Using Technology to Enhance Writing
My school chose writing to be the focus of improvement when we first found out that we were going to have to go through the accreditation process. While our children wrote well and did well on the writing assessment, we knew there was a great need to improve. We adopted an English textbook series, Shurley English, which had a writing component built into it. There is nothing wrong with this program, but I felt that I could further enhance my instruction of writing by using technology. There is a time and place for paper and pencil writing, but I knew that my second grade students enjoyed using computers. This led me to try to find ways that I could make the writing process more exciting for my students. The students have truly enjoyed the blogging and responding through wikis. In my research, I found a quote by Miguel Guhlin that sums up the reason to use technology to enhance writing for all students “To thrive in the global economy, children must be connected and learn to coordinate their work via the Internet” (Guhlin, 2006)
Needs Assessment
The content of my Demo will show that writing can be accomplished in many ways. Students need to know how to write and the use of blogs, wikis, digital storytelling, and use of pictures can be ways that students write. I have seen students get excited about writing using technology because they knew they were going to use a computer. Students know how to use technology, they are not afraid of it. They live in this digital world. In order to make learning for them and for them to make the learning their own, teachers can use technology tools like computers, websites on the Internet, and other hardware like cameras and cell phones.
Learner Analysis
The student population these activities are geared for is second grade. These activities can be used across the curriculum. Before I started using these techniques, students were using the five sentence paragraph form of writing. I would show the students how to do an opening sentence, three supporting sentences, and a closing sentence. I would also stress the need to use capital letters, proper punctuation, and correct spelling. These paragraphs were the same every time. The topic may have been different, but the writing was predictable and that got boring for me as well as for them. After implementing these techniques, the students have been able to write with more freedom. This freedom has allowed them to use words in a better manner, express themselves more freely, and feel more confident in their writing skills. They focus on what they are writing about and they produce better work. I think the use of computers as well as the wikis and blogs have made them feel more comfortable because that is what they are used to using every day.
Instructional Objectives
I will demonstrate ways to enhance writing with technology. I will show how my students have used wikis and blogs as a form of writing for in-class projects. I will also discuss ways that pictures can be used by students in a variety of writing project or assignments. These activities are designed to improve the writing skills, grammar, word usage, punctuation, of my second grade students as well as keep them up on the latest forms of technology so that when they get older they know how to use what is out there.
Strategies, Practices, and Theories
As I was reading the introduction of Literacy Moves On by Janet Evans, one thing stuck out as to why teachers need to incorporate technology. She asks the question, “And how often do we integrate their interests in the school curriculum making them part of the teaching and learning process?” (Evans 2005) The strategy of incorporating technology into the curriculum to improve writing is one that can make students better writers. The students we are teaching now and the all the ones to come after them are digital natives. We, as teachers, need to be making the learning for them, in their mode. Their mode is digital. The use of blogs, wikis, digital storytelling, pictures, and web quests are all ways that will foster writing and learning and technology.
Materials
The students will need pencils, paper, computers with Internet access as well as the Microsoft Office suite of productivity programs. They will also need digital cameras and the USB cords for uploading the pictures onto the computer. All of these items are available at school in my classroom. My students have access to the computer lab and a class set of laptop computers that can wirelessly connect to the network in the building.
Implementation/Activity
For all the projects I have done with my students that I will be demonstrating, the students have done some of the work in class and some of it at home. If there is a trade book associated with the project, the reading is done at home. The blog and wiki entries are also done at home. If a student is not allowed to do the blog or wiki, then the response is still done at home but on a piece of paper. Any activities that involve Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or Publisher are done in class. I do not allow the students to transfer work from school computer to home computer and back to prevent the transfer of viruses. I set deadlines for the work to be completed.
For the demonstration, I will begin by discussing what drew me into trying to incorporate technology into my curriculum. I will discuss why using technology is a good way for students to students to write and that teachers can use these methods to enhance what they are already doing in their classrooms.
I will then discuss the ways I have used blogs, wikis, digital storytelling, pictures, and other types of technology with my classroom. Along with the discussion of what I did, I will talk about the advantages of these activities and what research has found when teachers use these. I will also discuss some potential problems that could come along with these. I will also discuss the ways I assess these projects and what I have learned about using rubrics with my students.
To finish up my demonstration, I will ask the members of the audience to write about ways they have used any of the applications I discussed or if they have thought of a way that they could use any of these in conjunction with a lesson they already teach.
Assessment
I have used rubrics to assess the work of my students. I have stressed the importance of proper mechanics such as capital letters, punctuation, and spelling. I also require my students to write in complete sentences in all the writing they do. Because they are so young, the rubrics have been very simple. I give each child a copy of the rubric at the beginning of the project so that they know what to expect. On the blogs and wikis I do not grade spelling and punctuation because I allow the parents to type the answers that their child gives. Because they are not good typists yet, I do not want them to get bogged down with hunting and pecking. I want them to focus on the responses to the questions that I pose rather than the technical things right now.
Conclusion/Evaluation/Reflection
These forms of writing with technology are very adaptable to any age group or curriculum area. A preschool teacher could use pictures to have young children retell a story in order. A third grade teacher could use a webquest to have students write a persuasive paper to someone convincing them to recycle. Middle school and high school students could work on a project that covers two subject areas, such as social studies and English, and compare The Great Depression and our current economic situation. These discussions could be done in groups on a class wiki. This comparison and the learning could be used by the students to create a PowerPoint on how to prevent these things from occurring again. There are many ways to use technology to enhance writing across the curriculum.
Annotated Bibliography
Byrnes, Julia; Wasik, Barbara A. (2009, June 22). Picture this: using photography as a learning tool in early childhood classrooms The Free Library. (2009). Retrieved June 19, 2009 from http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Picture this: using photography as a learning tool in early childhood…-a0198931265
This article discusses ways that pictures can be used with younger children. These ways can also be adapted and modified for older students. This is a source of ideas for digital storytelling.
Evans, Janet (2005). Literacy Moves On. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
This book was a great source of information about incorporating technology in literacy and writing. The author gives a lot of support to the idea of writing with technology is a way that students are good at and that we, as teachers should do more with the methods in which they are accustomed. I enjoyed this book because it points out all the great reasons to use technology along with traditional methods.
Guhlin, Miguel (2006, July 1). Blogs:Webs of Connected Learning. Retrieved June 19, 2009, from Tech & Learning Web site: http://www.techlearning.com/article/5966
This article states reasons for using blogs in class and also discusses ways to use them for professional development. The Tech & Learning website is a great resource for any teacher wanting to use technology in the classroom.
Zawilinski, Lisa (2009, May). HOT Blogging: A Framework for Blogging to Promote Higher Order Thinking. The Reading Teacher, 62, Retrieved June 20, 2009, from http://www.reading.org/Publish.aspx?page=RT-62-8-Zawilinski.html&mode=retrieve&D=10.1598/RT.62.8.3&F=RT-62-8-Zawilinski.html&key=CCDB968A-B22D-4207-8ADA-D2AA065803D8
Using blogs to create higher order thinking is a great tool for any classroom. The author gives several examples of hot HOT blogging is useful in the classroom. “The Reading Teacher” magazine has pertinent information about topics related to reading and responding.
Click on the link below to view flier for this presentation.
