WSRA 2010 - Because Digital Writing Matters

From School to Screen Why Digital Writing Matters Troy Hicks hickstro.org Central Michigan University Chippewa River Writing Project

What does it mean to write digitally, create spaces for digital writing in our schools, and extend assessment practices that account for the complexities of writing in a digital world?

• Whether called "21st century skills," "digital literacies," or "technology expectations," emerging technology standards present educators with an ever-expanding list of what students should know and be able to do with computers and the read/write Web. Even as few as five years ago, typical instruction and expectations for computer literacy focused mostly on computer operations such as the ability to create and save a file, change fonts and adjust other document formatting features, and perhaps share a document via email or a networked storage device. More recently, however, some state curriculum documents and assessments have moved toward the inclusion of multimodal composition, and most emphasize technology development and skill built over time and across experiences. Not all of the technology standards relate specifically to writing; in fact, many transcend specific subject areas. Writing instruction thus does not carry the entire burden of students’ development with technology, but insofar as students write across the curriculum and in service of the disciplines, it can be positioned to play a significant part.

digital writing ever-expanding list state curriculum documents and assessments multimodal composition transcend speciﬁc subject areas positioned to play a signiﬁcant part

... for the purposes of Because Digital Writing Matters, we deﬁne digital writing as compositions created with, and oftentimes for, reading and/or viewing via a computer or other device that is connected to the Internet.

... for the purposes of Because Digital Writing Matters, we deﬁne digital Writing Digitally writing as compositions created with, and oftentimes for, reading and/or viewing via a computer or other device that is connected to the Internet.

... for the purposes of Because Digital Writing Matters, we deﬁne digital Writing Digitally writing as compositions created with, and Creating Spaces oftentimes for, for Digital Writing reading and/or viewing via a computer or other device that is connected to the Internet.

... for the purposes of Because Digital Writing Matters, we deﬁne digital Writing Digitally writing as compositions created with, and Creating Spaces oftentimes for, for Digital Writing reading and/or viewing via a computer or other Extending device that is Assessment Practices connected to the Internet.

2007 Survey of Parents Conducted on Behalf of NWP

Writing Digitally • Writing and responding to posts on blogs, microblogs, and social networks • Creating individual or multi- authored documents using wikis and collaborative word processors • Composing multimodal pieces such as podcasts and digital stories

• An elementary teacher invites her students into a collaborative word processing space where they are able to log in and to write simultaneously to a shared document. She then poses a question about the book they are reading and students begin typing their responses, anonymously, as well as responses to others. Once everyone has contributed to the document, she pulls it up on a projector in front of the class and begins reviewing the document with them, asking them to identify the most salient responses, which then get copied and pasted into a new document. With this new document, she begins to revise on screen and teach them how to write a reading response based on their initial reactions to the book.

• In middle school classrooms across the country, teachers invite their students to compose their thoughts through regular blog postings on a school-hosted social network. As students develop their ideas over the course of many weeks, they also seek other bloggers in the cross-country network with similar interests and make comments on their blog posts, thus participating in peer response and gaining additional ideas for their own research. At the end of the semester, students review their blog posts, find the three that they think best represent their growth as writers over time, and integrate them into a final report on a particular topic, accompanied by a reflection on their writing process.

• A pair of high school teachers—one English teacher and one social studies teacher—plan a multiweek unit in which their students will engage in community-based research and represent their work as a digital story or short ﬁlm at a ﬁnal exhibition night. Students begin by generating topics and questions that they would like to ask members of their community and posting those ideas to a project wiki, one shared by multiple sections of these two teachers’ classes throughout the day. Over the course of the project, students collect artifacts with digital tools such as voice recorders and video cameras, documenting their work on the project wiki. Once the videos are produced, a process that takes nearly two weeks of gathering, organizing, editing, and merging media, students celebrate by inviting the community members they interviewed to the school for the exhibition night. Eventually, many videos are posted on a video-sharing site to allow people from outside the community to see what the students have discovered in their research.

Creating Spaces • Physical spaces Desktop and laptop computers Handhelds Cameras • Networked spaces Content management systems Social networks Wikis

Extending Assessment • Traditional writing assessment transferred to a digital environment (Computer scoring) • Digital portfolios • Understanding and evaluating multimodal compositions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hrw66BL-Izo

We want to invite you to think more directly about who could join you, in your place, in creating a web of support for your students or youth. In the next few minutes, think, draw, imagine that web of support. Who could you invite to join you in connecting with your students or youth? When you can imagine an audience of others who could join you, create an invitation for them.

Troy Hicks hickstro.org troy.hicks@cmich.edu nwp.org chippewariverwp.wikispaces.com

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WSRA 2010 - Because Digital Writing Matters

by hickstro on Feb 03, 2010

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WSRA 2010 - Because Digital Writing Matters — Presentation Transcript