This podcast is another in a series of Teachers Teaching Teachers shows to feature the authors of a recent outcrop of books on new media and literacy (Copyright Clarity: 184, 135, The Digital Writing Workshop: 172, 171, 170, Teaching the New Writing: 157, 156, 155, Teaching Writing Using Blogs, Wikis, and other Digital Tools: 138)  Perhaps we have the makings of a new discipline here, or at least a budding new branch on the tree of academic inquiry. See the National Writing Project's list at Teaching Now: Digital Writing Books. What would you add to this list? Let us know by adding a comment below.

On this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers we were excited to have a conversation with Liz Stephens and Kerry Ballast about their new book, Using Technology to Improve Adolescent Writing: Digital Make-Overs for Writing Lessons.

Stephens and Ballast guide teachers in how to successfully implement technology for writing across the curriculum and create engaging lesson plans. They outline four frames of writing–inside writing, responsive writing, purposeful writing, and social action writing–and present student-centered and inquiry-based reading/writing lessons to connect real-world writing to content area standards. The result is a state-of the-art resource for helping teachers teach every student to write inside and outside of the classroom.

Liz Campbell Stephens teaches graduate courses in Educational Technology and is Director of the Office of Educator Preparation at Texas State University-San Marcos. She serves on the National Writing Project’s Board of Directors and was Director of the Central Texas Writing Project for 11 years. She co-authored Technology, Reading, and Language Arts and has written numerous chapters and papers on technology and literacy.  Liz is former high school English teacher and brings that experience to her work as a teacher educator, federal programs director, and consultant. Her research has centered on literacy, technology, and teacher education.

Kerry Ballast is a Teacher Consultant for the Central Texas Writing Project and a secondary English language arts teacher with 14 years classroom experience. She has worked with students in grades 6-12 to explore various forms of writing, both traditional and digital. Currently, she works for the Texas Education Agency.

We were also joined by English teacher, Joel Malley who teaches at Cheektowaga Central School District, near Buffalo, NY. Joel is also the Tech Liaison for the Western New York Writing Project at Canisius College. Troy Hicks had a couple of things to say as well. Troy is the director of the Chippewa River Writing Project at Central Michigan University.
 

Click Read more to see a copy of the chat that was happening during the webcast.

This is the first of a three-part series, guest-hosted by Troy Hick, author of the new Heinemann title, The Digital Writing Workshop, and Director of the Chippewa River Writing Project at Central Michigan University.  In this series, we will be exploring the principles and practices described in Troy's book. For this first episode, Troy welcomed three teachers (along with Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim) to the conversation, and they discuss how they foster student choice and inquiry in their writing classrooms:

Penny Kittle, Kennett High School in New Hampshire will offer perspectives on writing workshop principles and why we need to begin to focus on digital writing

Sara Beauchamp-Hicks, formerly of Negaunee High School in Michigan will discuss her use of wikis and Google Docs to spur student inquiry

Chris Sloan of Judge Memorial High School in Salt Lake City will share insights on how students can make choices with RSS readers and blogging

Next week, on October 7th, Troy and his guests will explore the idea of “author’s craft” as it relates to creating digital texts. On October 14th, Troy will lead a discussion on the process of conferring and response to student writers as they create digital texts. We would invite you to join us on Wednesday at http://EdTechTalk.com/live at 9:00pm Eastern / 6:00pm Pacific USA Wednesdays / 01:00 UTC Thursdays World Times.

Join The Digital Writing Workshop Ning.

Click Read more to see a transcript of a chat that was happening during the webcast.

On this special episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers, Paul Allison and Susan Ettenheim -- with Alice Barr, a technology teacher in Yarmouth, Maine -- welcomed to the show a couple of teachers, a couple of Writing Project Directors, and a researcher of Writing Projects. These folks (along with James Shiroff from the Denver Writing Project) will be presenting and facilitating a 2-hour session at the National Writing Project's 2008 Annual Meeting this week. The name of their featured presenation, "Writing in the Digital Age," identifies some of the issues discussed on this podcast.

• Seth Mitchell, high school teacher and Tech Liaison for the Maine Writing Project (University of Maine)
• Sarah Hunt-Barron, middle school teacher, teacher consultant of the Upstate Writing Project in South Carolina and doctoral student at Clemson University
• Rebecca Kaminski, Director Upstate Writing Project in South Carolina and professor at Clemson University, SC
• Felicia George, Associate Director of the New York City Writing Project at Lehman College, NY
• Laura Stokes, Inverness Research in California

We think you'll enjoy this conversation whether or not you are planning to join these folks at the National Writing Project’s Annual Meeting in San Antonio November 20 and 21.

These Writing Project teachers and their colleagues also shared stories about how they support their fellow teachers to further their development in teaching writing in a digital environment. Many interesting ideas about the students’ enthusiasm for writing to real audiences and generating more writing were discussed along with issues that local programs face when offering professional development services to teachers in their area.

Click Read more to see a transcript of the chat that was happening at the same time as the webcast.