • Design Interactive learning materials and share them with other learners

   

• Social

   

  • Creates interpersonal relationships

  • Creates Network of people in the same field

  • Creates an online community of learners and teachers who care and share

  • We share personal stories

  • We share accomplishments

  • We congratulate each other for happy occasions

    • achievements

    • Promotions

    • engagements/marriages

  • We express condolences at losses

• Cultures

  • We share our cultures and traditions

  • We share our customs

  • We share our cities

    • Saudi Arabia

    • Egypt

    • USA

    • Bulgaria

    • Al-Baha

    • Jeddah

    • Cairo

    • Burgas

    • Pittsburg

    • Western Pennsylvania

  • We share our festivals and holidays

    • Ramadan

    • Eids

    • Christmas

    • Ester

    • Ester traditions

    • Thai Festivals 

  • We present cultures through pictures and multimedia

  • We share food recipes

    • Food from USA

    • Food from Korea

    • Food from United Arab Emirates

    • Food from Saudi Arabia

    • Food from Bulgaria

    • Food from Egypt

  • We share jokes

  • We share proverbs and wisdoms from different cultures

  • We share music and folklore

• Technologies

  • We share our knowledge about software and technologies in general

  • We share computer applications that help EFL learners to improve their language proficiency

  • We review software for English learning and teaching and discuss them with experts

  • We share our knowledge about academic applications

  • We talk about the strategies of utilizing technologies in teaching writing collaboratively and individually

  • We write

   

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Regarding sharing writing online, I can not tell how my first impressions of this forum were a year ago before even I had signed up for it.Threads were like scandals to me, and members were like people exposing themselves!! This might be a bit exaggeratedly written, but anyway I was not to be blamed of that as a person who looked at writing as a private personal act. Especially, knowing that I had at a young age a skill of reading people's characters through their writings.


Thanks God, this has all changed by now. Many factors contributed to this change. Some of these factors are:

1.  I am older now. In comparison to my early teenage, things are more settled...vision is clearer. Consequently, writing has a new role in my life that is less personal and more social.

2. I grew up as a confident person and an English learner who don’t mind sharing and laughing at her universal mistakes or misconceptions.

3. I figured out that I am not obliged to be personal the moment I write, for writing can be personal and impersonal. ( it may sound common sense to someone who obtains a different view from what I used to).

4. I came to believe strongly that sharing means learning.
    

-- I think it is time for our teachers and universities in Arab World to consider online ýcollaboration. I have never shared my writing with my classmates in traditional ýlearning for many reasons; the first is the number of students who wish to learn from ýeach other but do not find the mean to do so. The second is that many students like me ýdo not want to use and discus their writing because they write with the pen and if ýthere are any changes it would be hard to them to rewrite the whole thing. ý

I think now I can share my papers with my pals and then take their suggestion for the ýchanges and change it electronically in a very simple manner. This is one reason I ýthink students should practice typing and then learn to share writing to get feedback. ý

Sharing writing is one thing I start to love. I used to write for my teacher only. No ýfeedback at all, Now with OWCp, I write to you guys as you do write to me and we ýshare ideas and feelings as you mentioned. I think this is great and we should inform ýour friends to come and use this website because through my little participations so ýfar, I can tell you that I learned from your posted topics many vocabularies, many ýwiring styles and I learned how to share my writing and also give comments to my ýfriends wiring. ý

ý I can say frankly that I learn more effectively as you mentioned than I do learn in my ýEnglish classroom that lacks motivation and encouragement to improve your writing. ý

As for the advantages of sharing on line, it is so many. Sharing on line helps us to recognize the ideas of the other people in many countries and it enables us to know different culture and civilization. It is believed that to avoid the cunning of any people, you should know their language, culture, civilization, and their way of thinking. Writing on line gives us the chance to know new friends and make many relationships, this is clear by sending messages which express our ideas.

Does sharing our writing here in OWCp improve our writing?

I think that the freedom such forums offer does not always facilitate for the expected learning to happen. In other words, we usually emphasize that our label is “We write as we speak” that is meant to lessen the tension that worrying over the correctness of the form might cause. It does not at all mean totally ignoring the form, the thing that we often do. I think that sharing our writing here helps us improve our language but not necessarily our writing . Sometimes we tend to apply “we write as we speak” literally in our interaction which make our writing appear to be as written speech rather than writing. It is true that writing is considered as social dialogue. Yet, it has its own merits that distinguishes it from speech.

The relation between talk , speech, and text in interaction and reflection in computer meditated group discussion, like OWCp, is explained by Dimatteo(1990) as the following: “They, learners, create intensely visible language out of what they consider to be forgettable, facile words their own talk and conversations. They develop a sense that when they talk, they are “Drafting” themselves, composing their own identities through a speech that is also writing made utterly tangible”

Thus we are supposed to consider our writing here as tidying up our own words. Unlike face-to-face conversations, we have a chance to think , reflect, and organize our words by writing them in a well-organized form. Applying the basics of writing would change our words from a written speech to a well-composed written piece.

I hope that I will not be misunderstood as emphasizing content rather than the form. My point is that content comes first but form is also important. For example, the guidelines of writing an essay or paragraph should be employed because it helps in conveying our thoughts properly.

-- It is through collaboration we will grow and we will be among the leaders of collaborative learning as we share and care. But we will not achieve our goals if we keep the idea that a one person only is behind all these collaborative efforts.  No, I want you please to be aware of the importance of each member’s role here. This word recognition comes as a result of your hard work and rich contributions.   

-- We are all one team and we all work to help each other learn through collaboration and communication. Learning is our major goals and creating international recognition comes next

--I am glad and happy to be a member in such project and my username in the OWCp is (XXXX)… i used a nickname at first, because I didn't want anyone to know my identity, and that gave me some sort of freedom to write whatever I want without any stress, without any fear of my mistakes, and when I felt I am ready to use my real name.. I used it

Sharing our Cities

Saudi Arabia

Everybody knows that Saudi Arabia, is a desert kingdom, in the Arabian Peninsula. But, only 3/4 of Saudi Arabia is desert.....how about the rest?...Desert? No...guess again!

  The Southern Region of Saudi Arabia is moutainous, which is almost rainy all the season, especially in the summer and spring. It stretches from the Northern borders of Yemen, to Al-Hijaz region. As for the mountains, they are called Al-Sarawat Mountains, which stretches from the South of the Arabian Peninsula, to the borders of Jordan. Anyway, many people have this wrong idea that, Saudi Arabia, is a desert land, full of three things: camals, Bedwins, and oil !. However, no one would believe there is a rainy region, or there are mountains, some greeny ones. Once, a foriegn teacher asked the students to talk about their home towns in their countries, we were from different countries; when my turn came, I told them I came from a mounainous rainy area, that was misty all summer. Well, my teacher knows I am from Saudi Arabia, and this kept here quiet, as if she were thinking. "Is this true?!" with a look, you could know that she didn't believe me, a question which didn't need an answer. The class ended, and I was still thinking about that look. I couldn't do anything about it, so I left it behind me. Now I remembered that "look" again, and I ask you: Do people think that Saudi Arabia is a land of desert...only? is this view changed, or not?...