Using+Technology+to+Teach+Elementary+Writing

=Writing Re-Launched: Teaching with Digital Tools:= []

In this article’s opening we are made to see how writing of our era has changed to computers, multimedia, and smart phones leaving the traditional and often forced teaching methods of pencil and paper, out dated and hindering students to be career and college ready. Gone are the days of people doing any long hand written papers, research, stories, poems… The point was also given that schools are naturally wean students off of out dated skills (the example that they gave was that 2nd/3rd graders don’t draw pictures anymore to brainstorm/organize their writing…I teach second grade and it is taught **to** do this as part of the Lucy Calkins Writing program) but not weaning them off of the out dated pen and paper writing style. //I have to disagree somewhat because I feel that the students must have the skills to write with pencil and paper before they can move to other mediums. I also disagree due to the lack of resources to allow students in **all** schools to be able to have the opportunities to experience writing in its new and current options…lack of money.// Some of the reasons that this article mentions that schools are in the “catch-up” mode in writing are; lack of resources, lack of training, and pressure of testing. This article gave many great examples of how different teachers are incorporating technologies to teach writing and its new options. It also gave some example of the programs with definitions of their uses in the classroom. //This was very helpful and I intend to try some of these next year//. It went on to make some great points about how these digital styles of writing are made to be read and have a built in audiences. With bogging, wikis, social medias, etc. the students expect their writing to be read and responded to, unlike journal writing, free choice writing…that is done in school. These points as well as the ones I have some slight disagreements with all make valid points of how digital writing and integrating tech tools into writing gives the students’ skills to be more career and college ready then doing the traditional pen and paper writing. This article did at times make me feel like the authors did not really understand or have a grasp on what some if not most teachers are doing in the classroom. It also made some pretty judgmental comments about schools (“historically speaking collaborating has been viewed as cheating in schools.” Eidman-Aadahl. Again this is something that I encourage in my class every day, including writing). Overall though if you can get past these somewhat digs on schools the article made very good points about schools being behind in adapting to the new norms of society in the writing community.

[] In this article we learn quickly about all the great things that technology can give to students when used in writing. Before I get into that, this article makes a great point, “Technology **can’t** have an impact if they (students/teachers) don’t have access.” (Eidman-Aadhal). This report showed that using the Web 2.0 tools and technologies can heighten student’s engagement and enhance their thinking and writing skills in all grades and subjects. Similarly to the last article we learn that the benefits of using the technologies engage our students, help teach them to work together by collaboration, and give them real world/life things to write about with instant feedback (blogs). The comment is made that if the students are making a video of something they know it a lot better that if they were writing a research paper. Here I have to strongly disagree. I can write a poor paper just as easily as I can make a poor video about a topic. This article used interviews from teachers that are using and incorporating this tech tools in their classroom. I think that they may have found some success in using these new tools, and some excitement from their students about not having to write a research. I know that if I gave my student the option to make a movie or to write a paper they would chose a movie. What this interview and article lacked was the ways the teachers are specifically using the tech tools to teach writing. It did give two programs that they used and one of them was detailed on its uses (criterion) but the other was very vague. This article also gave limited information as to the school population that was targeted.
 * __Technology a key tool in writing instruction __**

__Using Multiple Technologies to Teach writing: New Digital Technologies Play a Major Role in Teaching Writing for the 21st Century __-Kathleen Blake Yancey []

This article was written in 2004, so it is a bit behind in the times when it comes to ways that technologies are being used today to teach writing. This article focused on the use of Microsoft Word as a means to a new way to write. The benefit that Word brings is the options to teach, learn, and utilize the different formats like bold, italicizing, underlining, color, and bullets. These formatting options are new and very effective to learning how to write. These options are exciting to the users and keep them engaged. Furthermore, the point was made that this new “visual literacy” can have graphs, data charts, pictures, comics, photos, and hyperlinks added. This is a great way to incorporate differentiation for grade levels. Lastly the Word program with all it’s tools allows for students interactive portfolios to get them ready and prepared for career and college skills they will need. The next section was explaining the use of a slide program, something similar to power point. A teacher found that this could be a great way to incorporate the students creativity by adding pictures or photos to include with text boxes and do a slide show story for their peers. This is a great lower elementary way to incorporate writing with technology. Another case that this was used and saw great results was the same program but used to collect and organize information as a prewriting exercise for a research paper. The students used the program to present to the their peers their topic. Each slid show needed a set of requirements met and the teacher found that the students learned more, were more engaged, allowed for freedom of creativity to be used, and their final projects received higher grades.