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1. Handbook of Research on
Digital Tools for Writing
Instruction in K-12
Settings
Rebecca S. Anderson
University of Memphis, USA
Clif Mims
University of Memphis, USA
A volume in the Advances in Educational
Technologies and Instructional Design
(AETID) Book Series

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Chapter 16
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-5982-7.ch016
A Historical Overview of
Writing and Technology:
Seeking the Right Instructional
Tools for the Job
ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the history of writing and technology and ofers an overview of the integration
of advances in the use of technology in the writing classroom. The author has framed this overview by
highlighting the importance of selecting the most appropriate tool for any instructional task. Grounded
in the belief that writing is a key skill for students to master for success in the classroom and, more im-
portantly, beyond the classroom, this chapter is designed to open a theoretical and practical dialogue
between readers and this book about how to best theorize and enact meaningful writing instruction in
the digital age.
INTRODUCTION
Asweforgedeeperintothe21stcentury,thenum-
ber of computers, iPads, and tablets being used in
classrooms continues to grow at an exponential
rate (Angrist & Lavy, 2002; Klieger, Ben-Hur, &
Bar-Yossef, 2010). In 1983, schools typically had
one computer for every nine students. By 2002,
states like South Dakota began reporting student
to computer ratios of 2:1 (Goldberg, Russell, &
Cook,2003).Overthelastdecade,educatorshave
seen initiatives that are placing a computer, tab-
let, or iPad in the hands of every student as early
as kindergarten to address trends and mandates
(Dunleavy, Dextert, & Heinecket, 2007; Norris
& Soloway, 2011) requiring teachers to integrate
information and communication technologies
into the curriculum (Hutchinson, Beschorner, &
Schmidt-Crawford,2012;Quillen,2011).Harmon
and Brown (2013) noted that the overwhelming
majority of educational iPad applications written
in2011wereforpreschoolchildren.Theincreased
access to and integration of technology in writing
instruction at all grade levels has made it possible
for teachers to use technology to enhance writ-
ing instruction in myriad ways. However, as any
Trevor Thomas Stewart
Virginia Tech, USA

4. 330
A Historical Overview of Writing and Technology
good craftsman knows, the use of a new tool does
not necessarily guarantee that the products being
created will improve.
New tools must be employed thoughtfully if
they are going to be used to their fullest potential.
With that in mind, it is important that writing
teachers take some time to evaluate the tools we
choose to employ as we engage in our craft: the
craft of teaching writing. Carefully considering
the advances in technology over the last thirty
years since computers have evolved from being
a classroom novelty to a classroom staple can
help ensure that we are using the instructional
tools available to us in the most effective ways
possible. The key question is not which tools are
best; instead, we should be attempting to discern
which tools are likely to be most beneficial for
each specific writing task (Benko, 2012; Jacobs,
2013). It is important to begin any study of digi-
tal writing instruction by carefully considering
our goals as writing teachers. We must begin by
asking ourselves what we value most about writ-
ing instruction—whether we are using digital or
traditional tools to teach our students to compose
and communicate.
The shift from an industrial to an information
society (Leu & Kinzer, 2000) that has been has-
tened by burgeoning technologies makes it more
important than ever before that students develop
effectivecollaborationandcommunicationsskills.
As literacy demands increase in the 21st century,
it is vital that all students are provided with op-
portunities to learn to communicate effectively
through writing (Gallagher, 2006). However, en-
ablingstudentstolearntosimplycommunicatein
anincreasinglytechnologicalworldisnotenough.
Writing can be a transformative experience that
makes it possible to communicate and process
experience in unique ways. As Hillocks (2007)
argued, “writing provides ways of dealing with
experiences that are not available without writ-
ing” (p. 2). Learning to write makes it possible
for individuals to slow down and take some time
to process their experiences. Hillocks’ work can
serve as a touchstone—a guidepost on a writing
teacher’s journey towards providing authentic,
engaging instruction. His views on why it is im-
portant to teach writing offer insight into why it
is crucial to be careful about the choices we make
as we craft arguments for what matters in the field
of writing instruction. We must remain cognizant
of the reality that we are offering students more
than a discrete skill. Writing can and should be
viewed as a unique tool that students can use as
they explore their experiences in the world. In a
fast-paced world where it is easier to consume
than it is to create—easier to react than reflect
and grow—it can be easy to forget that we are all
tryingtomakesenseoftheworldaroundus.Writ-
ing is an essential skill for students to master for
success in the classroom and beyond and we must
consistently attend to the importance of the world
beyond the classroom as we are thinking about
howtobesttheorizeandenactwritinginstruction.
Standards era (Marshall, 2009) educational
policiesthatprivilegehigh-stakestestperformance
over personal growth (Stewart, 2012), make it
easy to forget that one of our most important jobs
as educators is to create writing opportunities
that help students “devise their sense of self and
become better writers at the same time” (Fecho,
2011, p. 4). The constraints of high-stakes tests
make writing instruction focused on writing that
functionsasameansoflearningandmeaningmak-
ing increasingly rare (Applebee & Langer, 2011).
It is vital that writing teachers everywhere make
a concerted effort to seek out tools that will help
their students grow as writers and as individuals
who must make sense of the world. The students
currentlysittinginourclassroomswillberequired
towritemorethananypreviousgeneration.Inspite
of this reality, writing instruction is, all too often,
given short shrift as decisions are made about
where to spend instructional time in the literacy
classroom, which is why the National Commis-
sion on Writing has called writing the forgotten
R (Grabill, 2012). Technology and digital writing
tools can enhance the instruction being provided

5. 331
A Historical Overview of Writing and Technology
forthestudentsinourschools.Engaging,authentic
writing instruction has the greatest potential to be
help our students succeed in school and beyond if
we carefully consider the ways in which the tools
at our disposal can be employed.
STEPPING INTO THE DIGITAL AGE
Thewordprocessingcapabilitiesofcomputersare,
perhaps, one of the most obvious and important
ways in which technology has influenced writing
instruction. As far back as the 1980’s, numerous
studies have indicated that word processors can
have a positive effect on the quality of student
writing (Bangert-Drowns, 1993; Goldberg, Rus-
sell, & Cook, 2003; MacArthur, 2009). The most
obviouswaywordprocessingcanenhancestudent
writing is the ease of editing that it can provide
(Hawisher, 1989). In their work with high school
students from Colorado, Warschauer, Arada, and
Zheng (2010) found that student motivation was
buoyed by how easy it has become for students to
edit their work. More importantly, perhaps, many
students who participated in the study reported
that they were more motivated to engage in the
writing process because they were able “avoid
fatigue and to stop worrying about handwrit-
ing” (p. 222). While this may seem like a rather
simple benefit, there are no small victories when
it comes to finding ways to motivate students
to try on the identity of author (Stewart, 2011).
Any tool that helps motivate students to engage
in the writing process needs to be recognized for
the value it brings to the classroom. With an in-
creasing amount of research showing a “positive
correlationbetweencomposingoncomputersand
writingquality,quantity,andmotivationtowrite”
(Peterson&McClay,2012),p.140),itmakessense
for teachers to find ways to integrate technology
into writing lessons in ways that will continue
to enhance student engagement and motivation.
These lessons become even more powerful when
the social aspects of emerging technologies are
harnessed to increase opportunities for collabo-
ration and connections between students and the
world around them.
The social nature of teaching and learning
provides a strong rationale for the inclusion of
computers as instructional tools because research
indicatesthatthewritingprocesscanbemorecol-
laborative when computers are utilized. In their
meta-analysis of research focused on the effects
of computers on writing instruction, Goldberg,
Russell, and Cook (2003) pointed out that the use
of computers created more opportunities for stu-
dentstoengageinpeer-editingandpeer-mediated
work. In the last decade, the increased presence
of Web 2.0 tools has made it possible for students
to engage in collaboration beyond the walls of the
traditional classroom.
THE WEB 2.0 EXPLOSION
The field of writing instruction has come a long
wayoverthelasttwodecadesintermsofdevelop-
ing tools to improve writing instruction for our
students.Blogging,Wikis,digitalstorytelling,and
a plethora of other Web 2.0 tools have become
familiar fixtures in classrooms (Parker & Chao,
2007) as educators have begun to embrace the
notion of multimodal composition. It is, however,
important to remember that reading and writing
havealwaysbeenmultimodalendeavors(Vasude-
van, Dejaynes, & Schmier, 2010). Teachers and
students have always had to interpret characters
on a page, consider the vagaries of word choice,
create or imagine images, and navigate the com-
plexities of making sense of another individual’s
efforts to communicate through printed text. For
example, students learning to convey tone in a
traditional narrative must attend to word choice.
That same attention must be paid to word choice
when students create a digital story. The burgeon-
ing world of technology and the flood of Web
2.0 tools has both complicated and simplified
the process of learning to write by blurring the

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A Historical Overview of Writing and Technology
lines of authorship. Digital stories offer students
the opportunity to construct their narratives in
unique ways. However, digital stories tend to use
fewer words than a traditional narrative, which
complicates the mastery of diction because stu-
dents have fewer words to play with (Cheung &
Lee, 2013). The key, then, is to help students use
digital and traditional tools in concert with one
another. Weblogs and other Web 2.0 tools that
tend to be more text-based can serve as scaffolds
for this learning goal.
Blogging has become a favored instructional
tool for many writing teachers because Weblogs
are a natural extension of traditional text-based
writing activities. They take something familiar,
such as journal writing, and make it possible for
students to take on the role of author and write
for the authentic purpose of making their voices
heard by an audience that reaches far beyond
classroomwalls.AsOravec(2002)noted,“Weblog
development can empower students to become
more analytical and critical” (p. 618). Students,
who are already familiar with the genre of per-
sonal journals or dialogue journals, can engage
in blogging to extend the reach of their voices.
Writing teachers can use the Weblog genre to
help their students begin to think about writing
for a wider audience, thus creating opportunities
for lessons focused on audience, purpose, and
voice that have the built in, authentic purpose
of actually communicating with the wider world
of the Web. Engaging students in the creation of
Weblogsalsogeneratesopportunitiesforteachers
to introduce students to the blogosphere, which
can offer them a variety of mentor texts that will
help them develop their own voices.
It is easier now than ever before to take on the
role of author. The publication of our creations
is just a few clicks away. Want students to tell
the stories of their summer vacations and create
a classroom culture of community and sharing?
Blogger is your ally. Interested in having your
students create a photo story that describes Ro-
meo and Juliet’s tragic love affair? Photobucket is
more than happy to house photos created by your
studentsastheyimagineapairofstar-crossed21st
centuryloverscruisingaroundwithiPhonesatthe
ready to document their courtship. The means of
production isn’t the issue. Those are abundant.
What we, as writing teachers, are still struggling
with is how to make writing instruction matter.
How can we do more than pay lip service to calls
for the integration of technology? How can we
makeBlogger,Instagram,Wordpress,andTwitter
meaningfulcompositiontools?Thechaptersinthis
textofferavarietyofsuggestionsforthesuccessful
integration of 21st century digital literacy tools in
your lesson plans and course syllabi.
LINGERING ISSUES
Notallteachershavefullyembracedthenotionthat
computerscanenhancestudents’abilitiestolearn
to write. Scholars (e. g. Hutchinson & Reinking,
2011; Leu, 2006) have noted that, in many cases,
teachers are slow to integrate technology into
the curriculum in meaningful ways. Oftentimes,
this reluctance to embrace technology comes
from a lack of confidence in the effectiveness
of emerging technologies to enhance learning.
Issues of grammar and mechanics, in particular,
still provide an area of confusion and debate for
writing teachers. Many teachers who participated
in a study by Peterson and McClay (2012) viewed
computer spell checkers as a “crutch” that “make
it possible for students to avoid learning to spell
words independently” (p. 143). At the other end
of this continuum, Lankshear and Knobel (2006)
argued that the social nature of learning in cyber-
spacehastheabilitytoactuallyincreasestudents’
masteryofspellingperspectiveshavetheirmerits.
It is reasonable to conclude that many students
will use spell checkers as a crutch that helps them
avoid memorization. It is also reasonable to con-
clude that many students are unlikely to venture
into a chat room to find the correct spelling of
a word or the proper grammatical construction

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A Historical Overview of Writing and Technology
of a sentence. The reality is that whichever tool
students choose to use, they are likely to find the
information they require to solve the problems
they are encountering when teachers can provide
the proper guidance and scaffolding. Peterson
and McClay (2012) noted that spell checkers aid
students’ awareness of conventional spellings
and those students are more likely to make the
necessary corrections because they don’t have to
“recopy large parts of their compositions to cor-
rect the misspelled words (p. 143). If the goal is
to help students learn to write and learn to access
information, computers can be seen as excellent
tools for working towards this goal. However, it
is unlikely that all teachers will agree on how to
best accomplish their instructional goals.
Merchant’s(2008)workhighlightsthesequen-
tial model for writing development, which favors
traditional pen and paper writing instruction over
digital writing instruction in the early stages of
learning to write. There are still teachers and
researchers who believe that students learn best
without the added complication of digital tools
in foundational writing instruction. While it is
hard to deny that learning to use a computer can
complicate the writing process, it is harder still to
denythatmanystudentsareenteringschoolsearlier
andearlierwithmorefacilitywithcomputersthan
the teachers who are guiding their instruction.
Teachers, researchers, and teacher educators
must continue to find ways to navigate the digital
divide(Lenhartet.al,2000;Loges&Jung,2001),
which complicates learning and teaching in the
21st century classroom. Many teachers, who
might be labeled digital immigrants (Prensky,
2001), bring a frame of reference that differs
qualitatively from the perspectives and experi-
ences of their students (Gu, Zhu, & Guo, 2013;
Sweeny, 2010). As Prensky (2001) has argued,
many teachers “assume that learners are the
same as they have always been and that the same
methods that worked for the teachers when they
were students will work for their students now”
(p. 3). Researchers (Jones, Ramanau, Cross, &
Healing 2009; Margaryan, Littlejohn, & Vojt,
2009; Salajan, Schonwetter, & Cleghorn, 2010)
have begun troubling the notion of the concepts
of digital natives and digital immigrants. There
can be little doubt that a student’s facility with
the use of technology will be influenced by the
extent to which he or she is comfortable with
emerging technologies. However, educators must
take care to avoid the pitfalls of making instruc-
tional decisions based on dichotomies and labels.
Instructional decisions should be informed by
the ability of a chosen tool to improve learning
opportunities and the ability of students to use
the tool to reach their full potential. While not
all students and teachers have equal access to and
experiencewithtechnology,wemustattendtothe
reality that many of the students and teachers in
the 21st century classroom are more comfortable
with a keyboard than pencil and paper. Therefore,
teachers must be able to adapt models and modes
of writing instruction to meet the diverse needs
of the tech savvy learners in our classrooms. This
can be accomplished by taking the time to learn
the strengths and weaknesses that individual
students bring to the classroom in order to select
appropriate tools for each unique teaching and
learning situation.
EMBRACING AN ARTISAN’S
APPROACH TO DIGITAL
WRITING INSTRUCTION
The best tools in the world are blunt and unwieldy
ifnothandledthoughtfully.Theremainingchapters
in this volume are designed to help you conceptu-
alize, select, and employ tools for digital writing
instruction that can enhance the teaching and
learning opportunities for students in the digital
age. By becoming comfortable with using these
toolsanddevelopingthoughtfulplansforemploy-
ingthem,wecanhelpchangethelandscapeofour
schools and remove writing from the margins of
the curricula. If we are willing to step out of our

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A Historical Overview of Writing and Technology
comfort zones, embrace new technologies, and
thinkabouthowtoutilizetheminthoughtfulways,
we can cross the digital divide and help the next
generation of teachers and students communicate
more effectively and become creators instead of
consumers.
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KEY TERMS AND DEFINITIONS
Authentic Writing: This term is used to de-
scribe writing for a purpose that directly connects
tostudents’livesbeyondsimple,decontextualized
writing prompts. Gallagher (2006) argued that
writing assignments should engage students in
the writing process through intrinsic motivation.
Digital Divide: Loges & Young (2001) noted
that this term has often been viewed in terms of
an individual’s access or lack of access to the
Internet. However, it also relates to the issues that
arise when individuals bring differing levels of
comfort with various forms of computer-based
technology with them to the classroom.
Digital Immigrants: Individuals for whom
digital technologies are new tools that were not
part of their learning experiences as students.
Prensky (2001) used this term to describe indi-
viduals who were not born into the digital world
buthavedevelopedafascinationwithtechnology.
Digital Literacy: This term remains fluid
and is redefined daily as new technologies enter
the landscape of learning. It is typically used to
describe the digital tools and social practices that
are part of Internet and computer-based literacy.
Digital Natives: Prensky (2001) used this
term to describe individuals who have grown up
surrounded by digital technologies. Typically,
members of the Millennial Generation or Gen-
eration Z, these individuals have generally had
access to Internet technology from an early age.
Information Society: A world in which un-
derstanding, creating, consuming, manipulating
information has significant cultural and political
implications. This term describes a shift from an
industrial society, which was largely driven by a
focus on mass production of goods in factories.
Standards Era: Marshall (2009) used this
termtodescribeeducationalpoliciesthatbeganto
dominatethelandscapeofU.S.schoolsasaresult
of the publication of A Nation at Risk (1983) and
No Child Left Behind legislation. These policies
have resulted in scripted, standardized curricula
and a focus on preparing students to take high-
stake tests.
Web2.0:ThistermisusedtodescribeInternet
sites that are based upon collaboration and the
creation of user-generated content.