digital writing

On this episode of TTT, we are joined by Troy Hicks, author of the new Heinemann title, Crafting Digital Writing Workshop: Composing Texts Across Media and Genres, and Director of the Chippewa River Writing Project at Central Michigan University, as we conclude a two-part series exploring the principles and practices described in the book. For this second episode, we welcome three new teachers to the conversation as they discuss how they approach the craft of digital writing with web-based texts and presentations.

Troy Hicks, Central Michigan University, discusses how to study digital writing through the lens of author’s craft.

Andy Schoenborn, Mt. Pleasant High School, describes how his students employ Prezi for visual arguments.

Erin Klein, Cranbrook Academy, shares several alternative tools students use to present their work.

Beth Nelson, Greenville High School, shows how she has her students create digital essays.

Take a look at all the wonderful work that has been collected and curated so far by NWP teachers from all over the United States at http//digitalis.nwp.org/

Once you’ve checked out those great resources and provocations, listen to the creators, collectors, and curators of this exciting new site on this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers.

As Christina Cantrill wirtes:

The National Writing Project’s Digital Is website is a teaching-focused knowledge base exploring digital writing, teaching and learning. It invites participation in developing this knowledge base in several ways – visitors can find a range of teaching-focused collections and resources here related to digital writing, teaching and learning as well as become community members and participate in discussions. Also, after participating and getting a sense of the site, one can write to us and apply to be a resource creator. Resource creators can draft and compose multimodal resources here, get and give feedback to other resource creators, and publish.

Paul Allison, Susan Ettenheim, and Chris Sloan welcomed five of our friends and colleagues to this episode of Teachers Teaching Teachers:

. Bud Hunt, who made this collection on Digital Is: What’s New, or What’s Good: On Writing Connectively.

  Elyse Eidman-Aadahl who directs National Programs and Site Development at the National Writing Project. She also moderates one of our favorite webcasts/podcasts, NWP Radio.

Bill Fitzgerald who runs the Drupal shop, FunnyMonkey. Bill designed Digital Is, and is currently working on an update of Youth Voices.

Kevin Hodgson teaches sixth grade in Southampton, Massachusetts at the William E. Norris Elementary School. He is also the technology liaison with the Western Massachusetts Writing Project. Check out how many different ways Kevin shows up on Digital Is!

We talked with our friends about the importance of commenting. Over the last several years, those of us who have been building Youth Voices have learned how important it is to teach and nurture commenting, not just posting new posts all the time.

Join the excitement! Digital Is promises to be an important touchstone for communities of learners in the National Writing Project and beyond, and we suspect that the quality of the discussions on the site will soon be as important as the quality of the resources.

With this episode of TTT, we celebrate the launch of Digital Is and to think about the role of commenting in building new communities of learning on this site.

Unfortunately the chat log for this podcast is unavailable.

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.