How to face the classroom today with IDAT

(watching the process)

Abstract

The emergence of generative artificial intelligence has displaced the finished text as evidence of learning: the product no longer reliably reflects the work behind it. This article proposes a practical approach for the ordinary classroom to shift the focus from the product to the process, without the need for laboratories, licenses, or altering the task. The proposal combines Etherpad—an open-source collaborative editor that preserves the complete composition history—with IDAT, an R package designed to analyze those logs, and IDATshboard, the web application built upon it. Three teaching scenarios, tested across four subjects in the Early Childhood and Primary Education degree programs at the EHU, are described: accompanying individuals in reflecting on their own writing, obtaining an overview of the class group facing the same task, and generating individual reports for formative assessment. Based on thirty-seven papers and more than 142,000 registered changes, four recurrent composition strategies are identified. It is argued that these representations show types of processes, not intentions: their value lies not in detection, but in opening a conversation with students about how writing is done.